Wat kost WordPress hosting per type website?

You are looking for a home for your WordPress site and see prices from a few euros to a few tens of euros per month. So the question is: what does WordPress hosting really cost, and why is there so much difference? The honest answer is that the entry price is rarely the price you end up paying, and that the cheapest option does not always turn out to be the cheapest.

Below I go through the costs per type of website: a small site, a business site and a web shop. I explain what you get for the money, such as NVMe storage, backups and updates, and what to look out for before you take out a subscription. All prices in this article are excl. VAT.

What does WordPress hosting cost per type of website?

A rule of thumb that works well in practice: choose the plan based on what your site does, not on the lowest price. A brochure site with five pages has different needs than a shop where people pay. These are the Netslim plans, with a logical fit per type of site.

This is my breakdown, not a hard rule. A quiet web shop with twenty products can run fine on a lower plan, and a business site with many visitors may need more. You can see exactly what is included in each plan on the WordPress hosting page.

What is included in the price?

This is where providers differ. Two plans at the same price can look the same from the outside and still deliver something different. Look at these points.

NVMe storage

NVMe is a type of storage that reads and writes faster than older disks. For every page, WordPress makes many small database queries, so you notice it mostly in the admin screen and on pages that do not come from the cache. It is not a magic wand: a heavy theme with twenty plugins stays slow. But a fast disk is a good foundation.

Backups

At Netslim, backups are made daily. That sounds obvious, but with some providers it is a paid extra or you make them yourself. Also ask every provider how long backups are kept and how you restore one. A backup you cannot restore is not a backup. You can read more about how often to make them and where to store them in making a website backup: how often and where to store it.

Automatic updates

WordPress, themes and plugins need to be updated. If you do it by hand, it takes time and sometimes goes wrong: an update that breaks the site, or an update you forget for three months. Automatic updates take that work off your hands. Work out what an hour of your time per month is worth. Then the price difference of a few euros is quickly explained.

SSL, DDoS protection and location

An SSL certificate should be free, and with us it is. The same goes for basic protection against DDoS attacks, which is included in every plan. Our servers are in ISO 27001 data centers in Germany. That says something about how the security of the data center is organized and where your data is stored.

Small site: what you really need

A site for a hairdresser, a freelancer or a club: a few pages, a contact form, an occasional news post. You do not need to pay too much here. WP Start at € 6.95 per month suits this kind of site. With a .nl domain at € 9.95 per year, you come to about € 93 per year.

What to look out for with a small site:

• It is not about speed in hours, but about reliability. If your site is down for a week once a month, a low price does you no good.
• Check that the price does not suddenly go up after the first period.
• Can you move later if you grow? A good host does not make that difficult.

If you do not have a domain name yet, first check whether your name is still available. It takes half a minute and prevents you from building a site for a name that is already taken.

Business site: more pages, more visitors, more risk

A business site with services, a blog, quote forms and perhaps a customer portal puts a lot more load on a server. People find you through Google, you invest in content, and an hour offline then really costs something. WP Pro at € 12.95 per month is a logical starting point for this type of site, about € 155 per year.

With a business site we look at different things than with a hobby site:

1. Speed. This counts towards your position in Google and whether a visitor sticks around. Test your site with the free website check and look at speed, security, email and SEO at the same time.
2. Business email. Email on your own domain should be set up properly (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), otherwise your quotes end up in spam. Google Workspace starts at € 7.50 per month for Business Starter.
3. Support. When something goes wrong, you want a person who looks into it with you. Check how you can reach a provider before you become a customer.

Web shop: a larger plan pays off here

A web shop is heavier than a regular site. Every visitor with a cart asks the server for dynamic pages, which do not simply come from the cache. On top of that, there are bots that scrape products. You notice this when your shop gets slow while there are few real customers. How this works and what you can do about it is covered in this article about cart protection.

For a web shop, WP Agency at € 24.95 per month (about € 299 per year) is the plan to start with if you expect many products or visitors. A small shop with a handful of products often starts fine on WP Pro. The good news: you quickly see whether it fits. If the shop gets slow in busy hours, you know you need to go one step up.

A web shop needs more than just hosting. Also count on the costs for your payment provider, any paid plugins and a good backup plan. A shop without a working backup is a risk you do not want to take.

Costs besides hosting

The monthly price of the plan is not your total bill. These costs often come on top:

• Domain name: .nl, .eu and .be cost € 9.95 per year, .com costs € 14.95 per year. See registering or transferring domain names.
• Business email: mailboxes on your own domain or a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 license.
• Paid themes and plugins: many of these have an annual license.
• Extra security: for example Security Shield at € 14.95 per month if you want more than the standard protection.
• Your own time or a developer's time for maintenance, if you don't automate it.

What to check before you buy

A few questions you should always ask, whichever provider it is:

• What is the price after the first year? A low promotional price that doubles on renewal is not a low price.
• Is there a limit on visitors, storage or mailboxes, and what happens when you hit it?
• Where are the servers, and what certification does the data center have?
• Are backups and updates included, or do they cost extra?
• How long does it take for your site to go online? With us it is immediately after payment.
• Can you leave without hassle if it doesn't suit you?

What to do now

Start with a short inventory: how many pages do you have, does traffic come in via Google, do you sell anything, and how bad is a day offline? With those answers you choose a plan from the table above. Is your site already running somewhere? Then do the free website check first. That shows you whether the problem is with the hosting or with your site itself.

Do you want maintenance, updates and backups taken care of without having to do anything? Then look at WordPress hosting from Netslim. You see what is included per plan, and you know in a few minutes whether it fits.

Frequently asked questions

What does WordPress hosting cost per year?

For a small site you end up at roughly 80 to 100 euros per year including a domain name, for a business site at about 150 to 200 euros. A web shop is often above 300 euros, especially if you count extra plugins and security. Keep in mind that prices are often excl. VAT.

Is cheap WordPress hosting bad?

Not necessarily, but look beyond the monthly price. Check whether backups, updates and SSL are included and whether the price stays the same on renewal. A cheap plan without those things often costs you time or money later.

What is the difference between regular web hosting and WordPress hosting?

Regular web hosting suits any type of site, WordPress hosting is set up for WordPress. Think of automatic updates, caching and tools to manage the site. Technically you can also run WordPress on regular hosting, but then you handle more yourself.

How many visitors can a cheap WordPress plan handle?

That depends more on how heavy your site is than on the number of visitors. A light site with cache can handle many visitors, a web shop with many plugins notices it sooner. Test your site and check whether it gets slower at busy hours.