If you're using WordPress to design and manage the content of your business website, and it gets a lot of traffic, you may want to consider putting it on a managed hosting service that's specially configured for WordPress. Most plans sold by the major hosting companies are shared web hosting: Your site shares the resources of the hosting company's servers (such as bandwidth, CPU and storage space) with other sites owned by other user accounts. In a managed hosting setup, you pay more to have a server's resources assigned only to your site, to optimize your site's performance and for it to handle traffic load better. Some of the major U.S. hosting companies sell managed hosting plans already set up for WordPress. Here we look at such companies, and among them, Bluehost sells managed hosting plans for WordPress sites that come with a lot of features and tools.
Best Deal Overall: Bluehost
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Bluehost sells three managed WordPress hosting plans named Build, Grow, and Scale. All come with daily backup, no limit on the amount of visitor traffic that your WordPress site may get, malware protection, SSL certificate, and unlimited web storage on SSD. Also, there's no restriction on the number of domains and websites that can be hosted on any of them. For email, one Microsoft Office 365 Mailbox is included, but after 30 days you'll have to pay extra to continue using it.
Bluehost provides hundreds of WordPress themes that you can start with to build your site. And to manage its online marketing, you get a dashboard that lets you control and track SEO, social media and traffic sources, and send out your site's content to Facebook or Twitter.
The main differences among these three plans boil down to extra tools a more expensive plan has. For example: Grow, and Scale come with SEO tools, and Scale lets you do an unlimited number of backups of your sites.
Price Specifics: When you prepay for one year, the Build plan is $24.95 per month. Grow is $34.95 per month. Scale is $51.95 per month. Plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days.
Best with Website Builder: DreamHost
DreamHost sells three professional level WordPress hosting plans named DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro. The significant differences among these three are the web storage amounts for each, and the recommended number of visits per month that each plan is optimized for: DreamPress comes with 30 GB of storage on SSD, and is recommended for around 100,000 visits. DreamPress Plus has 60GB on SSD and is for about 300,000 visits, and DreamPress Pro has 120GB on SSD and is for a WordPress site that gets about one million visits per month.
All three of these plans include daily backup, drag-and-drop website builder, email accounts, registration for a new domain for one year, SSL certificate, and unmetered bandwidth. DreamPress Plus and DreamPress Pro also come with malware protection. But each of these three plans can only host one WordPress site.
Price Specifics: When you prepay for one year, the DreamPress plan is $16.95 per month. DreamPress Plus is $24.95 per month. DreamPress Pro is $71.95 per month. Plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days.
Best with Unlimited Databases & Email: A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting sells three managed hosting plans for WordPress sites called 1-Site, 3-Sites, and Unlimited. Conveniently, these names correspond with the number of websites that each plan can host. The other difference among them is the server configuration and amount of web storage you get with each: 1-Site runs on a 2-core 2.4GHz CPU with 2GB RAM and 10 GB on SSD. 3-Sites runs a 3-core 2.4GHz CPU with 3GB RAM and 25GB SSD. And Unlimited runs 4-core 2.4GHz CPU with 4GB RAM and 40GB SSD. There are no listed limits on the amount of visitor traffic that a website can have.
These plans share the following features: daily backup of your website, SSL certificate, and an unlimited number of databases and email addresses.
Price Specifics: When you prepay for one year, the 1-Site plan is $11.40 per month. The 3-Sites plan is $20.38 per month. The Unlimited plan is $31.81 per month. Plans come with an anytime money-back guarantee.
Best with Multiple Websites Manager: Liquid Web
The four managed hosting plans by Liquid Web that are configured for WordPress sites are called Personal, Freelance, Professional, and Business. Personal comes with 20 GB of storage on SSD and permits only one website to be hosted on it. Freelance has 40GB storage on SSD and allows up to 4 websites. Professional has 100GB SSD and can host up to 10 sites. Business has 150GB SSD and can host up to 25 sites. These last three plans include a tool (iThemes Sync) that lets you manage multiple WordPress sites from a dashboard.
Otherwise, all four plans share the following features: 5 TB of bandwidth, daily backup of your site, and SSL certificate. Separately from the allotted bandwidth, Liquid Web also does not put a limit on the number of visits your WordPress sites may get when it's hosted on any of these four plans.
Price Specifics: When you prepay for one year, the Personal plan is $24.17 per month. The Freelance plan is $57.50 per month. Professional is $82.50 per month. Business is $124.17 per month. As for a money-back guarantee, Liquid Web states on their site: "If you discover within a few days that we're simply not right for you, contact our support team and we will refund your monthly investment."
Best with Cloud Servers: 1&1 IONOS
1&1 IONOS sells three WordPress hosting plans designed for professional use that are named One, Advanced, and Agency. The company uses cloud servers to host your WordPress site to ensure its optimal performance. (In cloud hosting, your website's data is spread across multiple servers, and a set number of CPUs and RAM in the servers are assigned to run your site.)
The One plan runs on a virtual server configuration with a single-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and 10 GB of storage on SSD. The Advanced plan runs on a virtual configuration with a 2-core CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and 40 GB of storage on SSD. The Agency plan runs on a virtual configuration with a 6-core CPU, 10 GB of RAM, and 100 GB of storage on SSD. All three of these plans include daily backup, email accounts, registration for a new domain for one year, SSL certificate, and unlimited bandwidth.
The differences among these plans: The One and Advanced plans can host only one WordPress site, while Agency can host up to ten. Agency and Advanced get malware protection, and Agency includes SEO tools to help improve your WordPress site's rankings in Google.
Price Specifics: When you prepay for one year, the One plan is $15 per month. Advanced is $40 per month. Agency is $100 monthly. These plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days.
Bottom line
If your WordPress site is getting a lot of visits, or you're planning to start a new one that you anticipate will experience heavy traffic, a managed hosting plan can optimize your site's performance by assigning a server's resources to it. Additionally, some of the major U.S. hosting companies sell managed hosting plans already configured for WordPress.
Bluehost's three such plans have a lot of features: daily backup of your site, no limit on visitor traffic, malware protection, SSL certificate, and unlimited web storage on SSD. You can also use these plans to host an unlimited number of domains and WordPress sites. If you're using your WordPress for business, an included dashboard tool can help you manage your site's online marketing.
