6 Best Web Hosting Services for Small Businesses (Cheap & Easy)

Last updated on June 28th, 2022 at 11:08 am

Do you run a small business? If so, you’ll want to consider using one of the best web hosting services for small businesses. Is there even such a thing? Isn’t all web hosting just…well, web hosting? Yes, and no. Some web hosting providers have put a lot of effort into making their hosting services perfect for small businesses like yours.

Not only is using a web host designed for small businesses a great way to ensure your website’s performance and security, but it can also give you access to a range of additional features and tools that are specifically designed for small businesses. In this article, I’ll give you the lowdown on different types of web hosting available, and highlight the features that are most important to small businesses. Plus, I’ll explain why there are some hosts I wouldn’t recommend and give you my top 6 web hosting recommendations.

Want to get the answers fast? Here’s a sneak peek at the host I rate the highest.

Best web hosting services for small businesses: ranked for 2022

1. Hostinger: Lowest Priced web hostinHostinger Web Hostingg service – Doesn’t Compromise on features

Hostinger has been providing reliable and affordable web hosting services to small businesses for years now. Their web hosting plans are perfect for businesses of all sizes, and they offer an extensive range of features that are perfect for small businesses. Their customer support team is available 24/7 to help you with any issues that you might have, and their pricing is very competitive. If you’re looking for a reliable, affordable, and comprehensive web hosting solution for your small business, then Hostinger is a perfect choice!

Hostinger’s best features

• Affordable prices
• Multilingual customer support (in 20+ languages) available 24/7 via live chat and email
• 99.9% uptime guarantee – with full transparency about actual server uptime
• Fast servers
• Optimized for WordPress
• 1-click installer
• 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans
• Enhanced security features like backups and SSL certificates

Why I love Hostinger

I use Hostinger to host my own websites (and have been for several years now) because the pricing is great, and I’ve never had any issues with performance. Is it a perfect hosting platform? No, but I don’t think that actually exists in the real world. Hostinger has all the features you need to get your website online quickly and easily, and it offers different plans for different needs.

You get a free domain name (on most plans) and free SSL certificates, so you don’t have to worry about your visitors getting that pesky “this site isn’t secure” warning in their browser. Having an SSL certificate will improve your Google ranking and protect your visitors – and installing SSL certificates with Hostinger is literally a matter of clicking a button.

Hostinger’s web hosting plans

What exactly you get with Hostinger does depend on which plan you choose – and Hostinger has plenty to choose from! There’s also different hosting types – but if all this is starting to sound confusing, it’s actually fairly simple.

Shared Hosting

Firstly, Hostinger offers standard shared web hosting. This is the cheapest hosting type it offers (and it’s really cheap!) It’s a good starting point for any new website, but it’s actually not the hosting type I’d recommend.

The shared hosting plans start at $0.99:

• The single plan includes 1 website, 1 email account, 100GB bandwidth, weekly backups and a Free SSL (but no free domain name).
• The premium plan includes 100 websites, email accounts, SSL certificates, unlimited bandwidth, weekly backups, and a free domain, and WordPress optimization.
• The business plan includes everything in the premium plan but adds in daily backups and more resources (server CPU power).

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting is the hosting type that I would recommend as Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plans are fully managed so you don’t have to worry about updating WordPress and plugins and themes manually. Although costlier than the standard shared hosting plans, WordPress hosting from Hostinger is still really great value.

Plans start at $2.15/month:

• The single plan includes 1 website, 1 email account, 30 GB of SSD disk space, 100 GB bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. As with the shared hosting single plan, there’s no free domain name included.
• The WordPress Starter plan includes 100 websites, 100 email accounts, 100 GB SSD disk space, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain and SSL certificates, Google Ads credit, and WordPress Multisite support.
• The Business WordPress plan includes 100 websites, 100 email accounts, 200 GB SSD disk space, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain and SSL certificates, Google Ads credit, WordPress staging tool, daily backups, and Cloudflare CDN. This is the best plan for small businesses as it offers exceptional value for money.

Cloud Hosting

You might also want to consider Hostinger’s affordable cloud hosting plans which include premium features such as:

• Daily backups on all plans
• Cloudflare CDN on all plans
• Dedicated resources
• Dedicated IP address
• WordPress staging tool
• Free migration

2. Nexcess – More Costly, But Powerful (Best for E-Commerce)

Nexcess isn’t really what I’d call affordable – but I’ve included it in my list because it’s a great service that’s ideal for e-commerce websites. It offers managed WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and Magento hosting, plus it’s launched an e-commerce store builder that’s ideal for beginners.

Probably the best thing about Nexcess is that it runs on servers fully optimized for the demands of large WordPress and e-commerce websites, so its performance is great. Nexcess is a sister company of Liquid Web, which specializes in VPS hosting, so its infrastructure is excellent.

Nexcess Plans and Pricing

Fully managed WordPress hosting plans all include staging sites, optimized WordPress performance on fast servers, WordPress updates, plugin and theme updates, free SSL certificates, daily backups, enhanced security via iThemes Security Pro, Nexcess CDN, image compression, PHP 8 support, and Nexcess’ innovative plugin performance monitor.

Prices start at a reasonable $19 per month (though you can get a discount on your first 3 months with the code 30OFF3MO), for a single site with 15 GB of storage and a very generous 2 TB of bandwidth.

Managed WooCommerce (the #1 WordPress e-commerce plugin) hosting is similarly priced, albeit with some different features specific to e-commerce. WooCommerce hosting benefits from a more generous storage and bandwidth allowance (30 GB and 3 TB respectively on the starter plan), but has max orders per hour limits (starting at 500 orders/hour on the starter plan).

WooCommerce hosting also includes some WooCommerce extensions (Thank You Redirect and Dokan Pro) as well as all of the WordPress performance features included with its WordPress hosting.

The easiest way to build an e-commerce store with Nexcess, though, is by using the Nexcess Store Builder. This is designed for beginners and aims to get your store up and running as quickly as possible. There are dozens of templates to choose from, and you can try it totally risk-free for 30 days. After that, it’s $19/month.

3. Bluehost – Cheap Web Hosting Services, But Beware the Add-ons

Bluehost is a reliable and affordable web hosting company that offers a wide range of affordable web hosting plans that are perfect for small businesses. Like Hostinger, the company has multiple data centers around the world, which ensures that your website will be available no matter where you are. Along with offering top-notch support, Bluehost also offers a variety of (paid) add-ons and tools that can help you optimize your website for better performance and security.

Bluehost’s Plans and Pricing

Bluehost isn’t as cheap as Hostinger (no one is!) but it does have a few advantages. Firstly, you get a free domain with all hosting packages. Secondly, Bluehost offers more SSD storage on its base shared hosting plan (50GB SSD disk space), and you get free integration with Cloudflare CDN on all plans.

However, there is one thing that Bluehost does not offer: complimentary email addresses, so you’re going to have to pay for a premium service like Gmail if you want an additional address. Is that a deal-breaker? Well, no, but it would be nice to have at least one free business email address.

Limited Features

Slightly more concerning is that Bluehost doesn’t include free automatic backups on its lower-priced plans. Backups are a paid extra that will double the monthly cost of the basic plan – plus you’re also advised to choose the SiteLock Security Essential add-on at checkout, which is roughly the same price as the basic hosting plan. Those add-ons quickly make Bluehost significantly more expensive than Hostinger.

Despite these minor flaws, Bluehost is still considered among the best web hosts because of its reliable and affordable service that meets all your needs.

Expert tip: Bluehost offers “WordPress hosting” but in actual fact, there’s no difference between its regular shared hosting plans and its WordPress hosting plans. Unlike Hostinger’s WordPress plans, they are not managed WordPress hosting. There is Managed WordPress hosting available from Bluehost, but it’s significantly more expensive compared to Hostinger.

Bluehost has recently launched a WordPress website builder plan (including hosting) that turns WordPress into a drag-and-drop website builder like Wix or Weebly. Its plans for the WordPress website builder are slightly more expensive than its regular shared hosting plans. I’ll be reviewing the WordPress Website Builder from Bluehost in a separate post (why not subscribe to my mailing list to be notified so you don’t miss that article?)

4. InMotion Hosting – Updated Plans With Bigger Savings

InMotion Hosting is a leading web hosting company that caters specifically to small businesses like yours. It offers quality web hosting services at an affordable price, and its customer service is top-notch. It has recently updated its plans to offer better value for money and enhanced features, too.

It includes a free domain name on most of its shared hosting plans, but its standout feature has to be its security suite that not only includes a free SSL certificate, but also protects you against hacking, malware, and DDoS attacks. What’s more, bandwidth is unlimited, so you don’t have to worry about the number of visitors to your website.

One of the best things about InMotion Hosting is its industry-leading money-back guarantee of 90 days across all its hosting plans of 6 months or more. Most hosting providers offer 30-day money-back guarantees, but InMotion Hosting is so confident you’ll love its service that it gives you three months to claim a refund.

InMotion Hosting’s Plans and Prices

While not as cheap as Hostinger, InMotion Hosting’s prices are low enough to be affordable even when you’re just starting out. Its shared hosting plans start at $2.49 (dependent on plan length), and the base plan (Core) includes 2 websites, 100 GB SDD storage, and 10 email addresses.

I’d recommend the Launch plan, however, as this plan supports unlimited websites, includes a free domain, and offers unlimited SSD storage and unlimited email addresses.

WordPress hosting from InMotion Hosting is slightly more expensive but comes with some significant benefits. The servers are optimized for WordPress to deliver at least 10x faster performance, and backups and migrations are included on all plans.

The WP Launch plan is the best value, however, as that includes unlimited SSD storage, advanced caching features (for even better speeds) and a Jetpack Personal license. For e-commerce websites, I’d opt for the WP Power plan, however, which offers 30x faster performance compared to shared hosting and includes a Dedicated Opcode Cache Pool and offsite backups.

All of InMotion Hosting’s WordPress plans include a BoldGrid license, too. BoldGrid is one of my favorite WordPress page builders, and it makes building your website incredibly simple.

5. Namecheap – Get WordPress Hosting Free for 30 Days

More widely known for its domain name services (it’s where I get all my domain names!), Namecheap also has a decent web hosting service, designed specifically for small businesses. It offers a wide range of features and options at a fairly low price, and its customer service is top-notch, so you can always count on it to help you get the most out of your web hosting experience.

Namecheap does have some significant flaws, however. There are lots of reports online of people experiencing issues with installation, particularly with scripts and default passwords. There are also many complaints about data transfer speeds which are far slower than other hosts, although this may be related to server locations as on shared hosting you can only choose from US, UK, and EU servers (the EU server is new).

Namecheap Plans and Prices

One of Namecheap’s standout features, however, is its EasyWP WordPress hosting which is ideal if this is your first website. The best bit is that you can try it free for the first month.

EasyWP is significantly more expensive than other web hosting packages, though, and on the EasyWP Starter plan, you don’t get an SSL certificate included, and the resources are fairly limited (10 GB SSD storage and up to 50K visitors per month). EasyWP is hosted on the Namecheap Cloud, however, so you should experience fast page loading speeds.

For shared hosting, Namecheap is similarly priced to Hostinger, albeit with less storage, for the basic (Stellar) plan. Namecheap does offer a free domain name and domain privacy protection on all plans, but in other areas, it’s more limited.

It only supports up to PHP 7.4 with shared hosting (Hostinger offers up to PHP 8.1), and you pay extra to host your site on the UK or EU data centers. Free SSL certificates are included, though.

6. iPage

iPage is ideal for beginners, as it offers just one plan for shared hosting, offering (almost) unlimited resources (there’s no such thing as unlimited hosting!) at a really low price. Why isn’t it higher on my list? Well, that would be because it has plenty of flaws that you need to be aware of.

iPage Plans and Pricing

“Unlimited” web hosting is something that always makes me suspicious – it’s a misnomer as hosting is never truly unlimited, it’s just that the limits are hidden in the small print. iPage offers “unlimited” websites and storage and comes with a free SSL certificate and a free domain name. It all sounds great so far, but you should bear in mind that the domain and SSL certificate is only free for the first year, after which you’ll have to pay.

iPage’s shared hosting is a fairly basic service – you don’t get backups and CDNs, although there’s a 1-click installer so you can add WordPress to your website fairly easily. iPage claim that the hosting plan is suitable for e-commerce, but I wouldn’t recommend it – when a host offers “unlimited” hosting, its servers are usually overcrowded, risking downtime that’s awful for e-commerce in particular.

As well as its shared hosting plan, iPage offers WordPress hosting. I’d stay away from the WP Starter plan, as it’s limited to a single website and doesn’t offer much more than the shared hosting plan. Its WP Essential plan, however, does have some additional features that make it worth considering – it includes automatic malware removal and SiteLock professional security (both of which you’d pay extra for from the likes of Bluehost and Namecheap).

In addition, the WP Essential hosting has been optimized for WordPress, so it’s worth the extra cost as its speeds are faster than iPage’s standard shared hosting plan. WordPress-specific support is included, too.

So, Who is the Best Web Host for Small Businesses?

Ultimately, Hostinger is my top choice as a web host for small businesses. You can’t go wrong with a hosting provider that’s cheap and reliable. That said, all of the web hosts on my list have the features you need to successfully create your small business website. Hostinger stands out because of its pricing and the features you get when you opt for its Managed WordPress hosting. It’s ideal for a service-related website but not so great for e-commerce.

If you’re running an e-commerce website, then I’d recommend you opt for Nexcess. Its high-powered servers and optimization features can meet the demands of an e-commerce website with ease, and whether you choose WooCommerce or the Nexcess Store Builder, you can have your online store up and ready for customers quickly and easily.

Best hosting sites for small businesses: SUMMARY chart

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)