Best Hosting for Small Ecommerce

Best Hosting for Small Ecommerce – Top 10 Hosting For Small Business

Do you plan to start selling online? It all depends on e-commerce websites. The small e-commerce hosting for a website will all depend on design, features, and functionality.
However, what features do you think are essential for your success or the platforms that will help you achieve the goals? There are features you should have when running an online business. In this article, there is a full list of the standard e-commerce features for a shopping cart and online store platforms.

What Type Of Hosting Is Best For Small Ecommerce

For sure, the small e-commerce hosting provider isn’t something that the customers will see. Though, it will have everything you will do with experience for your business and the way the customers will feel.
So, the main concern is getting the best e-commerce host. However, how will you know that the hosting provider is perfect for you? You should choose a hosting provider with these features:

  • Excellent Speed

If you need your e-commerce site to load fast because of your customer, then choose small e-commerce hosting with a high rating from the speed test. Most customers will not stay on a site that doesn’t load fast.

  • Reliability

The other crucial thing to consider is a reliable host provider. If the e-commerce host provider is reliable, it means that he provides a skilled and dependable support team. The team ensures that everything is running smoothly.

  • Security

The security is another factor to consider from an e-commerce host provider. If it offers high security, it means the firm has a solid defense protecting you against malware and hackers.

  • Widespread Compatibility

Does the e-commerce host provider you want to choose compatible with the software of your choice? Pick one that will be compatible.

  • Scalable

The aim of every business start is to ensure it grows in the future. So, choosing a hosting provider that will give you site growth is essential. It’s not all that can accommodate expansion but one with the features will be suitable for e-commerce hosting.

  • Value For Money

Every e-commerce host provider has a different budget. So, the one you want, does it give you the value of your money. Talking about monetary value, it means that the hosting provider offers quality features at a fair price. Some providers tend to be expensive than others but offering similar features. You can differentiate through reviews.
Best Small E-commerce Hosting Reviews
Here are the top 10 e-commerce web hosting providers:

Best Small E-commerce Hosting Reviews

  1. SiteGround

This hosting provider is in the top 10 e-commerce web hosting and not only because it offers one-size-fits e-commerce plans, but it offers tailored hosting to other major e-commerce platforms. For example, the types include Magneto, PrestaShop and WooCommerce.
The best thing about this e-commerce hosting is that it offers services at a reasonable price. Besides, they have a fantastic team of support that will be available to assist you.
Security, on the other hand, is suitable for both start off and growing e-commerce enterprises.
SiteGround
The reason why most people should rely on this type of provider is because of its reliability. The reason is because of free SSL security that is available on all hosting plans, good for trusting and recommended by WordPress.
This hosting provider also offers cloud, reseller, WordPress, WooCommerce, and dedicated hosting. It is, therefore, a great option that you should consider when you create a store with WooCommerce.
If you aim at a cheap StartUp plan, it will be suitable for small stores that aren’t selling yet.
In case you want to change from another host to use SiteGround, they offer you a free transfer on all the plans. The company agent handles for you.
Reliability and Performance
This hosting provider has its page that is dedicated to uptime issues. It’s measured and expressed as a percentage depending on how the network is online and active. The host provider claims for an uptime of 99.99%. However, over the year, the percentage will amount to less but in less than two hours for downtime.
Features

  • Web application firewall
  • Custom hosting for major e-commerce platforms
  • Auto installation on e-commerce apps
  • Free let’s encrypt certificate
  • Daily backup service
  • 24/7 support
  • Fully PCI compliant
  • Support and security

Pros

  • Cost-effective
  • Fantastic support team
  • High security

Cons

  • Little scalability
  • Not the cheapest
  1. Hostgator

This hosting provider is ranked as second on top 10 e-commerce web hosting because there is a good reason. Due to its uptime, shared plan features and customer support make it’s the best e-commerce hosting.
Its humble beginning started inside a dorm room for the first time at Florida Atlantic University – 2002. Since that time, it has numerous offices worldwide where it is hosting over 8 million domains.
Uptime and Speed
It offers you a guaranteed uptime of 99.99% and that is equivalent to the best e-commerce host in the world market. It, therefore, means that if you consider HostGator, it will have less than one hour for its downtime in a year. It is, therefore, the best e-commerce host provider because of its reliability.
Hostgator
Features
The hosting provider offers various types of hosting such as Managed WordPress, Shared, Dedicated, Cloud and VPS.
Moreover, HostGator also comes with unlimited bandwidth and free SSL certificates. For the first year, you get a free domain.
It also stands out when it offers unlimited email accounts, file transfer protocol, and sub-domains without forgetting unlimited storage.
Pricing
It offers a plan having time frames varying from a month to a period of three years. If you commit more time, the cheaper it will cost you.
Security
Besides having a free SSL certificate in each plan, it also protects the sites against DDoS attacks. The data is also protected.
Support
HostGator’s supported is crucial because it offers 24/7 phone service and 24/7 live chat. It is something that makes HostGator stand out like toll-free services. The customer care department is helpful and reliable to solve your problems fast.
Pros

  • Unbeatable uptime guarantee at 99.99%
  • Has more features on shared plans such as free email
  • Fast and reliable live chat
  • Helpful customer support

Cons

  • Slightly expensive plans than top competitors
  • Dated site design and control panel
  1. Shopify Hosting

Shopify is also in the top 10 e-commerce web hosting list as an e-commerce hosting provider dedicated such that it has a website builder where investors build their own online store. It also outperforms other e-commerce platforms because it has something everyone needs. Having a massive store, impressive suit for features and different price plans, this is extremely scalable platforms.
Besides, it also shines the most for its ease of use, customer satisfaction scores and sales features – a great choice for beginners and sellers.
It’s easy to use because you don’t need to have high tech skills, hire an expert or bottomless budget. It is the reason Shopify hosting is a fast and affordable way of creating an online store.
Pricing
Shopify hosting is fairly good for your money value. It has reasonable price plans, with essential features and scalable choices. However, it has a number of plans that you can choose the one that will best suit your budget and needs.
It starts with a 14-day free trial giving you no pressure to sign up or any risk. All you need is an email and test it freely.
Themes
Shopify themes are great because they have been designed professionally with mobile responsiveness.
It, therefore, comes when crammed with the features and can give different styles you have to choose. It offers 10 free themes and they are the main drawback. For the others, they cost $140 or more depending on what you choose.
Security
The stores have been secured automatically unlike other platforms like WordPress. It can handle protection against runs updates, cyber threats and also meets needed compliance to handle online transactions.
Support
When you need support, you get it. It has various channels for customer satisfaction like social media support, 24/7 phone support, community forum, help center, email center, video tutorials, and 24/7 live chat support.
Pros

  • Easy to manage the store
  • Sell across other channels

Cons

  • Doesn’t reformat automatically after switching themes
  • It enforces its own fee for a transaction
  1. Namecheap

Namecheap e-commerce hosting service provider offers clients with great value – generally, it’s hosting. However, it has its limits with its starter plans.
The best thing about this best e-commerce hosting is because it offers low prices, configurable VPS plans, well designed cPanel-powered website management and a starter plan hosting three domains.
Features
Namecheap is mostly referred because of its domain registrar but with its web hosting plans, they will catch your eyes. For shared hosting, in a year it charges $1.44 monthly.
Besides, it also offers a high volume of storage up to 20GB and becomes enough for more sites. There are also plenty of other highlights that you can get like free domain name, unmetered bandwidth, privacy protection, easy WordPress installation, and free website builder.
Most starter plans will restrict you from hosting more than one website, but this offers you even three websites. It is a real surprise.
Namecheap free domain will only apply to the domains having .website TLD and it might not be the thing you expect. After signing up, you have a choice to host the US or UK data center. Its an added advantage but for the UK hosting, it will cost you an extra $1/month.
Still, it looks like a great value for hosting an e-commerce site.
Performance
If you have unwanted website issues, they will be annoying and might seriously damage any business in extreme cases. So, it will be better when the support delivers to you when in need.
The support begins with a knowledge base that is searchable. It is organized into sensible categories from beginner to expert level.
Pros

  • Cheap
  • Price transparency

Cons

  • No phone support
  1. A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting is an independently owned firm that started as Inquinet when it was operating as a two-room office in 2001 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Today, it has expanded and includes it’s data centers in Europe, Asia, and North America.
Uptime and Speed
This hosting provider covers the necessary bases to ensure it provides the standard services. It has an average uptime. It claims to offer 99.90% uptime but with nine hours of downtime per year. The figures are impressive because to achieve 100% uptime is impossible, and even not a single hosting provider will promise it.
Types and Features
It offers its clients different types of hosting such as VPS, Shared, Dedicated, WordPress,  and Reseller. Sometimes, it’s overwhelming when trying to decide the best type for the site.
Pricing
If you’re signing to use A2 hosting services, there are options to choose from: pay monthly, pay a year advance, pay two years advance or three years advance.
For three years, it seems to be a huge commitment. However, the more time you’re committing yourself, the lower the prices. For example, $3.30 for monthly but $1.98 monthly for a three-year advance.
Security
Besides the free SSL certificate it offers, A2 Hosting has also created it’s Perpetual Security initiative that keeps the site safe. The account will have free HackScan protection.
Support
The customer care is available 24/7 to help you. Besides, there are different options to use to reach the support like online tickets and live chat feature.
When using A2 Hosting, you will get help because of its customer services. It offers the best.
Pros

  • Full refund money-back guarantee within the first month of signing up
  • Responsive customer service
  • Super secure servers

Cons

  • Not the most competitive for its uptime in the market
  • Slightly clunky signing up process
  1. Hostinger

Today, Hostinger is claiming to be serving over 29 million clients. It is capable because it has a cheap introductory price and among the cheapest in the market.
Uptime and Speed
Despite Hostinger’s e-commerce hosting provider having caching technology, it’s also a drag-and-drop site builder with free domain registration.
If you use this hosting site, it guarantees you 99.9% uptime.
For fast services, Hostinger runs 4 customer support centers worldwide – Lithuania, Brazil, Ukraine, and Jogja. Besides, they are serving their customers in 20 different languages such as Arabic, Danish, Vietnamese, to name a few.
Customer Support
The e-commerce host provider has six data centers to help serve the client better. Besides, they have also localized so that they can serve their customers better. It is perfect to offer support that speaks mother tongue because you get hand-held help.
Cons

  • Its low introductory price also require commitments for 4 years
  • No phone support, only the ticket system
  • No free CDN, SSL, and daily backups, they come at a fee
  1. WP-Engine

WP Engine is based in Austin, Texas, it’s managed WordPress Hosting service. It is among the first company that provided e-commerce WordPress hosting services.
Despite having a stiff competition on both managed WordPress and general hosting verticals, e-commerce WordPress hosting is still the market leader in different ways.
Speed and Performances
For website speed, there is the various variable that has to go into. However, the more a site is complex, the more solution to its speed becomes complex.
For WordPress, it’s fairly fast and lean. In case you want to run a text site having a few basic plugins or images, it becomes affordable with the shared hosting plan.
When all the features are combined with a better traffic level, they will slow down the WordPress install.
Customer Support
Customer support service is the core part of WP Engine’s pitch. Besides, the way they are selling their services ( e-commerce WordPress hosting) is more compared with the product(hosting). So, it becomes a great concern for them to have a big emphasis on their support.
Security
Currently, WordPress is powering a third of the internet. So, it becomes prove for them to target the malware distributors and hackers.
However, nothing is insecure because it releases updates and also testing the vulnerable.
Pricing
This e-commerce WordPress hosting provider isn’t cheap. It has a high startup plan of $30/month that can handle not more than 25,000 monthly with its single install.
Hosting Features
WP Engine continues to excel due to its current features and the new ones they are creating. In every version, it rolls out the developer’s features that it has integrated. It continues to create more tools.
Pros

  • Best-in-class customer care services
  • Stunning speed and performance
  • Powerful security

Cons

  • Initial and ongoing complexity to achieve needed speed
  • Limited versatility on its setup
  • Costly than other hosting providers
  1. ExonHost

Exonhost has been an e-commerce host provider for more than a decade. This firm offers different server locations – Europe, Asia, and the U.S.
Performance
Exonhost has high speed because of its LiteSpeed server. However, comparing it with Apache servers, this e-commerce host provider is significantly faster. It’s better compared to other host providers.
If LiteSpeed helps it run fast, why don’t other host providers use it? Its because it comes with a licensing fee for it to run on any server. Some sites avoid it and use Apache because it’s free and the customers don’t find out.
Moreover, it also supports WordPress plugin and it’s also free. It is available to websites hosting with the LiteSpeed server.
Uptime and Speed
Exonhost offers an industry-standard uptime of 99.9 percent guarantee. Having been able to use LiteSpeed servers, it makes this e-commerce hosting provider fast to load.
Support
Exonhost has an extraordinary support department. With its smooth onboarding processes, migrating to this host provider from another is easy and free.
There are many host providers that charge a huge amount to migrate to them and especially when your existing account will exceed 1-2 GBs.
The other essential character about their services is the transparency they offer. By maintaining their dedicated server status page, it shows server load, current status, and uptime for its servers.
Pricing
ExonHost is offering different shared hosting plans to its clients. The difference between the four plans depends on the number of the domains you plan to host and server resources like bandwidth, storage, CPU or RAM.
In case you use this host provider and you want to switch to a dedicated server or VPS, you don’t have to change the host. They work perfectly well and there ExonHost suitable because it offers scalability that growing sites need.
Pros

  • Value for money
  • Free to migrate to this host provider
  • Transparency

Cons

  • Not cheap
  1. Bluehost

Bluehost is a Utah-based e-commerce hosting provider that came in 2003. Since that time, it’s among the leading providers. It is powering more than two million e-commerce sites worldwide.
Reliability and Performance
This hosting provider is dependable because it has a guaranteed uptime of 99.98%. However, there is no host that provides 100% uptime. It, therefore, means Bluehost providing 99.98% is a strong showcase. Besides, it’s translation is for 105 minutes of downtime per year.
Hosting Features
The hosting provider offers different types of hosting. They include: Shared WordPress, Shared, VPS, WooCommerce, Dedicated, and Managed WordPress.
Bluehost lacks a common type of feature that is essential: free migration. In case you plan of migrating to Bluehost the service provider will charge you $149.99. However, it’s a cost that will be covering up to 20 email accounts and 5 websites.
Pricing
When looking at the value of money, Bluehost ranks higher. However, it has a better side of which, all its plans will come with a 30-day to get the money-back guarantee. It’s the cheapest plan is Shared at $2.95/month.
Security
The best secure way for a website is having an SSL certificate. These certificates allow users to know that their site is safe. To know these certificates, they have a padlock icon and at the beginning, the “https.” To get advanced security, you have to purchase the premium SSL certificate.
The other security features from this hosting include Spam Assasin protection, Secure Shell access, and hotlink protection.
Help and Support
Bluehost has various support options, such as email support tickets, live chat, and 24/7 phone support. However, it’s customer care is viewed as “top-notch.”
Pros

  • Has dependable server uptime of 99.98%
  • Budget level pricing
  • Seamless WordPress integration

Cons

  • A small amount of storage
  • Additional costs
  1. iPage

iPage has an excellent price compared with its performance. Its plan starts at $2/month. With essentially unlimited with everything, this is the site that will allow your site to grow with VPS, support and dedicated server plans.
For first time users, this e-commerce host has put together a very impressive deal feature set. Such that it offers strong and custom site-building options. If e-commerce is what you want, it also has an online builder included.
Security
iPage offers security that will ensure you keep the site without feeling worried. You get daily malware scans, constant network monitoring and spams scans as part of the security.
Besides, iPage also offers 24/7 security protections through network monitoring, sitelock along with the load-balance servers.
With free SSL certificates and it’s enhanced security suite, it keeps the customer’s data safe.
Selling
iPage has it’s all plans having a free online store, one-click installation for several popular shopping carts and PayPal integration.
Besides, it attracts more customers using mobile optimization features, drag-and-drop site builders, email marketing and advertising credits.
Pricing
Its only a few e-commerce hosts that will top iPage when looking at affordability. It doesn’t strip away the features for it to drop some features, but this firm represents the best bang by including a complete set of tools and solid architecture.
For all sign-ups, they will have 30-day money-back, free domain name, email support l, char support, and 24/7 phone.
Reliability and Support
Due to its extensive online help support or ticketing system, iPage is committed to ensuring it supports your site from creation to maintainable. This company is among the veterans in the industry since it’s the establishment in 1998. There more than 1 million users that reside on iPage.
Pros

  • Ease of use online
  • High-security system

Cons

  • Not the cheapest

E-commerce Web Hosting Providers: FAQs

  • Do e-commerce hosting providers have their specific plans?

For some, yes! There are times you can find certain plans labeled “e-commerce.” However, in reality, it’s usually similar to VPS or a normal shared hosting package. It means that those plans have been optimized for e-commerce. There are other providers that will have actual packages that are dedicated to e-commerce.

  • Is it possible to use your hosting provider and Shopify?

No, for the Shopify platform, it integrates it’s hosting because it has its store builder. It therefore means, you won’t have one and lack the other. Besides, this hosting, Shopify, will provide PCI compliant that has unlimited bandwidth for the online store. The best thing is that it doesn’t charge for the service.

  • Is it possible to build an online store using your hosting provider?

It depends! There are some hosting providers that have their website builders like the HostGator’s builder. However, it’s not recommended to use the builders.
Final Thought
If you want to sell online, the above definitive list explaining the best e-commerce hosting providers will help to supercharge your store. In case you want a perfect e-commerce web hosting provider, the main things you should look upon are reliability and speed.
There are also tons of features that you shouldn’t forget while choosing an e-commerce host provider. But at the end of the day, reliability and speed will be a major concern. Getting the best e-commerce host provider will ensure your store is credible, reliable and can load fast for the customers. It all depends on the host. Don’t jump into the cheap host, be sure of what you deserve!