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Let’s start with the bad news.
Picking a WooCommerce host is much more complicated than choosing a host for a simple blog.
Now here’s the good news:
I’ve already done the hard work of picking out the best of the bunch for you.
In the collection below, you’ll find only the best hosts for WooCommerce stores. These hosts offer stellar performance and have hosting infrastructure specifically designed for the needs of eCommerce websites.
They also include valuable services like daily off-server backups, automated site check-ups, and premium themes & plugins bundled for free.
Keep reading to find out which host topped my list.
Best WooCommerce hosting plans
Only the best of the best made this list, so you can run a successful eCommerce store with any host listed here.
That said, each host has its own strengths and weaknesses, so make sure to review each one carefully.
Here are my top picks for the best WooCommerce host.
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1. Nexcess
Plugin Description
Nexcess is the best host for WooCommerce stores for a few reasons.
There are lots of hosts that can deliver a fast website, thanks to highly optimized page caching. However, eCommerce stores are different because they’re highly dynamic. A simple blog post can be cached and served to every visitor, but with an eCommerce store, visitors need to be able to add items to their cart and checkout. These requests are unique to each visitor and thus, bypass the cache.
So what does this mean for you?
It means that a web host that relies primarily on caching will slow to a crawl for an eCommerce store. Most web hosts only assign your site one or two PHP workers, which process each request that bypasses the cache. When multiple people are shopping on your site at the same time, you will rapidly run out of PHP workers, and load times can slow to 10+ seconds for all visitors.
Nexcess is different because they provide every user with as many PHP workers as they need. On their cheapest plan, they will support up to 500 orders per hour, which is probably way more than you need. This plan alone could support a store making millions per year.
In my opinion, that’s reason enough to go with Nexcess, but there are a couple of other reasons to choose them for your store.
Another major benefit of choosing Nexcess to host WooCommerce is that they have an automated WooCommerce testing tool. Every day, this utility will make sure that your WooCommerce pages are loading properly. If anything goes wrong, you’ll know right away before it starts affecting sales. Likewise, their sales performance monitoring will notify you if there are any abnormalities, whether that’s a spike in sales or an unusual decline.
On top of this, Nexcess also bundles other premium plugins and services for free. The most helpful is probably the automated daily backups. You can rest easy at night knowing that your site has been fully backed up to an off-site location every day, ready to be restored at a moment’s notice if needed.
And believe it or not, Nexcess is the most affordable host in this collection by far!
When it comes to WooCommerce hosting, Nexcess goes above and beyond to provide great value, and that’s why it’s my #1 recommendation. You can click the link below to learn more about their WooCommerce hosting plans.
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2. Servebolt
Plugin Description
We use Servebolt for this website, and the performance is insane.
While we don’t use WooCommerce, we do sell themes with the Easy Digital Downloads plugin, so we have all the same requirements for performance as a standard eCommerce store. Servebolt gives our site unlimited PHP workers, CPU, and bandwidth. As I explained with Nexcess, having plenty of PHP workers is critical for an eCommerce site’s performance.
So, if Servebolt is so good, why aren’t they the first recommendation on this list?
I listed Nexcess first here because it will be a better WooCommerce hosting choice for most stores, which don’t have a massive amount of sales or products and are run by small teams or individuals who may not be that tech savvy. While Servebolt certainly doesn’t require you to be technical, you will be more comfortable with their dashboard and be able to unlock more performance if you or someone on your team has some site admin know-how. Furthermore, Servebolt is a lot more expensive than Nexcess with entry-level pricing at $99/month, whereas Nexcess starts at just $13.30/month.
If you have some technical site admin skills, have a store that gets hundreds of sales a day, or your store has tens of thousands of products, you won’t find better performance anywhere else than with Servebolt. If none of those apply to your store, you’ll save a lot of money and get excellent performance from Nexcess instead.
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3. Kinsta
Plugin Description
Kinsta is an excellent host for a small WooCommerce store. The performance is great, they bundle additional services like daily backups, and their user dashboard is second to none. When you log in to your Kinsta account, you’ll find a whole suite of practical site management tools, all packaged in a beautiful interface.
While Kinsta runs really quickly for static sites that can make use of caching, it isn’t quite as good for eCommerce stores. This is because they offer a limited number of PHP workers. If you sell high-ticket items and only make a handful of sales per day or week, this will not be an issue at all. You’ll only run into problems if your site has people adding items to their cart and checking out at every hour of the day. I used Kinsta previously for Compete Themes, and it served us well for about three years before running into these issues with limited PHP workers.
If you want a beginner-friendly WooCommerce host with excellent performance for a small eCommerce store, Kinsta will be a solid choice.
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4. WP Engine
Plugin Description
WP Engine is similar to Kinsta in many ways in that it offers high-performance managed WooCommerce hosting and has an excellent user dashboard. There are a couple of things that set it apart.
For starters, WP Engine will be an awesome choice if this is your first WooCommerce store because they have a suite of beautiful WooCommerce themes that come bundled with your hosting plan. This makes it really easy to get your site online and customized to your liking.
Another major benefit of WP Engine is that they preconfigure ElasticSearch for you, which will give shoppers instantaneous suggested results when they use your search bar. This is a unique feature of WP Engine and comes included with their Professional tier WooCommerce hosting, which is $75/month.
If you’re just getting started with WooCommerce and WordPress, WP Engine could be the best choice for your site because of the beginner-friendly dashboard and bundled premium themes.
Where are the budget options?
If you’ve looked around for WordPress hosts, you’ve probably found hosting that goes as low as $4/month, so why are the hosts here so much more expensive?
Well, the budget hosts that only cost $4/month are what’s called “shared hosts.” They give your site and many others the same resources to share, so your performance is tied to how much the other sites end up using. It’s only a reasonable option for a low-traffic blog.
As explained earlier, an eCommerce store is inherently more performance intensive and will not run well on a shared hosting plan. The last thing you want is to miss out on sales because the checkout page hangs for 20 seconds and your customers give up.
While most of the hosts here are $35-99/month, Nexcess offers similar performance quality and services for only $13.30/month, making it a great mid-tier option to get started with.
Which WooCommerce hosting provider is best for you?
There are tons of WooCommerce hosts, and I only selected my favorites from the masses. Any one of these hosts could perform wonderfully for your business, but here’s exactly what I would recommend for your site.
Nexcess earned my top recommendation because they offer excellent performance for WooCommerce stores, genuinely helpful services like automated check-ups, and somehow still cost less than 1/3 of the next most expensive host.
Servebolt is the most expensive host here but second to none when it comes to performance. If you need blazing fast performance for a large eCommerce store, it can’t be beaten.
Kinsta and WP Engine offer similar managed WordPress hosting, and both include great performance and a user-friendly dashboard. However, they give you a limited supply of PHP workers, so they should only be used for smaller eCommerce stores.
Thanks for checking out my recommendation for the best WooCommerce hosting. Share it with someone else if it helped you out today, and feel free to reach out with any questions you have via our contact page.
Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.