Looking for the best eCommerce hosting service for your online store? To provide your customers with a blazing fast shopping experience, your eCommerce hosting needs to be tuned for high performance.
Even a 1-second delay could drop your conversions by 7 percent, so it’s essential for you to choose the best eCommerce hosting that doesn’t compromise on speed or performance. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the best eCommerce hosting companies to run your online shop.
Choosing the Right eCommerce Hosting
eCommerce store platforms can be resource-heavy applications. If left unoptimized, they’ll consume more server resources, slowing down your entire store; which, in turn, negatively affects your bottom line.
Hosting may not be your area of expertise, but, as an eCommerce merchant, it’s important to know what you should expect from an eCommerce hosting provider as standard from the outset.
- 1-click install: Check whether your eCommerce hosting provider supports 1-click install of your favorite eCommerce app.
- SSL certificate: SSL allows you to protect customer data as it’s being transmitted to and from the web server.
- PCI compliance: The first step to meet the PCI (Payment Card Industry) standard is to install an SSL certificate. In addition to SSL, you’ll need to host your online store securely with a PCI-compliant web hosting provider to accept credit card payments.
- Updates and backups: Choose a hosting provider that offers backups whenever you need them, so you can revert your data to the normal stage in worst case scenarios.
Top 7 Best eCommerce Hosting Services
1. SiteGround Cloud
SiteGround is one of the leading eCommerce hosting providers, powering over 1.9 million domains all around the globe. While you can start an eCommerce store with any of their web hosting plans, we recommend their cloud hosting or WooCommerce hosting options.
Their cloud hosting service is optimized for the most popular eCommerce applications, like Magento; and website builder applications, like WordPress. SiteGround’s Cloud hosting is the best choice if you want to build a resource-heavy eCommerce store. While their WooCommerce hosting plan offers 10 GB web space, their cloud plan comes with 40GB storage.
Alternatively, you can also build an eCommerce store with their WooCommerce hosting option, which is cheap and provides you with a shared hosting type of environment.
Also, check out the eCommerce hosting comparisons between,
Pricing: $80 per month
Read our full SiteGround review »
2. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a hosted platform for building eCommerce stores and online marketplaces. Unlike other eCommerce hosting solutions, BigCommerce doesn’t require you to know the technicalities of building an online shop. All you have to do is to sign up for a BigCommerce hosting plan, create and list your products, and start selling them to your customers.
Compared to Shopify, BigCommerce provides you with more out-of-the-box features, such as their SEO option. If you’re a growing business, most likely the Gold plan will be the right choice for you as it allows unlimited products, storage, and bandwidth.
You can even integrate BigCommerce into your WordPress website. That way, you can manage your content with WordPress and manage your eCommerce storefront with your Bigcommerce account. Also, check out this comparison between BigCommerce vs WooCommerce.
Pricing: $29.95 per month
3. WP Engine
WP Engine is a WordPress-centric managed hosting provider. Unlike a typical managed eCommerce hosting provider, WP Engine provides you with a suite of performance and integration solutions to build and deploy high-performance eCommerce stores.
WP Engine is partnered with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform to help you build a lightning fast, scalable eCommerce store with WordPress.
You’d also like to check out our comparisons between,
- WP Engine vs DreamHost
- WP Engine vs InMotion Hosting
- WP Engine vs Liquid Web
- WP Engine vs iPage
- WP Engine vs A2 Hosting
- WP Engine vs GreenGeeks
Pricing: $24.50 per month (Usually 35 / mo.)
Read our full WP Engine review »
4. Shopify
Just like BigCommerce, Shopify is also a hosted eCommerce platform that lets novice merchants start an eCommerce business. Shopify offers more attractive themes than its competitors.
The benefits of using Shopify over other eCommerce hosting providers are:
- Build a stunning store quickly and easily without knowing the technicalities of eCommerce hosting.
- No need to worry about traffic outages as you grow your business. You can easily upgrade to a higher plan for advanced features.
- Shopify supports multiple payment gateways to accept online payments.
Also, you may want to check out our complete list of Shopify alternatives and competitors.
Pricing: $29 per month
You can even integrate Shopify with WordPress.
Read our full Shopify review »
5. Bluehost WooCommerce
If you’re looking to build an eCommerce store powered by WordPress + WooCommerce, then choose Bluehost’s WooCommerce hosting plan. With Bluehost, you can build a fully customizable online store powered by WooCommerce.
All plans include 1-click WooCommerce auto-install, 1 free domain name, and a dedicated IP address. They also offer a free online store set up a call.
You’d like to read our articles on:
- Bluehost vs HostGator
- Bluehost vs WP Engine
- Bluehost vs Dreamhost
- Bluehost vs InMotion hosting
- Bluehost vs iPage
- Bluehost vs GreenGeeks
- Bluehost vs A2 Hosting
- Bluehost vs Liquid Web
Pricing: $6.95 per month (Usually $13.99 / mo.)
Read our full Bluehost review »
6. HostGator Cloud
HostGator Cloud hosting is probably the best eCommerce hosting service for a growing online store. Their cloud hosting enables dynamic eCommerce requests to be processed lightning fast.
HostGator Cloud hosting is also 4x more scalable than shared hosting, which is a big plus for growing online stores. Whenever you’re expecting a large traffic spike to your online store, you can ramp up your cloud resources with just a few clicks.
Pricing: $4.95 per month (45% off)
Read our full HostGator review »
7. Liquid Web VPS
Liquid Web is a fully-managed hosting provider that offers enterprise-level hosting at prices you can afford. To start an online store, we recommend choosing their VPS hosting plan.
All hosting plans come with 1-click installs of the most popular eCommerce packages, such as Magento, Prestashop, Open Cart, and X-Cart. They ensure your eCommerce website complies with PCI standards.
Alternatively, you can choose their WooCommerce hosting option, if you want to build an eCommerce store on WordPress + WooCommerce.
Pricing: $59 per month
Read our full Liquid Web review »
Recap: Best eCommerce Hosting Companies
After our review, we believe that SiteGround Cloud hosting is the best choice for most eCommerce stores. SiteGround Cloud hosting offers everything you need to get your online store up and running. Their enterprise-class hosting service even lets you upgrade your server resources during traffic spikes without rebooting.
If you’d rather go with a hosted eCommerce platform, then BigCommerce might be the best choice for you. Not only does it provide more out of the box features than their competitors, but it also doesn’t charge transaction fees.