A website is a must today for a number of reasons, but the most important of all is the fact that consumers shop or search for products and services online. As a business you do not want to miss that for sure.
For small businesses, it is even more important as the internet is a level playing field. The consumer can find you and strike a deal, based on how compelling your offer is.
As we know, small businesses have limited resources when compared to the large business organisations. We understand the needs and requirements of a small business and therefore we have a comparative analysis to find out the best web hosting for you.
The best web hosting for small business is one which covers all the needs and requirements of the business. The perfect strike of balance between price, features and performance. This is offered by Hostinger, SiteGround and Bluehost.
Let’s see which one stands out as the best web hosting for small business.
Table of Contents
Best Web Hosting For Small Business
The best small business web hosting is the one which strikes a perfect balance between Price, Performance and Features.
We see that Hostinger, Bluehost and Siteground, all of them are amazing web hosts. They are amazing at pricing, performance and have awesome features. On comparing these three, we conclude the best web hosting for small business as follows;
- Hostinger
- Bluehost
- SiteGround
#1 Hostinger
The best value for money web hosting for small business. It is economically priced with amazing features. The most astonishing is the performance of the web host at such a low price.
It is the best priced and packed with best features for hosting your website. It just came second to Bluehost in performance with a difference of just 10 milliseconds, which is as good as nothing.
All the necessary features, that helps a business grow and expand are covered in the plans offered. You are more likely to find a plan suiting all your needs perfectly on Hostinger.
Best price, amazing features and astonishing performance, all packed in Hostinger.
#2 Bluehost
Bluehost, one of the most popular names in web hosting. It has amazing performance superiority and is the fastest web host amongst the three.
If you are a small business looking to expand more than just the website, then Bluehost is the web host for you. They have a ton of marketing features that can help build traffic and disperse content on social media etc. Complete marketing focused solutions to help you expand and grow.
It is a bit higher on the pricing side compared to Hostinger and has amazing features for a small business to use. It offers a complete set of marketing features that can help you grow your website.
The potential of features with Bluehost is wide, but on seeing only the necessary requirements, it is placed as second.
Bluehost does have a higher price but has the correct mix of features and is the best when comes to performance. With these, Bluehost comes as second in the list.
#3 SiteGround
SiteGround comes third on the list. SiteGround actually stands as the third choice under all the parameters.
They are priced higher than Hostinger and Bluehost but in terms of performance and features, it is has given just a bleak margin. For performance, SiteGround still stands out as the best compared to many other web hosting providers.
The recent price hike in SiteGround has made it more expensive. It has amazing features and performance level. The difference is just a few milliseconds in comparison from Hostinger and Bluehost.
Pricing
In pricing, we will see how the web hosts are priced against each other and the benefits provided in that price.
For a small business, this is very important. The amount of money you will be paying for web hosting and we want you make an informed choice. The ideal scenario is to find the best value for money web host.
Overview
The table shows the price range of Hostinger, SiteGround and Bluehost for all the plans they offer
| Overall (Min to Max) | |
| Hostinger | $0.99 to $250.00 |
| SiteGround | $6.99 to $2100.00 |
| Bluehost | $3.95 to $119.99 |
| Shared Hosting | |
| Hostinger | $0.99 to $3.99 |
| SiteGround | $6.99 to $14.99 |
| Bluehost | $3.95 to $13.95 |
| Cloud Hosting | |
| Hostinger | $7.45 to $37.00 |
| SiteGround | $80.00 to $2100.00 |
| Bluehost – VPS | $19.99 to $59.99 |
Ranks Based on Pricing |
On the basis of pricing, Hostinger stands the champion. Neither Bluehost nor SiteGround come close in terms of pricing.
Price of the plan is what you pay but it needs to be justified by performance and features. Therefore, to declare the best web hosting for small business, pricing is not enough, we also have to consider performance and features.
Performance
A web host that does not meet the performance standards, is of no use. You definitely want your website to load quickly and be available to visitors all the time. This however does not happen in all the cases.
Performance of your website, on a larger base, depends on your web hosting. Therefore, we will be comparing the web hosts against each other.
To compete with the large business organisations, this is one area where the small businesses should not compromise. Understanding the needs of a small business, the following parameters are vital for them.
Overview
A small business should not miss on Up Time, Load Time and Customer Service.
Up Time – Total time the website was live on the internet. Which means, the visitor was able to access the website. You would always want the website to be accessible whenever a visitor comes, but this is generally not the case. The servers do have a downtime for maintenance.
Load Time – Total time required to load the website for the visitor. This is crucial as Google study shows, 53% of users leave if the website does not load within 3 seconds.
Customer Service – This is very important. It will never be that you do not face any problems with the server or the website. The response time and the time in which the issue gets solved is really important.
| Up Time | Load Time | Customer Service | |
| Hostinger | 99.99% | 420 MS | Under 5 Mins |
| Bluehost | 99.99% | 410 MS | Under 5 Mins |
| SiteGround | 99.99% | 649 MS | Under 5 Mins |
*Load Time – Calculated on loading an empty wordpress website
*Customer Service – Average time taken to solve the issue
Ranks Based on Performance |
All the three web hosts are world renowned and that is also visible in the performance. It is clearly visible that they are all amazing in performance. Very close competition and the ranks are differing on just the difference of a few milliseconds.
With performance, the last important thing is features. The features offered by the web hosting companies in comparison to the prices and performance.
Features
For a small business, it is important to know the price and performance level of a web host. It is also important to know what benefits or features do also come along with the web host plan.
A small business needs more than just being able to host and run a website. It needs email service, SSL Certificate, Content Delivery Network (CDN) and much more.
These features are not compulsory, but they give a soft push which helps the website and business in a big way. To an extent, the success of the website on the internet and search engines, depends on these features.
Overview
The table below shows all the important features provided by the three web hosts. We will discuss all of them in detail and why are they important.
| Features | Hostinger | Bluehost | SiteGround |
| Storage | 10 GB to 100 GB | 50 GB to Unlimited | 10 GB to 40 GB |
| Bandwidth | 100 GB to Unlimited | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes, on all plans | Yes, on all plans | Yes, on all plans |
| Free CDN | Yes, on all plans | No | Yes, on all plans |
| Free Domain | Only on the Premium and Business Plan | Only on Choice Plus & Pro plans | No Free Domains |
| Daily Backup | Only on the Business Plan | Only on Choice Plus & Pro Plans | Yes, on all plans |
| Free Email | 1 to Unlimited | Available on Plus, Choice Plus and Pro Plans | Yes, on all plans |
| Free Website Transfer | No | No | No |
| Staging | No | No | Only on GrowBig & GoGeek Plans |
| Up Time Guarantee | 99.9% Uptime Guarantee | No Up Time Guarantee | 99.9% Uptime Guarantee |
| Money Back Refund Policy | 30 Days Money Back Guarantee | Refund Policy 30 Days | 30 Days Refund Policy |
Ranks Based on Features |
Hostinger does stand out tall. They do offer all the necessary features, that will help your website succeed. Bluehost on the other hand also offers $100 marketing credits on all plans. It is a major one but it has a few conditions and therefore, Hostinger stands out tall.
Amongst these features, we will further discuss, why are they important.
SSL Certificate
SSL Certificate has become really important in the recent years. This is due to search engines, that rank websites higher in search results when they have a SSL Certificate.
Secure Socket Layer Certificate helps establish an encrypted connection between the web browser and the website. This provides security for online communications.
The small lock beside the name of your website appears if you have an active SSL and the site url will have “https”. If your plan does not have a Free SSL Certificate, then you can buy one from the web host.
Hostinger, Bluehost and SiteGround, do offer free SSL Certificate with their hosting plans.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Content Delivery Network or CDN for short, helps your website in loading faster for your visitor.
Over the internet, your visitor can come from any country or location. The website is stored usually on only one database server. So if your website is hosted in United States data centre, then for a visitor from India, the load time will be more.
To reduce this delay of transfer of files from one data centre to another, you can use CDN. A CDN stores cached version of your content on multiple locations across the globe and thereby reduces load time.
Hostinger and SiteGround offer free CDN on all their plans. However, Bluehost does not offer free CDN.
Free Domain
A free domain is something that can help you save money. Your business website will need a domain name. Without which you will not be able to progress.
A domain is the name of your website by which it can be accessed. It is your virtual address, where your customers can come and visit you.
When you get a free domain along with your web host, you can start immediately or else you will have to buy one. A web hosting without a domain is a complete waste.
A domain can cost you roughly $15.00 for a year. Therefore, a free domain does ease out some bits of expenses.
Hostinger and Bluehost offer free domain on selected plans whereas, SiteGround offers no free domains at all.
You can check if the domain name you are considering is available or not below.
All businesses need an email. It is a medium by which you can connect with your customers.
Having an email with your website extension, improves the image of your business in the minds of the customer. It also ensures that your communications based of the website stays in one place.
It becomes easier for you to track, reply and respond to the customers. Thereby, email accounts are a must for business and we consider it as an important feature.
Hostinger, SiteGround and Bluehost, all of them offer free email accounts.
Staging
Over the course of your website, there will come a time when you would want to make changes in your website. Some changes can be easily done by some changes are complex.
For example, changing fonts is easy but changing a theme is difficult. In such cases, staging comes of great help.
Staging is an environment where a replica of your website is created and you can make changes in it, without affecting the live version. This gives you time and ability to see the changes before they go live.
It is a very useful feature but only SiteGround offers this with their selected plans. Hostinger and Bluehost do not offer this feature.
Up Time Guarantee
Up time guarantee is an assurance of the web hosting provider that the website will be live for the said amount of time on the total.
All the three web host are currently withstanding 99.99% up time. This is commendable in itself as they have been able to reduce the downtime to such an extent.
The guarantee in this case is just as an assurance that your website will be live for 99.9% of the time. In case if there is a lower up time, then the web host compensates for the loss of up time with free month usages.
SiteGround and Hostinger offers this guarantee to their customers. However, no such guarantee from Bluehost.
Money Back Guarantee / Refund Policy
SiteGround, Bluehost and Hostinger, offer money back guarantee and have a refund policy. This option enables you to try out the web host and decide whether it is the best for you or not.
If by any chance, you do not wish to continue with the web host, you can use the refund policy and exit with your money.
The time duration till which you can exercise this option is 30 days from the date of transaction for all the three web hosts.
Our Final Verdict
The best web hosting for small business is the one, which strikes a perfect balance between Price, Performance and Features.
The margins of difference have been very close. All the three web hosts were amazing on performance. As we say, little things make a lot of difference, so is the case here.
The best web hosting for small business is;
- Hostinger
- Bluehost
- SiteGround
#1 Hostinger
Hostinger is simply outstanding when it comes to pricing. No close competition. Including the up sells, their prices are lower than the competition. The basic plan of SiteGround is almost the starting price of Hostinger Cloud Hosting.
What performance level can you expect in such dirt low prices? Well, turns out to be the opposite.
Hostinger is amazing in performance too. The difference between Hostinger and Bluehost is of just 10 milliseconds, that is less than a blink of an eye.
Hostinger offers the best features mix for a small business. A free SSL Certificate, CDN, Up Time Guarantee and much more which makes it the best possible mix.
Therefore, we conclude Hostinger as the best web hosting for small business.
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#2 Bluehost
If you are a small business looking to expand more than just the website, then Bluehost is the web host for you. They have a ton of marketing features that can help build traffic and disperse content on social media etc. Complete marketing focused solutions to help you expand and grow.
The pricing of Bluehost is in between Hostinger and Siteground. The pricing can be justified by the performance and the features that they offer.
Bluehost stands tall when we talk about performance. They are the fastest web hosting when compared to Hostinger and SiteGround. The victory margin from Hostinger is just 10 milliseconds.
All the three web hosts have little or no space when it comes to performance.
Bluehost has all the features that a small business can possibly need. They also offer marketing credits, which can help the business expand in future. The only lagging is that the marketing credit comes with conditions and the lack of free CDN. Otherwise, it is an amazing choice of web host.
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#3 SiteGround
SiteGround does end up third on the list but it is still amazing when compared to other web hosting companies. The recent price hike has made web host expensive. We do understand that quality comes at a price but for a small business, it is still on the higher side.
It has an amazing mix of features that are required for business. It is the only web host of the three that offers a staging environment. The only lag is that it does not offer any free domains and the storage space is only 10 GB to 40 GB.
For performance, SiteGround is at par with Hostinger and Bluehost on number of parameters. The web host lost the race with just a few milliseconds, almost a blink of an eye. They offer multiple customisation options and also offer customised plans.
SiteGround is truly outstanding when it comes to customer support and complex operations, but with the recent price change and turning down of Free Website Transfers, the web host lands on the third place in our list.
Let’s take a deeper dive and understand which plans are best suited for you.
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#1 Hostinger - Overall Best Web Host For Small Business
Hostinger is the best web hosting for a small business on our list. They have out performed Bluehost and SiteGround for the same.
Hostinger has over 29 Million users over 178 countries. It offers a number of plans that can fit your various needs. Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of Hostinger.
Pros
- Best Pricing – No Close Competition
- One of the Fastest Web Host – Load Time of just 0.42 seconds
- Up Time of 99.998% – backed with guarantee
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee – Refund Policy
- Multilingual & Quick Customer Support
Cons
- No Customisation Options
- No Phone Support
- High Renewal Charges
Types of Hosting Plans Offered
- Shared Web Hosting – $0.99 to $3.99
- Cloud Hosting – $7.45 to $37.00
- WordPress Hosting – $2.15 to $14.95
- VPS Hosting – $3.95 to $29.95
- Minecraft Hosting – $8.95 to $29.95
- Windows VPS – $26.00 to $250.00
*All the prices are on per month basis
You can check out the detailed Hostinger Review by clicking here.
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#2 Bluehost - Best Performance & Marketing Features
Bluehost does come second on our list, but if you are eligible for the marketing features and benefits, it is the best choice for you.
Bluehost powers over 2 Million websites across the globe. They offer amazing features in the plans and have a strong focus on security and spam protection.
Lets have a look at the pros and cons of Bluehost web hosting.
Pros
- 99.99% Up time
- Marketing Features
- Recommended by WordPress
- Fastest – Load Time of 410 Milliseconds
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee – Refund Policy
- Quick & Amazing Customer Support
Cons
- High Renewal Rates
- No Customisation Options
- No Up Time Guarantee
Types of Hosting Plans Offered
- Shared Hosting – $3.95 to $13.95
- VPS Hosting – $19.99 to $59.99
- Dedicated Hosting – $79.99 to $119.99
- WP Pro – $19.95 to $49.95
- eCommerce – $6.95 to $12.95
*All prices are on per month basis
The offerings of Bluehost are indeed packed with a ton of cool and marketing features. They have in built SEO tools, social media tools and much more.
If you are a small business and looking for expansion beyond the website, then Bluehost is the web host for you.
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#3 SiteGround - Best Customisation Options and Support
SiteGround is one of the most reputed web hosting service provider. They have earned this reputation due to 99.7% Client Happiness Rate & Excellent Customer Service.
SiteGround hosts more than 2 Million Domains and have data centres in 6 countries.
They have the cleanest pricing policy and a mix of features that can help your business grow and scale. The constant technological developments have brought SiteGround to the forefront of web hosting.
They offer a wide variety of plans. The best part is customisation, yes plans customised as per your needs.
Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of SiteGround.
Pros
- Fast Load Time of 649 Milliseconds
- 99.99% Up Time – backed with guarantee
- Excellent Customer Support
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
- Constant Technological Advancements
- Plan Customisation Options
Cons
- Higher Renewal Rates
- Limited Storage Capacity
- No Free Domain
Types of Hosting Plans Offered
- Shared Hosting – $6.99 to $14.99
- WordPress Hosting – $6.99 to $14.99
- Woocommerce Hosting – $6.99 to $14.99
- Cloud Hosting – $80 to $2100
- Reseller Hosting – $14.99
- Enterprise Hosting – Quote
*All prices are on per month basis
Customisation options of the plans are an eye catching deal. SiteGround charges for the resources used and so they give you the option to customise your plans.
Check it out, visit SiteGround.
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We share with some important page links of the Hostinger, Bluehost and SiteGround that can answer your questions.
If you have any further questions you can leave them in the comments below and we will surely try and answer them.
Other Web Hosting Reviews
If SiteGround is not the hosting for you, we can suggest you with a load of alternatives. We always advice that you should not choose web hosting randomly. It is a very crucial part for your website’s success.
You should analyse them on parameters like, pricing, features, value for money, load time, up time, customer support etc. These are some of the most important things that you will need in a web host (we say with experience as we are in the business of digital marketing and websites).
We suggest you do test and review web hosts yourself, if you have the time and resources, nothing better like it. Otherwise, you can check out our reviews and decide which one you would like to go for.
We do review web hosting companies and analyse them on parameters that we think are really important and one should definitely look for in a web hosting company. We have reviewed some major brands, big names and new ones too.
Here are some of the web hosts which we have reviewed,
If you would like us to review a web host, leave it in the comments below.
#4 A2 Hosting - Extremely Fast & Best Feature Plans
A2 hosting has a history from 2003 with head quarter in Ann Arbor. Among the very few companies that offer Green Hosting. It has data centres in 4 countries and one of the best choice web hosting.
They do have a very interesting and economic pricing strategy. Some of the amazing features packed at an unbelievable price. The performance of A2 Hosting is no less when compared to Siteground, Hostinger and Bluehost.
Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of A2 Hosting.
Pros
- Extremely Fast – Load Time of 315 ms or 0.315 seconds
- Uptime Guarantee at 99.9%
- Anytime Money Back Guarantee
- Free Site Migration
- Perpetual Security (Free HackScans Protection)
Cons
- Higher Renewal Rates
- Automated Backups & Turbo Features on Selected Plans
- Server Uptime – 99.95%
Types of Hosting Plans Offered
- Shared Hosting – $2.99 to $14.99
- Managed WordPress Hosting – $11.99 to $36.98
- VPS Hosting – $5.00 to $50.00
- Reseller Hosting – $13.19 to $40.91
- Dedicated Hosting – $99.59 to $290.49
*All prices are on per month basis
A2 hosting offers a number of features with their plans, which can help a business tremendously.
Free Website Transfers is the eye catcher. If you are not tech savvy, don;t worry, A2 Hosting support team carries out the transfer on your behalf. Therefore, it becomes simple to move to A2 hosting.
Security Features offered by A2 Hosting is also commendable. A website every now and then faces a threat of malware or virus attack. You must be aware of hackers. These security features protect your website from the said threats.
Server uptime does come to only 99.95%, this looks like a concern. In the past, there was an incident which lead to this downtime and since then the security features have been introduced by A2 Hosting.
As of recent readings, they have a staggering uptime of 99.99% but just that incident of the past affects the overall rating.
More to the exciting list of features is that they offer a staging environment, free SSL Certificate, Free ClouFlare CDN & 100 GB to Unlimited SSD Storage on all plans.
Anytime Money Back Guarantee
This is the refund policy offered by A2 Hosting as your way out. If by any chance you feel that A2 Hosting is not the not the best web hosting for you, then this is your saviour.
The policy does have its terms and conditions, as to what is refundable and what is not.
There is also a clear mention of how does the anytime money back guarantee refund policy operates and you can check out the policy in details in our blog A2 Hosting Refund.
It surely is an amazing web hosting service provider.
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