Building websites on the world‘s most popular content management platform – WordPress powers over 43% of all sites on the internet currently. With growth rates continuing to increase year over year, more agencies are leveraging WordPress to quickly build robust sites for their clients.
However, the hosting infrastructure backing each WordPress site is crucial for ensuring excellent performance, reliability and security. Choosing the right WordPress hosting provider tailored for agencies can make all the difference in effectively managing multiple client sites simultaneously.
In this comprehensive guide, we evaluate the top 5 managed WordPress hosting providers specifically suited for web agencies:
| Host | Key Strengths |
|---|---|
| Kinsta | Speed, Uptime Guarantee, Security Features |
| WP Engine | Customization Options, Premium Themes |
| Hostinger | Affordable Pricing, Easy Setup |
| A2 Hosting | Optimized for WordPress, Great Support |
| Cloudways | Flexibility, Infrastructure Choice |
Let‘s dive into what sets each provider apart when it comes to critical factors like performance benchmarks, ease of use, scalability, level of technical support and additional features purpose-built for agencies.
Kinsta – Blazing Fast WordPress Hosting
As our choice for the best-managed WordPress hosting overall, Kinsta ticks all the boxes when it comes to delivering consistently fast performance to give your agency‘s sites a competitive edge.
Independent speed tests clock average load times under 500ms for sites hosted on Kinsta‘s specialized infrastructure blended with a CDN for assets delivery. This ensures excellent site performance regardless of the visitor‘s geographical location for a smooth browsing experience.
Kinsta guarantees 99.9% uptime backed by enterprise-grade hardware with built-in redundancy and auto-scaling capabilities to maintain availability even during traffic surges. Their service agreement promises a 99.9% annual uptime metric.
Robust security protections provide 360-coverage with features like web application firewalls, DDoS prevention, hack detection systems and malware scanning. Required SSL certificates using Let‘s Encrypt are automatically provisioned and renewed for all sites.
Auto-scaling compute resources automatically accommodate unexpected high traffic events without slowing down site performance. Kinsta‘s hosting plans dynamically add more RAM, SSD storage and processing power to manage spikes from promotions or special events.
Kinsta‘s specialized WordPress tools, along with 24/7 chat, phone and email support, make it our #1 recommendation for most agencies seeking a high-performance, reliable and secure managed hosting solution.
WP Engine – Customization Powerhouse
For agencies and developers needing more advanced customization options, WP Engine is arguably the most robust managed WordPress hosting provider in the market currently.
WP Engine allows extensive site customization with core software like PHP and access to deeper infrastructure logs for diagnostics. Integration with DevOps tools like Git allows seamless deployment workflows.
Their staging tools like Genesis frameworks, Design Toolkit and Theme Toolkit accelerates building sophisticated sites without starting from scratch. WP Engine provides access to over 350+ themes and plugins like GoDaddy StudioPress themes optimized for performance.
The availability of 60+ edge locations globally combined with a CDN and enterprise-grade web application firewall keep sites performant and secure. Tested recovery procedures ensure high availability with an uptime history averaging 99.98%.
A dedicated partnership team provides personalized onboarding, training and priority 24/7 support meeting response SLA guarantees between 5-30 minutes depending on priority level.
For advanced WordPress users and agencies, WP Engine hits the sweet spot between power, speed and robust support.
Hostinger – Cost-Effective WordPress Hosting
Boasting over 29 million users globally, Hostinger delivers reliable, easy-to-use WordPress hosting at a budget-friendly price point for agencies seeking to optimize hosting costs.
Leveraging renewable energy in data centers to reduce environmental impact, Hostinger focuses on sustainable growth passing cost savings to customers with web hosting plans starting at just $1.39 a month. Cost savings over typical shared hosting plans from other providers can save 70% or more annually.
Intuitive admin consoles like hPanel bundled with 1-click WordPress installers make getting sites online incredibly simple. The automated process can configure and build a customized blog, portal or eCommerce store in minutes with a single click.
Hostinger secures accounts by default with regular malware scans, firewalls guarding against intrusions and DDoS protection. Required SSL certificates are provisioned free across all plans enabling essential HTTPS connectivity.
For agencies looking to maximize infrastructure hosting budgets without sacrificing core performance and security, Hostinger delivers the most affordable managed WordPress hosting on the market.
A2 Hosting – Optimized & Reliable WordPress Host
Delivering excellent performance right out of the box, A2 Hosting offers managed WordPress hosting tailored for agencies needing optimized speed backed by exceptional support.
A2 Hosting‘s high-performance "Turbo Servers" feature solid-state drives for faster data access combined with caching technologies like Railgun to accelerate site loads. On average most sites load under 600ms putting them in the top tier of WordPress host speeds.
24/7/365 human support availability gives you direct phone and chat access to the "Guru Crew" experts for anything from basic questions to emergency incidents without relying solely on documentation and forums.
Advanced security protection like HackScan runtime defense watches all accounts for suspicious activity proactively guarding against hack attempts in real-time. RFDOS protection uses firewalls to filter out DDoS traffic ensuring uninterrupted availability.
With a 99.9% uptime commitment, A2 Hosting delivers reliable managed WordPress hosting with excellent speeds and helpful support perfect for lean teams managing multiple small to medium agency sites.
Cloudways – Complete Infrastructure Flexibility
While most managed WordPress hosting providers run on their own infrastructure, Cloudways stands apart by integrating with 8+ infrastructure partners – including Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean and Linode.
This allows complete flexibility to choose the ideal cloud infrastructure for your agency websites based on specific requirements around location, costs, performance and configurations.
Deep integrations with all partner data centers allow one-click WordPress deployments instantly configured with essential security, caching, backups and auto-scaling applied by default. An intuitive management portal centralized monitoring, logging and reporting for all your sites.
Cloudways agreements guarantee 24/7 chat and email support under 30 minutes with additional phone support available. Their team has deep expertise fine-tuning hosting environments and addressing issues quickly.
The flexibility to leverage different infrastructure providers, combined with specialized managed WordPress hosting tooling and support, puts Cloudways in a league of its own when it comes to customizable solutions catered to each agencies‘ needs.
Find the Best Fit Host for Your Agency
While Kinsta‘s combination of speed, reliability, security and support make it our top recommendation overall for most agencies, assessing your specific needs and technical capabilities is crucial in matching the best managed WordPress hosting provider.
Platforms like WP Engine and Cloudways offer vastly more customization range for advanced users with more control desired over the infrastructure and stacks powering their sites.
Cost-conscious agencies can maximize budgets greatly with Hostinger without compromising core performance and security. Those needing more personalized guided support from WordPress experts may prefer providers like A2 Hosting.
Evaluate each provider closely based on the critical factors outlined here from performance benchmarks, ease of use to support responsiveness. Mapping features against current and future needs allows picking the ideal hosting partner to power all your agency‘s websites.
The right managed WordPress host gives your agency‘s sites the best chance of success through sustainably fast speeds, iron-clad reliability and security paired with helpful support when you need it. Identifying and investing in the ideal platform ensures smooth sailing ahead as you scale up your capabilities and clientele.
