Choosing the right hosting for your WordPress website is very important. Your website’s health will rely on the hosting provider you use.
But how do you know which one is the best WordPress host?
There are so many cheap providers to choose from: Bluehost, SiteGround, HostGator… etc.
Whichever host you’re going to choose, keep in mind the five most important factors of a WordPress hosting:
- Server Requirements – It should meet WordPress’s latest server requirements (PHP 7.3+, MySQL 5.6+, HTTPS support, and Nginx or Apache with mod_rewrite module).
- Speed – The faster, the better. A good rule of thumb is 1 second. If your WP site loads slower than that, you might want to change a host (if you don’t know your current website speed, you can use Pingdom).
- Uptime – If your hosting uptime is constantly below 99.95%, you might consider switching it. Uptime is the most important factor in choosing a web host.
- Customer Support – They should help you with WordPress related questions, preferably through 24/7 live chat.
- Pricing – The cheaper, the better, but the performance (uptime and speed), must not suffer. Another important fact is transparency. Pricing should be fair and upfront. Some web hosts practice to “hide” their renewal fees or be unclear about certain features.
WebsiteSetup team, bought hosting accounts to 10 most popular “WordPress” hosting providers (who meet WP requirements) and monitored their uptime and speed over 12 months.*
*We can’t guarantee you will have similar uptime or speed results to your website as this varies on several different factors, such as your chosen hosting package, your website size and the number of visitors your website gets.
10 Best Cheap WordPress Hosting Services
Full disclosure: WebsiteSetup earns a commission if you end up purchasing any of the web hosting services listed on this page through our referral links. This helps us to keep our reviews up-to-date. Thanks for your support.
1. Bluehost WordPress Hosting ($2.75/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click install for WordPress, automated updates
- Features: 24/7 live customer support, https (SSL), free domain
- Performance: 99.99% uptime, 390 ms load time
- Plans: Start $2.75/mo, other plans: www.bluehost.com/wordpress
Bluehost is a popular hosting service among many small business owners and bloggers who use WordPress. The reason is simple – they have cheap introductory prices ($2.75/mo), it’s simple to use (one-click install for WordPress), and they usually don’t have any performance issues.
In fact, we found Bluehost to have the best cost/value ratio. Our uptime and speed monitoring tool Pingdom showed us an average uptime of 99.99% with only 24 outages (all less than an hour in time) and an average page loading speed of 390 ms for the last 12-months.
They’re also one of the few web hosts that are officially recommended by the WordPress.org community. All of their plans come with free SSL (https://), WordPress staging environment, and easy WordPress install feature. They also have a large database of WordPress tutorials and all plans come with 24/7 live customer support.
Their pricing starts from $2.75/mo which allows you to sign up for 36 months. The renewal price (after your initial period) is $7.99/mo. But this is very common in the hosting market, and almost all popular hosting providers are using it. If you opt to choose them, make sure you take their hosting plan for the longest period; this helps you to save some money. If you are not satisfied with their service, they offer a hassle-free 30-day money-back guarantee.
2. HostGator WordPress Hosting ($3.99/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click install for WordPress, WordPress optimized servers
- Features: Free site transfer, 24/7 live customer support, free https (SSL), backups
- Performance: >99.99% uptime, 369 ms load time
- Plans: Start $3.99/mo, other plans: https://www.hostgator.com/managed-wordpress-hosting (Use “WEBSITESETUP” discount code when checking out)
HostGator hosts more than 10 million domains making them one of the most popular web hosting providers on the market.
Similarly to Bluehost, HostGator also offers specialized WordPress hosting solutions, such as “WordPress Hosting.”
They are the best option for high traffic websites that need faster loading times. HostGator WordPress plan should make your site faster across different regions, especially for mobile users.
Their last 12-month average load time is 369 ms and uptime >99.99%. Their total yearly downtime was only 22 minutes, which is rather outstanding. They also offer free site migrations with all of their plans.
All of their plans come with unlimited bandwidth, storage, and email accounts.
Although their introductory prices are cheap, starting from $5.95 per month, their renewal fees are higher at $9.95 per month. However, if you apply our coupon code, you will be able to get it for $3.99/mo. All of their plans come with free site migrations. If you don’t have many sites, the HostGator “Managed” WordPress hosting plan is highly likely a good option for you.
Visit HostGator to see if their $3.99/mo is still valid (Use “WEBSITESETUP” discount code when checking out)
3. Hostinger WordPress Hosting ($0.99/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click install for WordPress, servers optimized for WordPress plugins
- Features: Free email account, 24/7 customer support, free SSL (https)
- Performance: 99.93% uptime, 339 ms load time
- Plans: Start $0.99/mo, other plans: https://www.hostinger.com/wordpress-hosting
Hostinger is a web host that has grown a lot due to being one of the cheapest web hosts for WordPress websites.
Hostinger is originally from Europe but has data centers in the USA, Asia, and Europe. They don’t offer the option to choose a data center right away, but once you are signed up, you can ask their support to change your server locations from the US to Asia or Europe. A very nice feature that many other web hosting companies do not offer.
They also include a WordPress website builder, which isn’t ideal but can help a beginner a lot. Hostinger also offers 24/7 live chat and have a big library of WordPress guides and tutorials.
Despite being on the cheapest WordPress hosts, their performance is actually on a good side. In terms of load time (339 ms), they were only beaten by A2 Hosting. Uptime is okay – coming in at 99.93% over the past 12-months.
Their cheapest WordPress hosting plan starts from $0.99/month with a 48-month commitment and renews at $2.15/month. This plan includes 100GB bandwidth which is optimal for a smaller WordPress website. Furthermore, 1 email account is included in all of their plans as well as a free SSL certificate. Additional CDN is not included. And if you’re not satisfied with their service, you can get a full refund until 30 days from the signup.
4. SiteGround WordPress Hosting ($3.95/mo)
- WordPress Perks: Automatic WordPress updates, free CDN, WordPress migrator
- Features: 24/ live customer support, free https (SSL), free email, daily backups
- Performance: 99.98% uptime, 629 ms load time
- Plans: Start $3.95/mo, other plans: https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting
SiteGround is another popular and legitimate WordPress hosting service, recommended by the WordPress.org community. Since 2004, SiteGround has grown to a large network of over 800,000 domain names around the world. Most of their staff is located in Bulgaria, but they’ve servers worldwide.
They are one of the fewer hosts, where you can also change your data center locations, from Europe to the USA. So if your visitors are mainly from Europe, it’s likely a good option for you.
Also, they offer free WordPress site transfers, include a free CDN (for caching) and image optimizations which all combined should make your WP website faster than before.
In terms of uptime, SiteGround maintained an average uptime of 99.98% (with 34 outages) followed by a strong load time of 629 ms. According to our test, it’s not as fast as Bluehost or HostGator and that’s why they land in third place.
We also tested out customer support by connecting with their live chat and asked several questions to evaluate their support team. They were friendly and helpful, answering questions quickly.
For cons, SiteGround’s renewal fees are higher (similarly to many hosting providers), all of their managed WordPress plans renew at $11.95/mo (once your initial plan ends). Also, domain registration costs extra.
5. A2 Hosting WordPress Hosting ($3.92/mo)
- WordPress Perks: Pre-installed WordPress, WordPress optimized servers, global datacenters
- Features: Fast servers, free SSL, free CDN, 24/7 live support
- Performance: 99.94% uptime, 295 ms load time
- Plans: Start $3.92/mo, other plans: https://www.a2hosting.com/wordpress-hosting
A2 Hosting is another low-cost WordPress hosting. On their homepage, they make a bold claim of being 20x faster than your current hosting. But is it true?
According to our uptime speed tests, A2 Hosting indeed was the fastest shared WordPress hosting provider at 295 ms. However, they weren’t 20x faster. They are also highly optimized for WordPress by having SSD storage and Litespeed Cache (+9.31$/mo or included with the Turbo plan).
All of their plans come with SSL (Let’s Encrypt), free Cloudflare CDN and unlimited SSD storage and bandwidth. Just like on SiteGround, you can also change server locations on A2 Hosting. They currently offer USA (Michigan), USA (Arizona), Amsterdam, and Singapore data centers.
While their customer support chat isn’t ideal (took us ~8 minutes to get in touch with them), it’s available 24/7. In addition, you can contact them by phone, too.
Their cheapest WordPress plan starts at $3.92/mo for a minimum of 36 months and then renews at $7.99/mo. You also get 25 email accounts and unlimited website transfers. A2 might be a convenient host for someone who owns many WordPress websites. Lastly, A2 hosting offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Even though there were a lot of good aspects with A2 hosting, their last 12-month uptime hasn’t been ideal for us. Coming at 99.94% with a total of 5 hours of downtime per year.
6. GreenGeeks WordPress Hosting ($2.95/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click WordPress install, automatic updates,
- Features: Free SSL certificate, unlimited storage & bandwidth, 24/7 support
- Performance: 99.99% uptime, 375 ms load time
- Plans: Start $2.95/mo, other plans: https://www.greengeeks.com/wordpress-hosting
GreenGeeks is fast, secure and scalable hosting for WordPress users. Their name comes from the fact that they’ve been implementing an environmentally friendly approach to hosting websites.
All of their WordPress plans come with free SSL, in-house/free CDN, unlimited email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited SSD storage. Once you sign up, you have an option to choose from different server locations between the USA, Canada, and Europe. WordPress migrations are free.
From the support side, they have a 24/7 live chat, email and phone support as well as many WordPress related tutorials and guides. Their support is usually quick and accurate.
GreenGeek’s performance, especially speed (375 ms) is good, and uptime looks very reliable (99.99%) too – only 36 outages, with a total of only 1 hour of downtime per year.
The only downside is their higher renewal fees. The cheapest $2.95/mo plan renews at $9.95/mo. Their money-back guarantee is 30 days, but if you took their ‘free’ domain name offer, your refund would be deducted by $13.95 for a domain name registration fee.
7. DreamHost WordPress Hosting ($2.59/mo)
- WordPress Perks: WordPress is pre-installed, drag and drop builder
- Features: Free domain, free SSL (https), unlimited bandwidth & storage, backups
- Performance: 99.92% uptime, 569 ms load time
- Plans: Start $2.59/mo, other plans: https://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress/shared-wp-hosting/
DreamHost is a popular, well established hosting service from the USA with over 340,000 customers. Just like Bluehost and SiteGround, they are also listed as a recommended WordPress host by WordPress.org website.
DreamHost’s goal is simple – to be fast, reliable, and optimized for WordPress users.
All of their WordPress plans (Shared, Managed, and VPS) offer a WordPress website builder, free SSL, and SSD storage with unlimited bandwidth.
Site transfers are not free (cost $99, but are free with their DreamPress plan which is $16.95/mo) and there’s no 24/7 support option. They have live support chat, but it’s only available at 5:30 AM–9:30 PM Pacific time but at least it’s 7 days a week.
They don’t seem like an ideal host for a website that serves visitors outside the USA or Asia, but it surely provides a stable page speed (569 ms) and “OK” uptime of 99.92%. There’s also no option to choose server locations outside the USA.
DreamHost has “high performance” managed WordPress plans which are more expensive, priced $16.95/month. Their cheapest plan starts at $2.59/month for 36-months and later renews at $4.95/month. Unlike others, DreamHost gives out 97-days money-back guarantee. Email accounts cost $19.99/year extra and the free domain for a year renews $15.99/year.
8. InMotion WordPress Hosting ($6.99/mo)
- WordPress Perks: WordPress is pre-installed, servers optimized for WordPress, drag and drop page builder
- Features: Free domain, unlimited email accounts, 24/7 support
- Performance: 99.95% uptime, 767 ms load time
- Plans: Start $6.99/mo, other plans: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/wordpress-hosting
InMotion is another US-based WordPress host with more than 350,000 domain names.
Many reasons make InMotion a good fit for WordPress users. Each plan comes with free SSL, CDN (free), unlimited email accounts, and 200 free WordPress themes. The only thing that they limit is the number of sites you can have, disk space and bandwidth.
They have 24/7 live chat and US phone support. In addition to that, site transfers are free (a nice perk), and you can try their BoldGrid pre-installed website builder.
Their uptime and speed numbers are average, but reliable enough. Coming in at 99.95% uptime and average speed of 767 ms during the last 12-months.
One of the drawbacks of InMotion Hosting is that there’s no instant account access. That means if you’re an international customer, outside North America for example, there might be a delay and a hassle when attempting to verify your new account.
You can’t have multiple websites under the cheapest option, which means if you have many WordPress sites, you will need to pay extra.
InMotion has multiple WordPress, WordPress VPS and Dedicated WordPress plans from $6.99 (renews $8.99) to $248.99 that vary from max websites, storage size, and bandwidth (max visitors). They are also one of the few hosts that offer dedicated WordPress solutions.
9. Site5 WordPress Hosting ($6.95/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click install for WordPress, expert WordPress support
- Features: Free website migration, backups, 24/7 support
- Performance: 99.99% uptime, 575 ms load time
- Plans: Start $6.95/mo, other plans: https://www.site5.com/p/wordpress/
Site5 is not the cheapest shared WordPress hosting provider. That being said, they claim to be the best option for designers and developers as they have a flexible control panel, good customer service, and stable hosting.
Similarly to other hosting providers, Site5 offers free Cloudflare CDN, 24/7 live chat, and site transfer(s). They also provide and an uptime guarantee of 99.9%.
Their “actual” average uptime during the last year was 99.99% and an average speed of 575 ms. It’s not as fast as Bluehost or A2 Hosting but beats many others in uptime.
Their cheapest plan costs $6.95/mo for 24 months; it renews later at a little higher cost of $8.95/mo.
What we don’t like about their billing process, is that although they offer 30-day money-back, your hosting will automatically renew up to fifteen (15) days before the end of your current term. Furthermore, there are lots of upsells you might want to consider, such as upgrading your plan, as they have concerning bandwidth and storage policy (see Support transcript).
It’s also worth mentioning that Site5 cheapest WP hosting plan does not have an option to choose between data centers. The default location is set to the USA (central).
10. iPage WordPress Hosting ($3.75/mo)
- WordPress Perks: One-click install for WordPress, pre-installed themes & plugins
- Features: Free domain, unlimited storage & bandwidth, 24/7 live support
- Performance: 99.94% uptime, 709 ms load time
- Plans: Start $3.75/mo, other plans: https://www.ipage.com/wordpress-hosting
iPage also offers “WordPress” hosting. They have 2 WordPress plans which cost $3.75/month and $6.95/month(renew at $7.49 and $10.49/mo respectively), both plans come with a free domain name for 1 year. iPage main goal is to ensure the best possible experience, from registration to customer support. They are more aimed towards beginners as their $6.95/mo plan comes with “expert” WordPress support.
On a good site, iPage offers support via 24/7 live chat and phone. Both plans come with one-click installs for WordPress as well as a free SSL certificate. Bandwidth and storage are both unlimited.
On the bad side, iPage doesn’t offer any content delivery network (CDN), you can’t change datacenters (the USA only), and there are no free site transfers (cost $150 extra). While their uptime (99.94%) and load time (709 ms) aren’t bad, the performance, in general, isn’t as good as other WordPress geared web hosts.
The cheapest plan costs $3.75 for 1/12/24/36 months. Monthly and yearly packages renew at $9.49/month, 24-month plan renews at $8.49, and a 36-month plan renews at $7.49. A 30-day money-back guarantee is included with all of the plans. Backups cost $1.00/month, and email addresses are through Google suite $6 per month.
WordPress Hosting Summary:
A detailed review of the top 10 WordPress hosting providers.
Each review was based on our test site’s speed, uptime, and cost. Third-party sources, like Pingdom, were used to monitor and analyze performance.
In short, we recommend using a web hosting provider that provides a decent uptime of 99.94% and up, while keeping their load time less than 700 ms.
| WEB HOSTING | COST | MONEY BACK | LOAD TIME | UPTIME | OUR RATING |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Bluehost WordPress | $2.75/mo | 30 days | 390 ms | >99.99% | ★★★★★ |
| 2. HostGator Managed WordPress | $3.99/mo* | 45 days | 369 ms | >99.99% | ★★★★★ |
| 3. Hostinger WordPress Hosting | $0.99/mo | 30 days | 339 ms | >99.93% | ★★★★★ |
| 4. SiteGround WordPress Hosting | $3.95/mo | 30 days | 629 ms | >99.98% | ★★★★ |
| 5. A2 Hosting WordPress Hosting | $3.92/mo | Anytime | 295 ms | >99.94% | ★★★★ |
| 6. GreenGeeks WordPress Hosting | $2.95/mo | 30 days | 375 ms | >99.99% | ★★★★ |
| 7. DreamHost WordPress Hosting | $2.59/mo | 97 days | 569 ms | >99.92% | ★★★★ |
| 8. InMotion WordPress Hosting | $6.99/mo | 90 days | 767 ms | >99.95% | ★★★ |
| 9. Site5 WordPress Hosting | $6.95/mo | 45 days | 575 ms | >99.99% | ★★★ |
| 10. iPage WordPress Hosting | $3.75/mo | 30 days | 709 ms | >99.94% | ★★★ |
We came to the conclusion that you can’t go wrong with HostGator WP Managed, Hostinger or Bluehost. They all offer strong uptime, fast page loading times, great customer support, and low introductory prices.
If you already have a web host but want to switch hosts after reading this post, see this guide here. However, be sure that some of the listed web hosts offer free site migrations.
Feedback and reviews on different (WordPress) hosting providers are more than welcome in the comments section below.
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