Best Web Hosting for WordPress

WordPress is a website and blogging platform that powers a huge amount of the internet. Getting your own website hosted on a stable platform is vital for a long-lasting online presence, and that makes WordPress a prime candidate for the job.

Once you're done designing your site on WordPress, you'll need a hosting provider to push your site live – and lucky for you, we've rounded up some of the best WordPress hosting plans for you to take a look at.

From our assessments, the best web hosting for WordPress is Bluehost, with plans available from just $3.95 per month. InMotion Hosting is also an impressive service with a comparable, albeit more expensive platform, with plans available from just $6.99 per month.

Without further ado, here's our list of the Best WordPress Web Hosting Providers:

1. Bluehost – The best WordPress hosting choice: feature-rich, cost-effective, and with outstanding up-time
2. InMotion – Great speeds, great functionality, and a top-tier customer support team
3. HostGator – Some great-value plans and solid up-time make this a smart hosting choice
4. A2 Hosting – Popular and well-supported, but offers poor uptime
5. 1&1 – Good for expert users: Strong functionality, but few customer support options
6. GoDaddy Hosting – A solid service with a ton of features but a price tag that asks a little much
7. WPEngine –  Unbeatable ease of use, but very beatable features and shaky uptime

Also in this guide:

• Shared vs Managed WordPress Hosting – understand the difference between these types of plan
• WordPress Hosting Costs – with costs from under $3 per month, there are great deals to be found
• WordPress Hosting FAQs – we explain what you need to know about hosting a WordPress site

Best WordPress Web Hosting Providers

At Tech.co, we have tested all the top web hosting providers across a variety of metrics including the features offered, the help and support team quality, the cost-to-value ratio, and the breadth of types of hosting each one offers.

We've also gone deep on measuring each hosting service's uptime performance, a metric that represents how likely each website is to remain up and running at any given time. For instance, Bluehost has an outstanding uptime with a 99.98 score, which means it'll keep your website operational 99.98 percent of the time. It's an essential metric, as even a tiny drop in functionality can quickly give your audience the impression that your website's buggy and unreliable.

Here's the list of our top WordPress web hosting providers, along with a quick comparison table. You can scroll down farther to see our review of each service, or just click their names here to hop directly to each review.

Scroll horizontally to view full table on mobile devices

	Bluehost	InMotion	HostGator	A2Hosting	1&1	GoDaddy	WPEngine
Tech.co Rating	4.5stars	4.5stars	4stars	4stars	4stars	3.5stars	3stars
No of Plans.	6	6	3	7	3	4	4
Cheapest Shared WordPress Hosting	$3.95	✗	$5.95	$7.99	✗	✗	✗
Cheapest Managed WordPress Hosting	$29.99	$8.99	$9.95	$24.46	$9	$9.99	$35
Money back guarantee	30 Days	90 Days	✗	Anytime	30 Days	✗	60 Days
Free Domain	✔	✔	✗	✗	✔	Across all Annual Plans	✗
SSL Certificates	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	*See note	✔
Free Back Ups	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Bandwidth	Across all plans: Unmetered	Across all plans: Unmetered	Across all plans: Unmetered	Across all plans: Unmetered	Across all Plans: Unmetered	Across all plans: Unmetered	Varies: 50GB/ 200GB/ 400GB
Uptime Performance	99.98	99.97	99.99	99.95	99.98	99.97	99.95
Click for Discounts	See Deals	See Deals	See Deals	See Deals	See Deals	See Deals	See Deals

*Note: Basic: N; Deluxe: N; Ultimate: Y (For the first year); Developers: Y (For the first year)

If you're interested in using WordPress as a fast, simple and effective way to create and host a website, you'll need to find out which WordPress-friendly web hosting service to use. We've tested and rated the top contenders, which are listed below.

Here are the pros and cons of each top WordPress web hosting provider, along with a little information on the price ranges available and a comparison on two types of hosting, shared and managed.

Bluehost Hosting for WordPress

Bluehost is our most highly rated hosting service when it comes to WordPress, and we aren't the only ones – it's even considered to be the hosting provider WordPress recommends the most. That alone should be a good sign that Bluehost is a great fit, but we'll give you a few other reasons just in case you aren't convinced.

For one, every Bluehost plan for WordPress comes with plenty of storage, 24/7 support, and a hefty catalog of helpful features. Plus, with near perfect uptime performance (99.98%) and thirteen affordable plans available, it's easy to see why Bluehost comes so highly recommended from users and WordPress alike.

BlueHost has grown into a top web hosting brand name since its founding in 2003, and for good reason. The service offers a strong performance, offers more features and types of plans than most will need, and comes with a great support team to boot. Its WordPress plans include free installs and updates as well as one free domain (for the first year).

• Number of websites per plan: Unlimited
• Storage per plan: Unlimited

InMotion Hosting for WordPress

InMotion Hosting is also one of Tech.co's highest rated web hosting providers, scoring impressively on uptime performance (99.97%), customer service (with live 24/7 support), and feature catalog (it has lots). It's considered one of the most popular hosting providers on the market, and its plentiful pricing plans makes it easy to find one for you.

In addition to all that, InMotion Hosting also provides free site migration – a nice little bonus if you're trying to stick to a budget – and a 90-day money back guarantee, which will give you plenty of time to test it out yourself. InMotion Hosting does feature some pretty pricey “unlimited” plans, but if you don't need a robust service, you should be fine without one.

InMotion's WordPress options in particular are also solid, offering a free domain for one year, WordPress install and regular updates, unlimited bandwidth, and email accounts.

Number of websites per plan:

• WP -1000s: 1
• WP-2000s: 2
• WP-3000s: 3
• WP-4000s: 6
• WP-5000s: 10
• WP-6000s: 20

Storage per plan:

• WP -1000s: 40GB
• WP-2000s: 80GB
• WP-3000s: 120GB
• WP-4000s: 160GB
• WP-5000s: 200GB
• WP-6000s: 240GB

HostGator Hosting for WordPress

If you're looking for reliability when it comes to web hosting, you can't beat HostGator. With an uptime performance of 99.99%, you'll be guaranteed to have a functional, visible website at all times.

HostGator plans are blessed with automated WordPress updates, daily database backups, and unmetered storage space. However, HostGator can get a bit expensive if you're looking for more than the basics – renewal rates can get a bit pricey, and the 45-day money back guarantee is a bit short for the industry. Still, with 24/7 support and notably affordable budget plans, HostGator is a respectable provider when it comes to WordPress hosting.

A2 for WordPress

Sustainability is on everyone's mind nowadays, and A2 Hosting is one of the few providers making it a priority. This environmentally friendly company can get your website online with 24/7 support and free site migrations, all while remaining green in the process.

When it comes to WordPress hosting in particular, A2 Hosting offers free WordPress install and updates, plus unlimited storage and site transfers. You'll also be able to build unlimited websites, as long as you sign up for something above the most affordable plan. The uptime performance isn't great, which can be a deal breaker for some – but for the low price, it might be worth it to take the risk.

A2 Hosting offers an easy-to-use service with an intuitive design and strong suite of plans. Prices are reasonable, customer service is great and its features are okay. Plus, it's the green choice, having kept its carbon footprint invisible since 2007. It does come with one downside: The service claims a super speedy service, but its uptime during our tests only totalled a 99.95 – tying with WPEngine for the worst uptime in any of the web host services we tested.

In the end, A2 is still definitely a solid option, with that high-quality 24/7 customer support a particularly good perk. WordPress plan users will get the typical free WordPress install and updates in addition to unlimited storage, unlimited site transfers, and, with the exception of the cheapest plan, unlimited websites.

• Number of websites per plan: Unlimited (except for the Managed 1-site and 3-site plans)
• Storage per plan: Unmetered

1&1 for WordPress

If you're a do-it-yourself type who understands the ins and outs of web hosting, 1&1 Hosting might be the service for you: Its support options aren't great, with no live chat options to speak of, but the service it provides is high-functioning, comes with plenty of features, and offers a great value for its price.

Check out our full review for more detail, but rest assured that all of the service's WordPress plans offer above-average storage and plenty of email accounts.

Number of websites per plan:

• Essential: 1
• Business: 2
• Pro: 5

Storage per plan:

• Essential: 25GB
• Business: 100GB
• Pro: 200GB

GoDaddy for WordPress

GoDaddy is huge: They manage 77 million domain names for 18 million customers around the globe. And they offer a reliable service, with a good feature set and a variety of hosting plans. They aren't perfect, however, particularly in two pretty important areas. First, the support team doesn't include 24/7 live chat unlike many competitors, and second, their uptime performance, while decent, isn't amazing.

Like BlueHost, GoDaddy throws in a free domain name for a year, though you'll need an annual plan to qualify for this perk. Also included in the WordPress plans are free daily backups and automated software/security updates. They're a reasonable choice overall, and their updates and backups are useful for website newbies.

Number of websites per plan

• Basic: 1
• Deluxe: 1
• Ultimate: 2
• Developer: 5

Storage per plan:

• Basic: 10GB
• Deluxe: 15GB
• Ultimate: 30GB
• Developer: 50GB

Number of websites per plan

• Basic: 1
• Deluxe: 1
• Ultimate: 2
• Developer: 5

Storage per plan:

• Basic: 10GB
• Deluxe: 15GB
• Ultimate: 30GB
• Developer: 50GB

WPEngine for WordPress

This provider caters entirely to WordPress websites, so it might surprise you to see it ranked at the bottom of our list. Sadly, the uptime and available features aren't quite as competitive as they could be. Add in their higher prices, and ultimately WPEngine may not be a top choice, even given how central WordPress is to the service.

WPEngine keeps it simple with just three shared hosting plans, with each offering more storage and bandwidth allotments than the last. Our review is available for more information, but we've included additional details below as well.

Number of websites per plan:

• Startup: 1
• Growth: 5
• Scale: 15
• Custom: 25

Storage per plan:

• Startup: 10GB
• Growth: 20GB
• Scale: 30GB
• Custom: 100GB – 1TB

Shared vs Managed WordPress Hosting

WordPress web hosting services are defined by the fact that they offer the WordPress package, a website creation software solution that makes it easy to build a site and add regular blog post updates. However, WordPress hosting comes in two flavors: Shared hosting and Managed hosting.

What's the difference? The simplified answer is that shared hosting is a cheaper but less powerful and reliable service, while managed hosting costs more but is best for larger sites with greater needs. Shared plans will let you share a server with a group of other sites on shared plans, while managed plans give the user a designated, dedicated server for hosting.

Granted, that's the short answer. However, the important thing to remember is that both types of hosting have their uses: A shared server is the most cost-effective option for a smaller business, while managed plans are the more cost-effective option for larger ones.

WordPress Hosting Costs

Hosting comes with a huge variance in costs: Some might pay as little as 4 dollars a month, while others pay thousands a month for a web server entirely to themselves.

The huge range is due to traffic, stability and bandwidth considerations: If you host a personal CV online, you won't expect to see more than a few hundred visitors a month. But if you're running a successful ecommerce website, suddenly that number of bandwidth-hogging visitors might leap by a thousand times, and your costs will rise to account for the difference.

Here's the short version of what to expect when cracking open your bank account:

• If You're Running a Personal Blog – you can expect to pay from $10 per month. The prices may even be a little lower with some services, as you'll be using a shared service. As long as you're expected just hundreds of visitors, not thousands, this is the best type of plan to opt for.
• If You're Running a Small Business Site – you can expect to pay from $75 per month. This might be a managed plan with limited storage, or a more robust shared plan. Either way, you'll be able to handle thousands of monthly visitors.
• If You're Running a Large Business Site – you can expect to pay from $125 per month. This type of hosting sees the most price differences, with monthly fees often pushing past $200 or $300. The extra money will give you peace of mind that the site will keep running smoothly no matter how many millions of views you see.

WordPress Hosting FAQs

Is WordPress good for hosting?

Confusingly enough, WordPress doesn't actually host its own websites, which is why you need a hosting provider. These services help you get the website you designed on WordPress online.

Which Hosting service is best for WordPress?

Bluehost and InMotion Hosting are our most highly recommended providers – both offer robust feature packages, lots of support options, and solid uptime performance. However, the WordPress-focused WPEngine is also worth taking a look at, as it has some platform specific features that can help you build and host your website better.

How much does WordPress hosting cost?

WordPress hosting costs vary depending on which provider you decide on. Prices range pretty dramatically, from $3 per month to almost $30 a month, so make sure you know what you're getting before you sign up.

Does WordPress provide free hosting?

Tragically, no. WordPress will allow you to design and create a website for free via its most basic plan – however, to get that website online, you're going to need a hosting provider, and that will cost some money.

How can I host my WordPress website for free?

There are a few options out there that can help you get your website hosted for free, but they typically come with some pretty drastic pitfalls. Google Sites, for example, allows you to build and host a website for free, but it features almost no support options, and your customizability is seriously limited.

Considering the low cost of web hosting, it might be worth making room in your budget for a small monthly charge for the sake of your sanity.

How much does WordPress cost per year?

Because WordPress is a free service, the only costs you'll incur are based on web hosting. This means you can spend anywhere between $30 and $100 per year, depending on which provider and which plan you sign up for.

Can I host my own website?

You can, but if you don't have any experience doing so, you're not going to have a good time figuring it out. Again, the cost of web hosting is so low – particularly for smaller websites – that it's worth just paying for it rather than going through all the trouble. Even if you have the technical know-how to run your own servers, the risks of problems leading to downtime should be off-putting. This is one to trust to the experts – particularly if you're hoping for serious traffic.