Vendor Evaluation:
WordPress
Hosting Providers
Business Plans – 2025
Looking for the Best WordPress Hosting Providers?
We evaluated seven top vendors offering “Business” tier hosting plans; comparing performance, uptime, security features, storage limits, monthly visits, and six-year cost projections to find the best WordPress hosting. Whether you’re running a personal blog or a high-traffic business site, this detailed comparison will help you choose the best hosting provider for your needs.
Which Vendors were Evaluated?
We evaluated these seven WordPress web hosting vendors based on their equivalent “Business” pricing tier offering.
- Bluehost / Business Plan
- DreamHost / DreamPress Plan
- Hostinger / Business Plan
- Pressable / Signature 2 Plan
- SiteGround / GrowBig Plan
- WordPress.com / Business Plan
- WP Engine / Essential Scale Plan
Each vendor has at least three hosting plans, including a Beginner, Business and Enterprise tier.
Functional Requirements
All web hosting vendors for this evaluation were chosen because they supported the WordPress ecosystem.
This includes the ability to import and export WordPress sites for a migration between web hosting providers.
Costs vs. Quality Rankings
Hostinger offers the lowest hosting costs. The lower the cost fees the higher the Cost Score.
Bluehost achieved the “Goldilocks Zone” with an optimal balance between cost and tech quality.
WordPress.com scored the highest for Tech Quality, uniquely offering unlimited visits per month. Other vendors capped visits per month at various levels in their “Business” plan.
Technical Fit/Gap
Analysis
We collected information from the vendors’ websites as the basis for this fit/gap analysis. In some cases, if no information about a technical or quality requirement could be found, then that requirement was also flagged as a gap.
🟢 = FIT 🛑 = GAP
| Criteria | Baseline Scoring | WordPress .com | Pressable | Bluehost | Hostinger | Site Ground | DreamHost | WP Engine |
| Storage (GB) | 50 | 50 | 30 | 50 | 50 | 20 | 30 | 50 |
| Visits / Month | 50K | Unlimited | 50K | 200K | 100K | 100K | 100K | 400K |
| 24/7 Support | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Global CDN | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Server Failover | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| 99.9% Uptime | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| 99.99% Uptime | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 |
| 99.999% Uptime | Nice to Have | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 |
| SSL Cert | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Backup Weekly | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Backup Daily | Nice to Have | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Backup On Demand | Nice to Have | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| WAF | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Admin Login Security | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Staging Site | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| DDoS Security | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Malware Scanning | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Malware Detection & Removal | CRITICAL | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🛑 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| Supports WP Multisite | Nice to Have | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🛑 | 🟢 |
Cost Analysis:
Six-Year Hosting
The costs are evaluated on a six-year web hosting lifecycle due to discounted pricing offered over various times such as three months, one year, three years and four years.
If affordable web hosting is your top priority…
- Hostinger and Bluehost respectively ranked the lowest costs as they both offered multi-year discounts.
- DreamHost is the third lowest cost of the vendors evaluated, offering a one year discount.
- WordPress.com is the middle-ground in average yearly costs. They do not offer any discounts.
- While SiteGround offers a first year discount to be competitive to Hostinger and Bluehost, their subsequent yearly costs were greater than WordPress.com.
- Pressable offers a 3 month discount which was still higher than the hosting rates of the previous five vendors.
- WP Engine is not featured on the graph due to its high costs. The specific plan chosen provided the baseline 50 GB of storage. Lower rate plans from WP Engine are available with different specifications that might fit your needs.
WordPress Hosting Cost Details
| Vendor Hosting Plan | Cost Details | Six Year Total Cost | Average Cost/Year |
| Bluehost Business Plan | $6.99/month for the first 3 years with a three year commitment. Costs are paid up front in the first year. $13.99/month upon renewal date after the first 3 years. | $755.28 | $125.88 |
| DreamHost DreamPress Plan | $16.95/month for the first year then $19.99/month. | $1,402.80 | $233.80 |
| Hostinger Business Plan | $3.79/month for the first 4 years with a four year commitment. Costs are paid up front in the first year. $13.99/month upon renewal date after the first 4 years. | $517.68 | $86.28 |
| Pressable Signature 2 Plan | $22.50/month for the first 3 months in the first year and then $45/month. | $3,172.50 | $528.75 |
| SiteGround GrowBig Plan | $4.99/month for the first year then $29.99/month | $1,859.28 | $309.88 |
| WordPress.com Business Plan | $25/month | $1,800.00 | $300.00 |
| WP Engine Essential Scale Plan | $242/month based on a plan that offers 50GB storage. **Lower costs plans are available if your storage needs are lower. | $17,424.00 | $2,904.00 |
Hosting Vendors
Evaluation Date: September, 2025
Before making a hosting decision please review the vendors’ latest rates and information.
Bluehost
- Ideal balance between cost and Tech quality
- Competitive pricing with three year discount
- 200,000 monthly visits
Dreamhost
- Third-best competitive pricing with a first year discount
- 100,000 monthly visits
Hostinger
- Best competitive pricing with a four year discount
- 100,000 monthly visits
Pressable
- Discounted pricing for first three months
- 50,000 monthly visits
SiteGround
- Competitive pricing for the first year
- Possible match if not needing 50 GB storage
- 100,000 monthly visits
WordPress.com
- Best score for Tech quality
- Unlimited monthly visits
- Commercial side of open source WordPress.org
WP Engine
- Strong ranking in Tech Quality
- Their business plan has sub tiers to explore
- 400,000 monthly visits
Important to Know:
This is an independent evaluation report. To be fully transparent, some links may be affiliate links. This helps us fund future objective evaluations. We appreciate your support.