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A small business website is an effective way to reach your target audience and sell online. Different hosting providers offer various services to suit unique business needs. We’ve compiled a list of the 10 best web hosting for small business owners.
Written by Grace Micere (Writer)
Reviewed by Valentina Bravo (Editor)
Facts checked by Simona Ivanovski (Fact-Checker)
Last Updated: 2024-04-16T10:41:17+00:00
All our content is written fully by humans; we do not publish AI writing. Learn more here.
Facts & Expert Analysis on Small Business Web Hosting
Finding the best web hosting for small business can be tricky because of all the available options. However, it is important to have a website, so your target customers can discover your business, view your products and make purchases with a few clicks.
A business website is key to your success. The right web hosting provider should offer reliable customer support, automated backups, adequate storage space and more. We researched multiple web hosting options to come up with this list of the 10 best web hosting services for small businesses.
Grace Micere (Writer)
Grace Micere is a seasoned Tech, SaaS, and B2B writer with over five years of expertise, complemented by her extensive background in social media marketing and content creation. Holding a Bachelor’s Degree from Kenyatta University, Grace’s diverse experiences range from working with notable publications like lowercase ltd and Alibaba.com to consulting in the social media realm. Certified in Google Analytics, Google Ads and a plethora of digital marketing courses, she seamlessly merges her skills to convey complex concepts with clarity. Outside of her professional pursuits, she finds solace in Kenya’s scenic beauty, from venturing on safaris to serene hiking trails, and is passionate about mentoring the youth in her local community.
Valentina Bravo (Editor)
Valentina Bravo is an editor at Cloudwards with a rich background in technology topics, particularly productivity tools and online security. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and a triple Master’s degree in Literary and Cultural Studies. Her prior role as an academic writing instructor and over a decade of freelance editing across various fields, including academic publishing and tech education, have honed her skills in nurturing writers and producing strategically resonant content. Outside of work, she is a travel enthusiast, music lover and avid learner interested in global cultures, spirituality, psychology and neuroscience.
Learn more about our editorial team and our research process.
Added Cloudways to our list of recommendations.
Updated to include current information about features and pricing.
Article rewritten with updated information on features and pricing.
HostGator is our editor’s choice as the best web hosting for small business. Its easy-to-use interface is beginner-friendly. One of HostGator’s main advantages is the fact that it has both Windows and Linux servers. Its paid plans are affordable, and it offers unmetered bandwidth and storage. This makes it great for sites with large content volumes.
You can test HostGator’s plans before committing thanks to the 30-day money-back guarantee.
We researched multiple providers and came up with this list of the top 10 website hosting services for small businesses. Each service boasts specific strong points and caters to various business needs. Here’s a tabulated breakdown of the services that each provider offers.
More details about HostGator:
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HostGator won this round, emerging as the best small business hosting service. The service offers 99.9% uptime, which ensures you don’t miss out on site visitors or sales. You’ll get a free SSL certificate and unmetered bandwidth with all its plans.
Users can access 24/7 phone and live chat customer support on all plans. HostGator offers unmetered monthly bandwidth, making it ideal for users with loaded site content. It offers both Windows and Linux options, but we recommend Linux since it’s free and will help you save on licensing costs.
HostGator has no free plan. However, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. HostGator recommends the Baby plan, which lets you create up to two websites and offers double the amount of storage as the Hatchling plan.
More details about Bluehost:
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We found Bluehost’s airy interface design easy to use for beginners. This means you don’t need any coding knowledge to set up your website. It is a Linux-based web host, so no Windows servers are offered. All plans have access to chat support, with the more advanced plans having access to phone and priority support as well.
You’ll get free CDN, custom WordPress themes and an SSL certificate (free for the first year). It’s free to migrate your existing site with Bluehost. The service offers 99.9% uptime and unmetered bandwidth. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee for users who don’t like what it offers.
Bluehost has no free plan but offers a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you have second thoughts. Its paid plans include Basic, Choice Plus (recommended), Online Store and Cloud, starting from $7.45 per month. Note that there’s no monthly payment option — you can only pay for 12 or 36 months at a time.
More details about GoDaddy:
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If you’re looking for a web host with a reliable website builder to get you started in no time, then GoDaddy is the way to go. It has an AI builder tool to help you set up your website fast. GoDaddy has a friendly user interface that beginners and pros alike can use without any major hiccups. It offers reliable and responsive 24/7 customer support on all its plans.
GoDaddy integrates Microsoft 365 apps and emails into your workflows with just a few clicks. It has 99.9% uptime and a free SSL certificate for all the websites you create. You get unmetered bandwidth, automatic daily backups and access to global data centers for faster website loading. It’s free to migrate your WordPress site.
If you require more advanced website backup features, use one of the best online backups for small businesses.
GoDaddy has no free plan but offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for annual plans and a 48-hour money-back guarantee for subscriptions with a duration of less than a year. GoDaddy has two sets of plans; standard performance and high performance. Note that plans increase in cost by 40% after the first term (except on monthly plans), and the table below only reflects the initial cost.
Most small businesses will probably be fine with a standard performance plan, as the high performance plans are intended for high-traffic or resource-intensive sites.
More details about DreamHost:
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DreamHost users have access to unmetered bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, automatic daily backups and 24/7 ticketing support. Live chat and callback support are available during working hours. In addition, a free WordPress website builder comes with each plan to help launch a small business website in no time.
DreamHost gives you automated WordPress migrations and security updates so you don’t have to worry about doing it manually. The WordPress staging feature lets you pre-test any changes you’d like to make to your site before launching them. DreamHost offers Linux-based small business web hosting.
DreamHost’s shared hosting plans start from $4.95 per month. There’s no free plan, but there is a money-back guarantee if you decide the service isn’t for you. We recommend Shared Unlimited, as it provides access to more advanced features like a domain email account and unlimited storage.
More details about InterServer:
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InterServer gives users 99.9% uptime, a free SSL certificate, unlimited ultra SSD storage and unlimited business emails on all plans. The free website migration feature allows you to migrate pre-existing websites with just a few clicks. The free SitePad website builder helps users create their small business websites quickly and easily.
InterServer customer support is available 24/7 and includes live chat, email and phone support. Second to the SSL certificate, InterServer has a built-in malware database called Inter-Insurance. This helps protect against website hacking and malware, and allows you to restore your site data if your security is compromised.
There’s an introductory offer of $2.50 per month, after which you’ll pay $8 per month. This makes InterServer more affordable than competitors like Bluehost, A2 or GoDaddy. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like what’s offered.
More details about Liquid Web Hosting:
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Using Liquid Web Hosting gives you access to 99.99% uptime and both Linux and Windows servers. The service offers a reliable, 24/7 customer support structure that lets users speak to a human agent within 59 seconds. Customer support is available through chat, phone and help desk platforms. It has 10 global data centers that help customer websites load faster.
Liquid Web Hosting gives users the option to use cPanel, InterWorx or Plesk control panels to manage their sites. However, this provider has limited bandwidth and storage. In addition, no shared hosting plans are offered, making it more expensive to host a small business website.
The only money-back guarantee available is dedicated to Cloud VPS, Cloud Dedicated and Privat VPS private hosting products. There’s no money-back guarantee for any other plans. The paid plans aren’t as well structured as those of its competitors — calculating what the service will cost you in the future can get complicated.
More details about A2 Web Hosting:
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A2 Web is a Linux-based hosting service offering 99.99% uptime, free site migration and SSL certificates. It uses Turbo in the higher tiers to achieve a site loading time that’s 20 times faster than its competitors, which is ideal for better SEO rankings. All plans except the basic one have unlimited bandwidth and storage capacity.
With A2 Web Hosting, you’ll have access to 24/7 phone, live chat and email support year-round. There’s a website builder and website staging feature to help you create and launch your business website. You can create unlimited email accounts and choose the data center closest to you for faster website loading.
New A2 customers have access to a 30-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. Similar to the other providers on this list, A2 offers no free plan. Priced packages start from $12.99 per month. The service recommends the Turbo Boost plan, which is a good place to start if you have the budget for it. Otherwise, the Startup plan works just fine.
More details about Hostwinds:
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Hostwinds is a web hosting provider offering 99.99% uptime, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage with all its plans. You also get free nightly backups and unlimited subdomains with your plan. Hostwinds doesn’t have a free version and its money-back guarantee only lasts 72 hours, so be sure of your choice before paying for any plans upfront.
Hostwinds provides free SSL certificates, unlimited email accounts, instant setup and a Weebly website builder. You get 24/7 support via live chat and a ticketing system. Hostwinds owns its own servers, making it a more secure option than providers that rely on third-party servers.
Hostwinds doesn’t offer a free plan, and the money-back guarantee isn’t a good fallback plan since it only lasts 72 hours. Its paid plans include Basic, Advanced and Ultimate, and they start from $5.24 per month. We recommend the Basic plan — you’ll get all the necessary features to kickstart your business website. If you need more than one website, the Advanced plan is best.
More details about Mochahost:
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Mochahost provides unmetered bandwidth and unlimited site traffic capacity. One of the most admirable features it offers is the free-forever SSL certificate. This means you’ll never have to pay for an SSL certificate while subscribed to Mochahost. You’ll also get free site migrations and weekly backups with all plans.
Mochahost offers global hosting options, as well as both Linux and Windows hosting services. The provider guarantees 99.9% uptime and a generous, initial 180-day money-back guarantee. The website builder feature helps users create their site from scratch.
Mochahost is affordable and has well-structured tiers that accommodate businesses of all sizes. Its shared hosting plans start from $3.18 and include Soho, Business, Mocha and Ultimate. Ultimate is recommended since it offers several advanced features, like unlimited storage, websites and free premium daily backups.
A 30-day money-back guarantee is offered with all plans in addition to the initial 180-day guarantee mentioned earlier.
More details about IONOS:
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IONOS offers 99.9% uptime and a free Wildcard SSL certificate with all plans. You get 24/7 access to customer support via live chat, phone and email. It has both Windows and Linux servers, making it accessible to a wider audience. IONOS storage and bandwidth are limited for lower tier plans but are scalable as you upgrade to higher tiers.
There are free daily backups for all plans and backups in case you lose your site to cybercrime. You can only create one professional email per website, with 2GB storage on all plans. However, you could opt to use one of the best email providers for small businesses along with this tool. Website migration isn’t free like it is with several IONOS competitors.
IONOS doesn’t have a free version but offers affordable paid versions that come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The tiers include Essential, Starter, Plus and Ultimate, starting from $4 per month, with a renewal rate of $6 per month. Its best-selling plan is Plus, with a starting price of $1 per month and a renewal rate of $12 per month.
Web hosting is simply purchasing or renting space for your website files to live on the World Wide Web. These files are uploaded from a local computer to a web server, where resources like RAM, bandwidth and hard drive space are allocated to your site. There are different types of servers, including:
The main types of hosting companies available cater to enterprise-level businesses, medium-to-large companies, small businesses and even personal websites. In this article, we focus on the best web hosting for small businesses.
Our article on the best small business servers has more in-depth information.
To choose the best web hosting sites for a small business, consider factors like uptime, storage, bandwidth, customer support reliability, security features and the domains offered. You should also look for providers that offer frequent backups. Read on to learn about the essential features to consider:
The cost of web hosting for a small business will vary depending on the type of hosting you choose and the features it offers. For instance, shared hosting is a beginner-friendly option since it’s much cheaper than the other options.
The amount of time you commit to the service may also dictate the cost of the service. The longer the subscription period, the cheaper it should be. Here’s a breakdown of what it costs to use various HostGator hosting options.
The price of hosting will also depend on the specs and features you choose for your business.
Yes, you can find free website hosting for small business. Providers like Weebly, Wix and WordPress let you create a website with the basics, such as a free SSL certificate, a domain name, and limited storage and bandwidth. The downside to free hosting is that you only have access to a limited set of features and will need to purchase paid plans as your business grows.
Different kinds of web hosting solutions cater to various online business needs. Let’s take a closer look at them.
Bluehost and A2 Web came highly recommended on reddit as the best web hosting services. Bluehost is both affordable and easy to use, while A2 excels in customer service and SSD LiteSpeed server speed. DreamHost was reported to be a great e-commerce host for the first few years of use, after which the prices hiked a bit too frequently for the reviewer’s comfort.
GoDaddy received several negative reviews from users who claimed it was expensive upon renewal, with many suggested add-ons at checkout. Double-check before purchasing any plans to avoid paying for unnecessary add-ons.
The best web hosting for small business is affordable and offers all the features you need to get started. It should have features such as business emails and SSL certificates; significant storage, bandwidth and loading speeds; and frequent backups to safeguard your site data.
HostGator is our top choice for small business hosting because it’s beginner-friendly and affordable, with reliable uptime and both Windows and Linux servers. You also get 24/7 customer support no matter which plan you’re using.
Do you use any of the hosting providers on this list? Which is your top choice and why? Let us know in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading.
The best web hosting for small business is HostGator. It is beginner-friendly and affordable, with reliable uptime and both Windows and Linux servers.
Choose a website host that caters to your specific business needs. For instance, if you run an e-commerce site, choose one that offers content management and marketing tools to help boost your business. A photographer will need a provider offering ample storage and bandwidth capacities.
Shared hosting is best for beginners because it is cheaper and provides basic features to help you get started.
Shared hosting is best for startups since it is easy to use and more affordable than other hosting types.
Sources:
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3 thoughts on “10 Best Web Hosting for Small Business: Top Services in 2024”
Pretty great article with all major shared hosting sites :).
Thanks for your work!
Great and in-depth article. This will help a lot to others who actually want to avoid self researching when considering a good web host.
I am getting bounce back from my emails. Fatcow my host is not helpful in solving the problem and says it is not their problem. Does Fatcow have a bounce back problem? Am getting inbound messages, but often bounce back from out bound emails. Microsoft Outlook says all is working. How do I solve this problem. Should I change Hosts?
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