Best web hosting for small business sites

Your business website is the first point of contact for most of your customers. It needs to be accessible at all times. Any website downtime is equivalent to having the front shutters of a brick and mortar store down on a busy shopping day.

And to avoid that, you need to choose the best web hosting provider for small business – one that’s going to offer you quality service and unrivalled reliability at an affordable price. Your hosting provider can also provide additional benefits, such as a business email address for you and any of your employees, using your website domain.

But with more than 330,000 web hosting companies in the world, how do you know which is the right one for you?

Don’t worry, we’ve done the hard work for you.

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BEST ALL ROUND
Overall score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.6	Overall score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.5	Overall score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.5	Overall score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.0	Overall score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.0
Best Overall hosting provider	Best For shared and VPS hosting	Best For Up Time Performance	Best Value for money	Best For customer service
Cost Starting from £2.33 per month	Cost $9.49 $2.99/mo*	Cost $11.95 per month	Cost £2.59	Cost $1.59 – 2.59 per month
Visit Try Bluehost	Visit Try InMotion	Visit Try HostGator	Visit Hostinger	Visit Try A2 Hosting

But to help you find the absolutely best fit for your business, we’ve dug a little deeper.

Tested on the five key metrics that matter most to our audience – disk space, help and support, uptime, pricing, features – below is our pick of the five top web hosting sites for small businesses.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is an online service that makes your website’s content accessible on the internet. Essentially, it’s like renting real estate on the internet so that you can have a physical server to store all your website’s files and data.

It’s important to have a web host because it gives you the technology and resources you need for an effective and secure operation of your website. They make sure your server is up and running, implementing hosting security measures, and guaranteeing that all your media and text can appear as it should on visitors’ browsers.

Bluehost: Best overall hosting provider

4.6 out of 5

• Types of hosting
  4.5
• Help and support
  5
• Features
  4
• Value for money
  4.4
• Up time performance
  4

Get Bluehost now

Since it was founded in 2003, Bluehost has supported more than two million business websites. 

It offers a comprehensive set of tools and a great range of web hosting packages to help its small business customers make the most of their online presence.

But Bluehost’s WordPress offering is where it really shines. A recommended partner since 2005, all of its affordable plans include automatic WordPress installation and updates, Microsoft Office 365, a free domain name for a year, and verification on Google My Business.

And, for those with more demanding needs, Bluehost’s WP Pro plans include unlimited websites, domains, and storage, as well as the SEO, analytics, and marketing tools you need to build and grow a WordPress website.

Need ecommerce functionality? Bluehost has partnered with WooCommerce to allow you to create an online store with shopping carts, inventory management, and PayPal processing.

However, Bluehost has no other ecommerce-specific plugin. This means you’ll have to choose a shared or VPS plan, sort out your own shopping cart functionality, and update the software yourself. Other providers that offer dedicated ecommerce packages will update your software automatically. 

We named Bluehost as our best overall hosting provider as it scores highly across the board, and all for a very reasonable price.

Bluehost pricing

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Basic	Plus	Choice Plus	Pro
Price  £2.33 per month	Price £4.31 per month	Price £4.31 per month	Price £11.03 per month
Features Free domain for your first year Free SSL for your first year Free CDN enabled Free WordPress migration tool	Features Can host 2 websites Capped at 50k visits per month 20GB of SSD storage Email marketing	Features Host 3 websites 40GB of SSD web storage Daily website backup for the first year Performance insights	Features Host 5 websites 100GB SSD web storage Daily website backup Client invoicing

Check out Bluehost's Hosting plans Try Bluehost

InMotion: Best for shared and VPS hosting

4.5 out of 5

• Types of hosting
  5
• Help and support
  5
• Features
  5
• Value for money
  4.3
• Uptime performance
  3.5

Get InMotion now

Starting from £5.15/month and going right the way up to a staggering £424/month, InMotion is a little pricier than the previous two hosting providers we’ve covered.

So, what are you paying for?

Well, it comes with all the top-of-the-range features you’d expect from a top hosting provider, and it gives you unlimited disk space and bandwidth on even its basic plans. We were also impressed with its team of highly trained support staff – on hand 24/7 should anything go wrong.

But the provider’s main strengths are its speed and security. It uses industry leading tech to maintain a fast service from its two dedicated data centres, while security features include auto-updates on web apps, free SSL, hack protection, custom firewall, and DDoS protection.

Lending credence to InMotion’s claims is its 17-year tenure as a CNET certified company, and an A+ rating from consumer protection agency the Better Business Bureau. And if that’s not enough to give you peace of mind, the hosting provider offers a 90-day money-back guarantee.

The only area we marked it down for was uptime, ranking it fourth out of our top five providers. In the grand scheme of things, it still has industry leading reliability, but doesn’t quite match the likes of HostGator (no.1 for uptime) or Bluehost.

InMotion pricing

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VPS

Cost $14.99-44.99 per month

Features Resource monitoring dashboard  for RAM, bandwidth and local usage Ecommerce optimised Instantly roll back to another version of your server

Visit Try VPS

Check out all InMotion's hosting plans Visit site

*Shared and VPS are for a 2 year plan, Dedicated is for 1 year. Pricing in dollars but available to UK customers. 

HostGator: Best for customer service

4.5 out of 5

• Types of hosting
  5
• Help and support
  5
• Features
  3.5
• Value for money
  3.5
• Up time performance
  4.5

Get HostGator now

Owned by Endurance International Group, which also owns Bluehost, HostGator is another long-running and widely-used hosting provider, supporting over 8 million domains worldwide.

Ease of use is a major selling point for HostGator. Its QuickInstall tool is available with all plans, allowing you to create any type of website – blog, forum, CMS, wiki, gallery, ecommerce – in “one click”, with thousands of compatible applications and software available.

HostGator’s WordPress offering is decent, with free migrations and advanced security available on all plans. What’s more, it claims to boost WordPress load times and website performance by 2.5x thanks to its “super charged cloud architecture”. It doesn’t quite have the depth of features as it’s nearest rivals, but we gave it full marks for help and support, making it our best provider for customer service.

Prices are comparable to Bluehost, and Hostgator offers a generous 45-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with its service. But, as our top rated provider for uptime (with a 99.99% guarantee), and the ability to easily scale up to a more sophisticated plan, that’s unlikely.

HostGator pricing

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Shared	VPS	Dedicated
Cost $11.95-17.95 per month	Cost $19.95-149.95 per month	Cost $179 – 289 per month
Features Free 1 year domain registration One-click WordPress installs Free HostGator website builder	Features Flexible software – your choice of CMS Host unlimited domains and create unlimited emails addresses Weekly backups of your server data	Features Hosted on Tier 3 data centre Full control over your server configuration 24/7/365 support
Visit Try Shared	Visit Try VPS	Visit Try Dedicated

Check out all HostGator's plans for businesses Visit site

*Pricing in dollars but available to UK customers. 

Hostinger: Best for Uptime Performance

4 out of 5

• Types of hosting
  5
• Help and support
  2.3
• Features
  5
• Values for money
  4.9
• Uptime
  3.5

Try Hostinger

If you’re after simplicity and affordability, Hostinger is the hosting provider for you (and an astonishing 29 million other customers around the world).

Starting from just £2.59, Hostinger prides itself on its cheap but speedy plans, and user-friendly system.

Obviously, you’re sacrificing the functionality you’d get with a more premium product, but if you just want to get up and running, then Hostinger is a great option. However, it was the only one of our top five providers not to score top marks for help and support, and its uptime isn’t as reliable as rivals.

True to form, it also offers the cheapest WordPress hosting on the market at £2.59/month for the first term, which includes 100GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, and a free domain and SSL.

And if you don’t think Hostinger good value, it offers a 30 day money-back guarantee.

Hostinger pricing

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Premium Hosting	Business	Cloud Startup
Cost £2.59 per month	Cost £3.99 per month	Cost £8.99 per month
Features Up to 100 websites per account 100GB SSD storage Free domain Free 1-click WordPress installation	Features 200GB NVMe storage Free CDN Optimised for WooCommerce WordPress AI tools	Features Up to 300 websites per account Dedicated IP address Unlimited free SSL For advanced WooCommerce
Visit Try Hostinger	Visit Try Hostinger	Visit Try Hostinger

Check out all Hostinger's plans Visit site

A2Hosting: Best for customer service

4 out of 5

• Types of hosting
  5
• Help and support
  5
• Features
  3.5
• Value for money
  4.2
• Uptime performance
  2.5

Get A2 Hosting now

Don’t let its unappealing website put you off, A2Hosting is a premium provider that has been supporting business websites since 2003.

A2 promises that each hosting solution is automatically given the optimal configuration for your website, so you don’t need to worry about understanding all the jargon to know you’re getting the best setup. But, if you do need help, A2’s highly experienced “Guru Crew” are on hand 24/7.

In terms of bang for your buck, its WordPress offering is right up there, with automatic updates for software and plugins, free site migration, and a turbo server which A2 claims make your website 20x faster (we can’t independently verify this).

That said, compared to Bluehost and HostGator, A2’s plans are a little on the pricey side. And, unlike most other hosting providers, you don’t get a free domain and website builder, but it does offer one-click installs of essential content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WooCommerce for setting up an online shop.

What if you’re not satisfied with your A2 Hosting plan? Well, A2 comes with an unmatched anytime money back guarantee.

A2Hosting pricing

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A2 Hosting	WordPress	VPS	Dedicated
Cost £4.50 – £8.23 per month	Cost £6.73 – £25.46 per month	Cost £34.45 – £74.89 per month	Cost £149.80 – £449.40 per month
Features Turbo servers 99.9% uptime commitment Patchman enhanced security tool	Features Free SSL certificate On and offsite backups Free site migration	Features Managed hardware and network cPanel control panel 24/7/365 guru crew support	Features Turbo CPU Daily automatic and rebootless updates Managed installs/upgrades of core software
Visit Try Shared	Visit Try WordPress	Visit Try VPS	Visit Try Dedicated

Check out all A2 Hosting's plans Visit site

* Pricing in dollars but available to UK customers. 

How did we evaluate these providers for small businesses?

In order to determine the best web hosting services for small business, we called upon the services of our top researchers, who put each provider through rigorous user testing.

The suppliers were scored on five key areas of investigation – types of hosting, help and support, features, value for money, and uptime – the average of which was used to give each an overall score out of five. These areas had different weightings depending on how important they were to users.

For example, value for money is key – anything that’s going to provide someone with guaranteed uptime at a competitive price is on to a winner.

The importance of help and support was also a surprise insight when speaking with users. They want to know that they can get in touch with someone if they encounter an issue. In fact, most users said they prized help and support more than the general hosting features offered by the provider.

Equipped with our insights from our first-hand research, you should feel ready to choose the right website hosting service for you. Our favourite is Bluehost, so you can start there if you’re convinced by its offering.

Still unsure? Get in touch with one of the providers. You can tell them what functionality you require, how much traffic you’re likely to receive, and how much you’re willing to spend, and they can match you up with the most suitable plan.