Searching for the best WooCommerce hosting?
If you want to make your WooCommerce store successful, it’s essential that you choose the right hosting. Good WooCommerce hosting will ensure your store is always available to shoppers, its data is safe, and your store always loads quickly (which has a huge effect on your shoppers’ experiences).
While you can host WooCommerce on any WordPress hosting provider, choosing dedicated WooCommerce hosting can make a better option because the host implements WooCommerce-specific optimizations and sometimes even offers bundled WooCommerce extensions at no extra cost.
In this post, I’ll explain a little bit more about what WooCommerce hosting is and then share the four best WooCommerce hosts for all budgets.
What Is WooCommerce Hosting?
As the name suggests, WooCommerce hosting is just WordPress hosting that’s optimized for WooCommerce.
How “optimized” it is depends on the host.
There are usually two types of optimizations you’ll find.
First, there are optimizations to the tech/infrastructure. For example, if your host offers built-in caching, they’ll automatically configure it to work with WooCommerce (because you need to exclude certain WooCommerce pages from being cached). Some hosts also go further and implement tweaks like adding custom database tables for your WooCommerce data, which can improve performance on large stores.
Or, you might get an Elasticsearch add-on to improve eCommerce search performance – there are a lot of little tech tweaks you can implement to better optimize WordPress for WooCommerce.
Of course, you’ll also get all the important “standard” features such as:
- SSL certificates
- Backups
- Staging sites
- Etc.
The second type of optimization is getting access to new features or WooCommerce extensions as part of the price. For example, some hosts offer official premium WooCommerce plugins such as WooCommerce Subscriptions at no extra cost.
Or, you might get third-party premium plugins/themes/tools, such as IconicWP’s plugins, the Astra Pro theme, or Jilt for eCommerce email marketing.
Because WooCommerce extensions can be expensive, this can actually save you a lot of money. For example, WooCommerce Subscriptions alone costs $199 per year, so getting this plugin for free is a big savings.
Pros and Cons of WooCommerce Hosting
Again, you can just use any WordPress hosting provider for WooCommerce, so what are some of the specific advantages of choosing WooCommerce hosting over regular WordPress hosting?
- Performance – WooCommerce hosting is specifically optimized for WooCommerce, which requires some unique tweaks vs regular WordPress optimization.
- Security – WooCommerce hosts offer security features like firewalls, SSL certificates, malware scans, etc. These sometimes go above-and-beyond with WooCommerce-specific rules.
- Data integrity – WooCommerce hosts offer automatic backup policies and some even let you update more frequently than once per day (which is important for WooCommerce stores).
- Features – some WooCommerce hosts give you free access to premium tools and plugins to help your store.
- Support – you’ll usually get access to support staff who understand WooCommerce.
If you’re only hosting WooCommerce stores, there aren’t really any “cons” to WooCommerce hosting when it comes to features. The only “con” is that you’ll usually pay a little more than generic WordPress hosting.
However, if you’re serious about making your store a success, it makes sense to invest money into its hosting, so this isn’t a big issue.
Four Best WooCommerce Hosting Providers
Now, let’s get to the hosts – here are the four best WooCommerce hosting providers for stores of all budgets…
1. SiteGround
SiteGround is a popular shared WordPress host that makes a great option for WooCommerce hosting on a budget. While SiteGround does have a dedicated landing page for “managed WooCommerce hosting”, it’s really the exact same product as their regular managed WordPress hosting.
That’s not a criticism, though, because SiteGround’s regular plans still give you lots of useful features for WooCommerce stores:
- WordPress/WooCommerce installer tool
- Free SSL certificates
- Server-level caching that’s pre-configured for WooCommerce (excluding the cheapest plan)
- Automatic and on-demand backups
- Staging sites
- Automatic updates for WordPress and WooCommerce
- Custom web application firewall (WAF) to protect your store
SiteGround’s promotional prices start at $6.99 per month for the StartUp plan. However, for a WooCommerce store, I would recommend going with at least the $9.99 GrowBig plan and ideally the $14.99 GoGeek plan.
Overall, SiteGround is probably not the best host for a high-traffic, established store (try another option on this list like Liquid Web or Kinsta). However, if you’re just getting started with your store, it’s got everything you need for an affordable price.
Read our SiteGround review to learn more.
2. Bluehost
Bluehost is probably best known for its cheap shared hosting plans, but the Bluehost team also offers dedicated WooCommerce hosting options that are still pretty affordable (though not nearly as cheap as the shared plans).
One of the nice things about Bluehost’s WooCommerce plans is that, on the higher-tier plan, it also gives you access to some useful WooCommerce plugins including:
- WooCommerce Bookings
- WooCommerce Subscriptions
- WooCommerce Product Add-ons
- Jetpack Premium
These are pretty pricey extensions by themselves so, if you’ll use them, this adds a lot of value.
Bluehost’s WooCommerce plans also include:
- Free SSL certificates
- Multiple caching layers, pre-configured to work with WoOCommerce
- Free domain name
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Pre-installed WooCommerce
- Two-hour kickstart call with support to talk you through setting up your store, which is nice if you’re a total newbie
Bluehost has two WooCommerce hosting plans:
- Standard – just basic WooCommerce hosting with none of the add-ons. From $15.95 per month with a long contract or $29.95 with month-to-month billing.
- Premium – includes all of the add-ons that I mentioned above. From $24.95 per month with a long contract or $49.95 with month-to-month billing.
Both plans do let you host multiple stores. However, the Premium plan only includes licenses for its premium add-ons for a single store.
Check out Bluehost WooCommerce plans
3. Liquid Web
Liquid Web is an especially interesting WooCommerce hosting provider because it goes way beyond just hosting and also provides you with lots of other tools and plugins to make your store successful.
Depending on your plan, here are some of the premium add-ons that you get at no extra cost:
Some of these are really quality tools that are useful for all stores, so this really does add value to the product.
Of course, the most important thing is still the hosting itself. Liquid Web does a good job there too with useful features for performance and management:
- Built-in content delivery network (CDN)
- Automatic nightly backups
- One-click staging sites
- Automatic image optimization
- Custom WooCommerce tables for improved performance (only on higher-tier plans)
- Automatic scaling to handle traffic spikes
Another unique thing about Liquid Web’s WooCommerce hosting is its pricing, which is based on how many orders your store gets (along with which premium features you want). Plans start at just $19 per month for:
- 1 store
- 30 GB storage
- 3 TB bandwidth
- Max 500 orders per hour
Prices go up from there for increased resources and more features. You can test it out with a free 14-day trial.
Note – Liquid Web technically offers its managed WooCommerce hosting plans via its Nexcess subsidiary. So, you’ll find the same plans on both the Liquid Web and Nexcess websites. Don’t be confused – it’s the exact same product.
4. Kinsta
Kinsta is a premium managed WordPress host that makes a great option for WooCommerce stores thanks to its performance-optimized architecture that’s powered by Google Cloud and Nginx.
Basically, your store will load quickly, which is essential for WooCommerce stores as load time can affect conversion rates. You’ll also get security and management features to help keep your store and its data secure.
In total, here are some of the features that make Kinsta great for WooCommerce:
- Server-level caching that’s pre-configured for WooCommerce
- Auto-scaling to handle traffic spikes
- Free SSL certificates
- Web application firewall (WAF), malware scans, and other security features
- Automatic daily backups, including an option to increase backup frequency to hourly for an extra fee
- Elasticsearch add-on (great for product search, especially if your store has lots of products)
- 24 global data centers, which is great for international stores
Kinsta’s plans start at $30 per month. However, for a WooCommerce store, Kinsta recommends at least the $100 per month Business 1 plan which offers:
- 5 WordPress installs
- 100,000 monthly visits
- 30 GB storage
- 200 GB CDN bandwidth
That doesn’t mean you can’t run your store on a lower plan – Kinsta just doesn’t recommend it, especially for a high-traffic store. You can learn why in this blog post.
Read my full Kinsta review to learn more about this host.
Launch Your WooCommerce Store Today
If you’re creating a WooCommerce store, using dedicated WooCommerce hosting is a great way to get access to useful features and make sure your store loads quickly/reliably.
When you’re just getting started, using an affordable option such as SiteGround can make sense. However, as your store grows, you might want to consider a more premium provider such as Liquid Web or Kinsta.
Do you have any questions about choosing the best WooCommerce hosting for your store? Ask in the comments!
Keep reading the article at ShoutMeLoud. The article was originally written by Harsh Agrawal on 2021-01-28 04:34:26.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.