The best web hosting (opens in new tab) for small business should come with a few key features. Security (opens in new tab) is an important consideration; you need to ensure you have enough server resources; and the provider you choose should have reliable performance at the least.
But with so many options out there, it can be very difficult to select the right one. Should you go for a budget choice, or is it worth spending a bit more? What features should you look for?
Here, we’ve drawn on years of ongoing research and testing to bring together a list of the top small business hosts. In our ranking below of the best web hosting for small business, you’ll find budget options, eco-friendly options, and options for small business sites likely to grow in the future.
The best web hosting for small businesses available
How much does web hosting cost?
The price for a reliable web hosting plan can range from a couple of dollars a month to tens or even hundreds a month. Generally, you will be able to host multiple websites on the same account, so you should only need one hosting subscription. Discounts are usually available with your first subscription and with longer-term commitments.
What is the best web hosting for small business?
Our choice for the best web hosting for small businesses is Hostinger, which is an excellent option for those on a tighter budget, offering a range of top features and tools and ranking highly across the board. Hostwinds offers advanced shared hosting for high-traffic sites as well as more advanced hosting plans, while GreenGeeks’ eco-friendly, unlimited hosting (opens in new tab) policies will attract many businesses.
Liquid Web’s advanced solutions offer excellent scalability and market-leading customer support and service, while DreamHost delivers a well-rounded package with generous features across a range of hosting types.
The best web hosting for small businesses right now
Hostinger sits at the top of our list of the best web hosting (opens in new tab) platforms, and for good reason. It’s very beginner-friendly, comes with loads of great security and other tools, and offers the best prices in the industry. It’s also our top pick for the best cloud hosting (opens in new tab), the best VPS cloud hosting (opens in new tab), the best WordPress hosting (opens in new tab), the best VPS hosting (opens in new tab), and the best free web hosting (opens in new tab) (via 000webhost (opens in new tab)).
Prices start from just $1.99 a month for an initial 48-month plan ($3.99 on renewal). Shorter terms are available, but you will pay more for these. All plans come with Hostinger’s native hPanel control panel, which is right up there with the best we’ve used.
The 24/7 customer service is excellent, and you will find the service team to be friendly and knowledgeable. There’s also an excellent domain registration (opens in new tab) portal that you can use to register a new domain for your business.
Overall, we’d highly recommend considering Hostinger for the hosting of your small business website. If you have money to spend, a higher-end option could be better, but you just can’t get past Hostinger when it comes to value for money.
Read our full Hostinger review (opens in new tab).
Hostwinds is a little more expensive than most of the other options on this list, but it also offers much more advanced hosting solutions. All three of its shared hosting plans come with unlimited storage and bandwidth, making them great for slightly larger business websites.
On top of this, Hostwinds is known for its performance. It offers an excellent 99.9999% uptime guarantee, and its server response times have always been fast during our tests. We also like Hostwinds’ 24/7 support services and its neat self-help library.
If you’re looking for an advanced host that supports long-term scalability, we’d suggest checking Hostwinds out.
Read our full Hostwinds review (opens in new tab).
If you’re looking for an eco-friendly host for your small business, GreenGeeks has you covered. Its 300% renewable energy match ensures that your website is built on sustainable infrastructure that isn’t straining the environment.
Apart from the environmental aspect, GreenGeeks’ hosting actually stands out as super affordable and great for business sites. Its cheapest shared plan starts at just $2.95 a month (renews at $10.95), and it comes with everything you will need to run a basic business website.
There aren’t a lot of options for larger sites or those with a traffic-heavy store, but GreenGeeks remains a leading eco-friendly hosting option.
Read our full GreenGeeks review (opens in new tab).
Liquid Web’s powerful hosting solutions will be too much for the average small business website, but it’s the perfect option for those who have outgrown shared hosting. Its VPS (opens in new tab) plans are quite affordable (from $15 a month), while its cloud and dedicated server options are even more powerful.
On top of this, Liquid Web is known for its great customer service team. You won’t have any trouble at all getting help, and the support agents generally have excellent technical knowledge.
Many Liquid Web plans also come with full root access, although managed options are available too. But if you want an advanced hosting option for a slightly larger small business website, Liquid Web is our number-one pick.
Read our full Liquid Web review (opens in new tab).
DreamHost is among our leading hosts for small businesses for a number of reasons. It’s beginner-friendly, affordable, and boasts unlimited bandwidth with all of its plans. And on top of this, you get a free domain for your first year with a shared hosting subscription.
Another thing we liked was its 100% uptime guarantee. This is outstanding, and the company guarantees a full day of free service for every hour that your website goes down. However, our research suggests that outages are extremely rare.
DreamHost offers excellent introductory deals, with an initial 12-month plan coming in at $2.95 a month. This renews at a competitive $6.99 a month, which is still a fair price.
On the downside, DreamHost’s management panel is a little confusing. But this is a minor flaw, and we still recommend it as an excellent all-around small business host.
Read our full DreamHost review (opens in new tab).
Web hosting for small business FAQs
Want to find out more about web hosting for small business? Check out these popular answers that demystify hosting and its uses.
How much storage do I need for a small business website?
Very basic small business sites won’t require any more than 10GB of storage. The average small business should look for around 50GB, although you may require more if you have an online store or a large number of pages.
What type of hosting is best for small business?
The best hosting for small business sites is usually shared hosting. As your site grows, you may need to upgrade to VPS or cloud hosting for a little more power.
Is free web hosting worth using?
No, you shouldn’t use free hosting (opens in new tab) for a business website. It may be a viable option for small, basic sites, but it’s usually just too limited and insecure for small business sites.
The benefits of web hosting for small business
How we review web hosting for small business
There are hundreds of hosting options out there, and we’ve spent countless hours reviewing them to see which are worth using. We begin by creating a new account with the providers and types of hosting we want to test.
Once this is done, we move on to testing the usability and functionality of the platform. We look at how beginner-friendly the management dashboard and control panel are, how easy it is to start a new website, and what sorts of tools are included.
We also set up ongoing performance testing that we use to monitor uptime, average server response times, and various other metrics. Customer support is tested, and anything particularly notable is recorded during the review process.
Next steps with web hosting
If you want to find out more about web hosting and the options available, and are still feeling a little confused by all the terminology, take a look at our feature answering the question what is web hosting? (opens in new tab), for some helpful basics.
Make sure you avoid common hosting mistakes (opens in new tab), and discover how you should choose a domain name (opens in new tab) for your new site. When registering your domain, ensure that you look into domain privacy (opens in new tab); and find out more about how hosting can affect SEO (opens in new tab).
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