What is the best web hosting for a small business?
It is not an easy question. Website hosting companies and their services are difficult to compare. They provide a wide diapason of features, price, and quality.
Choosing the best small business web hosting solution depends mostly on your specific needs. Ask yourself questions such as “how many visitors you have”, “do you run an e-commerce site with a shop cart“, “do you have lots of video content” and etc.
Very cheap business web hosting service may suit you if you have a website with a few pages, without e-commerce tools and a small number of visitors. Generally, the cheapest hosting plans are less secure and slower.
If you aim to grow your business or you have an online shop, you need a more high-performance solution. Top web hosting companies provide small businesses with many features and services such as shopping cart software, 24-hour support, email accounts, high-security, tools for building and designing a website, and much more.
In addition to that, high-performance web hosting does not necessarily mean an expensive service. There is a range of excellent small business web hosting services at very good and affordable prices.
On this page you will find:
- A list of top hosting companies that provide some of the best web hosting services for small businesses.
- What is the difference between shared, VPS and dedicated hosting? Which one is the best for small business needs?
Table of Contents
Best web hosting for small businesses. Companies and services.
These companies listed here are chosen from their online reputation and positive customer reviews and from our years of experience (as a customer with business needs). As a person who run a business, you need a reliable web hosting company that can support your online presence in the best way.
Bluehost is definitely one of the top and most known brand names when it comes to best web hosting for small business needs.
Not to mention that they are also an official “WordPress” recommended hosting provider.
Advantages for small business:
- Outstanding customer service and 24×7 support including live chat and phone.
- Incredibly easy to use. Among the best usability.
- You can use one account to host multiple domains for your business. You can track, update, transfer, purchase, and administer all of your domains seamlessly.
- Automatic backups – daily, weekly, and monthly.
- One of the most inexpensive (affordable) prices available. It really offers a good price among the most popular options.
- E-commerce integration – you can easily integrate online shops directly into your website / websites.
- 30-day Money-back Guarantee.
- Provides optimized hosting for WordPress. Many business owners run their site on WordPress, and here you have everything you need to make WordPress websites secure, easy to use, and extremely fast.
- High level of security.
- Powerful advanced capabilities like Secure Shell (SSH) access, server-side includes, log file access and web-based managers for files, databases, and email.
- Professional migration services – if you already have a website, Bluehost provides professional services that seamlessly migrate everything to your new account. It is very important for your business website especially if you are not a webmaster.
- Their services are updated to modern standards.
For small businesses, Bluehost is definitely a value for money and great web hosting service provider.
Website: https://www.bluehost.com/
A2 Hosting has a really good reputation based on their incredible speed, uptime and customer support. Actually, this company offers unlimited everything you need for your website at a very good price.
If you aim to find a host that combines great speed performance, support, and security, it is worth considering A2 hosting as a small business hosting provider.
Pros for small business:
- Incredibly fast hosting. A2 Hosting uses HTTP/2 (Faster and more efficient network protocol), CloudLinux (it allows site runs smoothly even during traffic spikes on your server), CloudFlare CDN (Content delivery network focused on enhancing speed and security). All of these things lead to very fast hosting performance. For any business website, speed has a crucial role because it relates directly to your visitor experience.
- 24/7/365 guru crew support with knowledgeable, friendly and patient technicians that provide guidance, support, and care for their customers’ needs. They’re available through email, chat, phone or ticket system.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee which makes A2 very reliable hosting.
- Developer friendly web hosting company that provides current versions of the most popular (and some not so popular) developer tools.
- Support the best open source ecommerce tools from Magento to PrestaShop.
- WordPress integration and special plans for it.
- Location option – A2 Hosting offers data centers located around the globe so your site can be closer to you and your visitors and customers to reduce latency.
- Anytime Money Back Guarantee – If you do decide they are not the right host for you though, they’ll give you a hassle-free refund.
- Flexible hosting choices and plans. Clear and simple pricing.
- Tons of customizable features and tools. Even they have solutions for ERP software, project management, tools to help teachers and much much more.
- Good value-for-money for a quality product.
When we talk about the best web hosting for small business, A2 definitely has a place here. With its amazing speed, dedicated support and range of features A2 can provide any business website with reliable and secure online performance.
A2 Hosting is a blazing fast web hosting solution. Whether you have a low traffic, brand new or a popular business site, A2 Hosting has got you covered.
The company has a great score of positive reviews and customer satisfaction in the majority of web hosting review sites.
Website: https://www.a2hosting.com
HostGator is one of the well-known and respected web hosting providers in the industry. With its balance of attractive prices and features, it is a smart hosting of choice for many businesses all over the world. The feature-packed HostGator gives you all the tools to have an attractive and functional small business website.
Advantages for Small Business:
- 24/7/365 technical support – comprehensive customer support via live chat support, email support, and phone support.
- Free shopping cart software.
- Very easy to use control panel – easy to navigate control panel using graphical interface with several useful tools that make hosting and managing your website very easy.
- 45-day money-back guarantee – whatever your plan is, if you cancel the plan within the 45-days, you will get a full refund.
- Very easy WordPress integration.
- Useful Weebly site-building software – their partnership with Weebly ( an incredibly convenient drag-and-drop site builder) allows you to create a website in no time.
- Unlimited traffic, emails.
- Dedicated Migrations Team – standing by to transfer your existing content from your prior host and configure it to perform optimally on HostGator platform.
- 99.9% Uptime – the availability of your website is our top priority for every business. HostGator stands by that fact with their uptime guarantee.
- 4,500 website templates. This is an advantage only if you know haw to choose an SEO-friendly website template.
- Lots of hosting options – they can provide you and your business website with the flexibility it needs with hosting.
HostGator is an Award-Winning Web Hosting – since their inception in 2002, they have won numerous industry awards for their hosting and support.
Website: http://www.hostgator.com/
SiteGround is widely known in the web hosting industry as one of the best, most reliable, secure and fastest web hosting providers.
The company offers the full range of web hosting features such as a free domain and email, cPanel with SSH access, Cloudflare CDN, unlimited MySQL databases, and bandwidth.
Advantages valuable for small business:
- Legendary 24/7 technical support – their support team provides onboarding help and ongoing assistance at any time. Customer support is always ready to be of your service.
- Extremely fast with the latest speed technologies. Speed is a crucial advantage for every business website. Integrates with CloudFlare for improved performance and security.
- Very stable platform with automated monitoring and daily backup.
- 1-click WordPress installer. For WordPress super speed they offer SuperCacher on all plans above the StartUp.
- Free website transfer.
- Many hundreds of positive reviews in the top web hosting review websites.
- Extend e-commerce service for business customers who need additional help in setting up their online shops.
- 30 days money back guarantee.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee which is impressing.
- Unlimited traffic, and emails.
If you are searching for a fast and reliable web hosting provider with tons of features, SiteGround definitely is among the best web hosting services for small business and not only. It is a favorite web hosting provider for different size of businesses all over the world.
Their phenomenal customer support is widely discussed in the top web hosting reviews websites. Actually, if you are reading these sites, you know that SiteGround is among the companies with one of the highest levels of customer satisfaction and positive experience.
Website: https://www.siteground.com/
Inmotion Hosting is among the top favorites for thousands of businesses all over the world. In fact, this hosting has one of the highest levels of positive reviews from both customers and webmasters. With a range of very attractive features and their reasonable price, Inmotion Hosting is widely recommended as the best web hosting for small business and also for large company websites.
Advantages for small business:
- Widely recommended web hosting for business (for both small and large businesses) with some of the highest levels of customer satisfaction. The company is rated as one of the top hosting providers by a lot of dedicated hosting review sites.
- Clear focus on business hosting.
- Very fast page load speeds.
- A wide range of plans, options and web hosting services.
- High level of security is extremely important for eCommerce.
- Great customer support via skype, chat, phone, and mail.
- Very good price – affordable and reasonable.
- WordPress installed for you during checkout FREE No-Downtime Website Transfer. Actually, it is very good for hosting WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla sites. Host unlimited WordPress sites on one account.
- Provides numerous free E-Commerce tools as having a one-click installer.
- 90-day money back guarantee.
- Unlimited domains, email, disk storage, and bandwidth.
- Free backup.
- You can choose server location maximum speeds & reduced latency.
- Work faster with SSH & develop in PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ruby, Perl, and Python.
Inmotion Hosting is capable of handling all of your growing business needs, from shared hosting for small businesses to dedicated server based enterprise-level solutions.
The company focus on Investments in Technology – their data centers are Category A, PCI compliant. With advanced Smart Routing™ technology & premium bandwidth providers, they maintain 99.99% network uptime.
Website: http://www.inmotionhosting.com
Web Hosting Hub is famous for its reliable and affordable web hosting solutions. They have plans to fit every hosting need from blogs, e-commerce and custom websites. Also, they have a special web hosting plan for small business needs for better performance. They help you to quickly get your business website online.
Pros for Small Business:
- They provide special plans dedicated to small business needs with unlimited websites and unlimited MySQL & PostgreSQL Databases.
- 24/7 always available customer service and technical support. Excellent customer support via phone, email ticket system and live chat.
- Small business friendly hosting.
- Free website transfer – they will transfer your websites for free. They make it very easy to move from your current web hosting provider. Their zero-downtime transfer process takes the pain out of moving.
- Fast web hosting and a lot of features at a low price.
- Very easy to use features even for beginners.
- Unlimited space and bandwidth.
- A wide range of e-commerce tools such as 1-click free shopping carts and free customizable themes.
- WordPress and other apps are just a click away. They have 310+ free applications, including site builders like WordPress, Drupal, Concrete5, and eCommerce platforms like OpenCart and Magento.
With their features and service, Web Hosting Hub is a great choice for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Due to their fast, reliable hosting services at a low price, Web Hosting Hub has rapidly grown into a preferable and respected web host in the industry.
Website: http://www.webhostinghub.com/
The Difference between shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting. Which one is the best for small business?
Anyone of mentioned above web hosting providers (as well as the others on the market) provides 3 main different types of hosting plans – shared, VPS and dedicated hosting. You have to choose one of them.
To pick up the best one for your business needs, you need to know what is the difference between these types.
Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting – this is a hosting plan where you share your hosting space with many other customers. In shared hosting, all user accounts share the available resources with all the other accounts on the server. These include features such as CPU time, disk space, Mail server, and memory. All performance resources on a server are shared.
Actually, shared hosting is the cheapest way of hosting a website because expenditures per server are covered by many customers.
Advantages for small business: First – low price. Second: it is a good option if you have small websites and their number is limited.
Disadvantages of shared hosting are the limited resources you have. As a user, you have some restrictions on hosting services. I mean, if some of the users on the shared server use a lot of traffic, email capabilities etc, you and other individuals on the same server are very likely to experience worse performance such as shower time of the website loading. For business, this disadvantage can have very bad consequences related to a worse experience for your website visitors.
So before choosing shared hosting for your needs, carefully look at its limitations and restrictions. Always ask the hosting provider about them.
VPS Hosting
VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Server) is a virtualized server. Like in shared hosting, in VPS hosting your website is on a server that also hosts other websites. However, the difference here is that VPS has fewer sites per server.
And here its big advantages come – the websites share the price of the server, which results in lower costs than dedicated hosting. But you have much better hosting performance. Other important advantages of VPS are that you can configure anything you wish on the server and you can use extensive 24/7 customer support. Also, VPS hosting generally has higher levels of security that shared one.
Maybe your business needs more Web hosting power. If you’re looking for a hosting plan that offers more power and flexibility than shared hosting, but you don’t want to pay much for it, virtual VPS hosting can be the best choice for your small business.
Actually, VPS is a hybrid between shared and dedicated hosting.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated Hosting is a type of web hosting in which the user rent and exclusively use an entire server not shared with anyone else. The server is devoted to a single company or for a single purpose ( for example – a website).
Dedicated hosting gives the company absolute control over the server – its software and security systems. It is in contrast to shared hosting.
As you might guess, this type of web hosting is the most expensive and generally it is not needed for small businesses.
A dedicated server is usually appropriate for a website (or many business sites owned by a company) that may handle a huge amount of traffic – for example – up to 50 million hits per day.
Conclusion:
As a small business owner, usually your choice is between shared and VPS hosting plans and services.
The best one depends mainly on your specific needs – the size of your business website, the current and expected amount of traffic, e-commerce and online shop cart options, plans for growth and development, etc.
On the other hand, the shared and VPS plans out there provide different capabilities and features. For example, there are good shared hosting plans specially developed for small business needs and very good VPS plans that combine high quality at affordable price.
So before choosing your small business web hosting, think carefully how the different offers cover your needs. Allways ask the hosting providers about additional information and clarification of the things that you do not understand in their plans.
Picking the best web hosting for small business is not an easy task but it has a crucial role in your overall business performance. In our internet era, a good website can make a difference and can be one of your most important keys for success.
If you are about to create now an online business and you need ideas, check our previous posts: 101 website ideas and 21 types of websites that make money.