Enterprise WordPress Hosting: What You Need to Know

There’s no doubt that WordPress is a powerful CMS. That’s why it powers more than 26% of all sites on the web. However, finding the right enterprise WordPress host is a daunting task.

Not all WordPress hosts have the performance and experience you need. As an enterprise customer, you’re not necessarily looking for the cheapest shared hosting plan. You require security and speed. You need real WordPress experts who can help your developers deploy the tools you use to stay on top of your industry.

Businesses with large, high-traffic sites are less worried about whether a hosting plan comes with a free domain name. Instead, they are more concerned with whether a host can handle a massive traffic spike. You want to be sure an enterprise WordPress host can provide the uptime and speed necessary to keep your e-commerce site running and converting.

What you need is a WordPress enterprise host who understands your website is a mission-critical asset of your business.

This post will review the top high-power enterprise WordPress hosting providers. To start, we will cover the topics you need to consider when choosing the right enterprise WordPress host.

How Do You Choose an Enterprise WordPress Hosting Provider?

Comparing enterprise-level WordPress hosting can be challenging. Information about plans and features is not easily accessible online the way it is for shared hosting plans.

Instead, you will likely reach out to several vendors to request information about pricing, speed, security, and other features your business requires.

While this does make the process more complex, it allows you to gain a deeper understanding of the the benefits and drawbacks of each host.

Before sitting down with WordPress hosting vendors, make a list of questions to ensure all your bases (and needs) are covered.

Meet with decision-makers at your company and outline the needs of your business, which should include:

• Experience, Expertise, Specializations: How long has the host been around? Do they specialize in hosting for specific industries? For example, a host that focuses on the financial sector may provide higher security measures and better understand the needs of your financial company.
• Current Enterprise Clients and Case Studies: What companies are they currently hosting, and how do those companies rank their experience? Most people wouldn’t buy a $5 keyboard cover online without reading the reviews, and a host can have a much more significant impact on your business. Case studies provide critical insight into the abilities of the host to meet your business’ needs.
• Performance: What amount of uptime can you expect? What is their server response time? Do they have datacenters near your location or your customer’s locations? Do they offer features to increase speed, such as solid-state drives and CDNs? The answers to these questions impact how fast your site loads and how often your site could be unavailable.
• Developer-Friendly Tools & Support and Integrations: As an enterprise business, you likely have proprietary solutions or want to integrate other tools with your hosting. Does the host you are considering integrate with these tools? If your developers hit a snag, does the host offer support to help?
• Security: How secure is the host? Do they offer specialized security solutions if you require them? Do they have a history of data breaches? Also, consider future security needs as your company expands.
• Scalability: Will the host be able to grow with you? Not all enterprise hosts are created equal; when will you top out on bandwidth or traffic? What happens if you exceed your allotted resources? Many hosts charge an additional fee, but others may not be able to support your site, forcing you to move to another host which can be time-consuming and costly.
• Support: What hours are the support team available? Does this work with your company’s business hours? (Especially if you have teams in other time zones.) Does your plan include a dedicated support team? Is support available in different languages, if this is important for your brand? Also, consider the speed of support response time.
• Plugins: Does the host ban any plugins due to security issues? Do they allow non-WordPress plugins to be installed, and is this important for you? Non-WordPress plugins can be a security risk but may be critical if your company has built proprietary tools.
• Price: In addition to the monthly cost, consider the cost of upgrades for higher traffic, monthly support fees, and any other add-on services your company might require. Look for add ons you may need, such as dedicated support or additional security measures.
• Special needs: Does the host meet your businesses’ specialized needs? For example, HIPPA compliance for healthcare, additional security measures for ecommerce, or higher speeds for heavy trafficked sites.

When outlining your business’s hosting needs, be sure to review requirements with all teams, including marketing, dev, IT, and the C-suite. Features that are ideal for technical groups, such as developers, might not be top of mind for people outside of their team.

If your needs are particularly technical, consider having a member of IT or a developer sit in on calls with potential hosting providers. It is a small step that could prevent a costly host migration down the road.

Comparing the Top Enterprise WordPress Hosting Providers

Now that you understand what questions to ask, let’s take an in-depth look at a few of the most popular enterprise WordPress hosting providers.

The next section will compare the top solutions based on price, their area of expertise, current clients, and other features likely to be important to enterprise-level hosting customers.

Compare Enterprise WordPress Providers

Company	Visitors	Number of sites	Starting Price
WordPress VIP	Billions of monthly requests	5	$5000
WP Engine	400,000	15	$241
Flywheel	500,000	30	$266
Pagely	Unlimited	150	$2500
Kinsta	1 million	60	$675
Pressable	5 million	100	$750
Cloudways	1 million page views	1	$1300

WordPress VIP

WordPress VIP is an enterprise-only hosting solution offered by the makers of WordPress.com. Their marketing pitch is that they’re the fastest and most secure enterprise WordPress solution on the market.

This host is suitable for large, heavily trafficked sites that get millions of pages views per month. They use cloud-based containers for flexibility and “effortless scaling.”

Features include:

• Global data centers
• 24/7 operational support
• Automatic updates and security patches
• Hourly, redundant backups
• Constant monitoring for performance issues

This host offers robust APIs so you can connect and integrate a wide range of apps and systems. Support packages must be added on, and this can add between $1,000 and $20,000 per month to your overall cost.

WordPress VIP takes security seriously and offers a broad range of enterprise-level security features including SSL and HTTPS, activity logs, DDoS protection, network and host-based firewalls, real-time notifications, and data encryption.

Plan costs vary widely based on each company’s needs, but range between $5,000 and $25,000 per month.

• Price: $5,000 and up
• Expertise & specialization: Hosting by the experts at WordPress.com, so you are in good hands.
• Current enterprise clients: Facebook, USA Today Sports, and New York Post | Read case studies here
• WordPress VIP Enterprise hosting information

WP Engine

WP Engine is a WordPress-only hosting provider that specializes in enterprise solutions. The company powers several high-profile websites, including Microsoft. They claim to offer a more agile, flexible hosting solution than their competitors.

WP Engine is suitable for enterprise companies that need to deploy quickly and require fewer restrictions on coding and plugins than WordPress VIP.

Features for their enterprise hosting vary based on packages, but most include:

• Backups
• 24/7 phone or chat support
• Stage and prod environments
• Global CDN
• SSH gateway
• Onboarding consultant
• Nearly unlimited storage with LargeFS
• Access to 35+ StudioPress Themes and Geotarget

For an additional fee, businesses can add on features such as dedicated dev environments, Smart Plugin Manager, Global Edge Security, and higher tiers of support.

It is worth noting that essential support is included with WP Engine’s plans, which should be considered when comparing prices to other enterprise WordPress hosts. They also offer a status page, which helps customers stay on top of any disruptions or outages for product features.

• Price: $241 per month for higher capacity sites, $600 per month for 1 million page visits per month and up
• Expertise & specialization: Founded in 2010, specializes specifically in WordPress hosting
• Current enterprise clients include DevMethods, FindLaw, and Microsoft | Read case studies here
• WP Engine Enterprise hosting information

Flywheel

Flywheel offers a range of managed WordPress hosting solutions for all size businesses, including enterprise sites.

Their marketing pitch is to provide streamlined hosting that allows businesses to focus on running their business rather than dealing with the hassles of hosting.

Features for their enterprise hosting solutions include:

• PHP 7.2
• Fly Cache and CDN
• Simple SSL certificates (or a third-party certificate)
• Auto-healing technology
• SSO integrations
• A suite of work-flow tools
• 24/7 chat support and phone support
• Dedicated account manager
• Quarterly business reviews

A range of add-ons is also available, including plugin updates, performance and security insights.

Flywheel uses container technology, which allows fast-growing businesses to scale from a few hundred to several thousand site visitors instantly.

Another feature that stands out is their white label feature and workflow tools, which make Flywheel an ideal option for marketing agencies who build, support, and optimize client websites. They also offer a range of resources, including courses, ebooks, and help docs.

• Price: $266 and up per month, depending on features
• Expertise & specialization: Founded in 2012, ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in America by Inc. magazine
• Current enterprise clients include Arby’s, DirectTV, Forbes, and Lenovo.
• Flywheel Enterprise hosting information

Pagely

Pagely is a WordPress-only hosting solution designed for fast-growing businesses with mission-critical websites. They power some of the world’s top digital publishers, including Time Inc, Disney, and eBay.

The company says it’s on a mission to provide a fully-scalable WordPress hosting solution with enterprise-level security, tons of redundancies, and 99.9999% uptime for enterprise clients.

Features of their pre-configured plans include the option of Single Node or Load Balanced Pair, choice of 11 different data centers, 2TB+ CDN, global redundant backups and access to an expert technical support team.

Enterprise customers also get SSL acceleration for faster load times, and a range of developer-friendly tools such as SSH, GIT, staging, WP-CPI, and REST API.

Pagely is built on Amazon Web Services, which allows them to leverage massive resources to scale sites on demand. Support is available 24/7 by ticket and chat, with phone support available for higher-tiered plans. They also monitor a private Slack channel during Pacific business hours, which makes it easier to reach the company.

• Price: Between $2500 to $5,000 per month (and up), depending on features
• Expertise & specialization: More than a decade of experience managing high-traffic WordPress sites
• Current enterprise clients include: Time Inc, Disney, Comcast, and New York Life | Read case studies here
• Pagely Enterprise hosting information

Other WordPress Enterprise Hosts to Consider

The above WordPress enterprise hosts may be the most popular, but they are not the only options.

Depending on the needs of your company, you might also consider the following enterprise WordPress hosts. Many of the below options offer more than just WordPress hosting, but still have plenty to offer enterprise customers.

Kinsta

Kinsta is a high-performance WordPress host offering enterprise-level hosting for large volume sites.

Google Cloud Platform powers them and promotes speed technologies such as Nginx, PHP 7.3, and LXD software containers.

Stand out features include a flexible infrastructure for fast scaling, an expert support team of WordPress and Linux engineers, redundant backups, and an easy-to-use dashboard.

• Kinsta Enterprise pricing starts at $675 per month for 60 sites and 1 million views.

Pressable

Pressable offers WordPress hosting designed specifically for high traffic sites that receive 1 million or more visits per month.

Pressable provides a 12 server redundant architecture designed for reliability.

Features include personalized on-boarding, 24/7 support, automated migration, proactive maintenance, unlimited storage, free SSL and CDN, staging environments, and SFTP access.

• Pressable enterprise pricing starts at $750 for up to 5 million monthly page views and up to 100 WordPress installs. They also offer a risk-free 90-day trial.

Cloudways

Cloudways offers enterprise-level WordPress hosting designed for nearly any type of high-traffic site, including fast-growing publishers, large ecommerce stores, and media companies.

They claim to provide easy to scale packages for sites running massive promotional campaigns or hosting content that may go viral.

Features  include dedicated onboarding, priority support from WordPress experts, managed backups, traffic load balancing, managed security, dedicated firewalls, and a robust Knowlege Base.

• Cloudways enterprise WordPress hosting plans start at $1 300 for 1 site and 1 million page views.

Conclusion: What is the Best Enterprise Hosting Service for WordPress?

There is no one perfect enterprise-level WordPress host. The right host depends on the needs of your company. Use this guide as a starting point to prepare questions when reaching out to sales.

Above all, be sure to consider not just your current, but also needs you may have in the future. Any questions? Drop them in the comments and we’ll answer them!