In short
The cost of WordPress hosting depends on how a host sizes its plans (by visits, storage, number of sites or server size), which features are included or paid add-ons, and how you are billed. Cloudways invoices hourly usage monthly; Krystal bills monthly, annually or every two years; WP Engine bills monthly or annually. Prices are on each host's own site.
See Cloudways' managed hosting plans
Cloudways lists its cloud providers, server sizes and locations, including London, on its own site.
What drives the cost of WordPress hosting?
Ask what WordPress hosting costs and the starting point is always "it depends on the site". A small brochure site and a busy online shop both run WordPress, but they need very different amounts of server capacity, storage and support, and hosting charges reflect those differences.
Most managed hosts price their plans around the same handful of factors. The table below shows each one, why it moves the price and what to look for on a host's plans page.
| Factor | Why it changes the cost | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Visits or bandwidth | More traffic means more work for the server and more data sent | How the host counts a visit, and whether the plan is measured on visits, bandwidth or neither |
| Storage | Media libraries, shops, logs and backups take up disk space | The storage allowance, and whether more can be added without changing plan |
| Number of sites | Each WordPress install needs its own resources | How many sites the plan allows, and the cost of adding one more |
| Server size | On cloud plans you pay for the CPU, memory and storage you reserve | The RAM, CPU and storage of each server size, and whether you can resize later |
| Features and add-ons | Caching, backups, staging and security cut the work you do yourself | Which features are on every plan, and which are paid extras |
| Billing term | Monthly, annual, longer prepaid terms or hourly usage | The term you are committing to and the renewal price |
The three hosts covered on this site do not all measure plans the same way, which is why two headline prices are rarely comparable on their own:
| Host | How its WordPress plans are sized (as each host shows them) |
|---|---|
| Cloudways | By server: you choose a cloud provider and a server size (RAM, vCPU, NVMe storage and transfer bandwidth); visits and websites are not capped, within what the server can support |
| Krystal | By number of WordPress sites, monthly visits and NVMe storage, with a CDN allowance on its Business and Agency plans |
| WP Engine | By number of sites, monthly visits, storage and bandwidth, with a shared environment on Essential and isolated resources on Business and Enterprise |
Our WordPress hosting plans guide explains these structures in more detail, and the WordPress hosting comparison puts the three hosts side by side.
See WP Engine's managed WordPress plans
WP Engine lists its plans and data centre options on its own UK site.
Visits, bandwidth and storage
On visit-based plans, usage is the biggest driver of cost, so know your numbers before you compare prices.
Visits. Hosts count visits in their own ways, and WP Engine notes on its plans page that its visit figures are estimates only. A host's visit count may not match the number your analytics tool shows, because analytics tools count people and sessions differently too.
Bandwidth. This is the data your server sends to visitors each month. WP Engine sizes its plans on bandwidth alongside sites, visits and storage, and Cloudways lists a transfer bandwidth allowance with each server size.
Storage. What fills a disk is usually the media library, plugin data and logs. Every host sets a storage allowance per plan or server: Krystal lists NVMe storage on each tier, Cloudways lists NVMe storage with each server size, and Cloudways Autonomous charges extra disk use as overage.
What happens if you go over? Each host handles this in its own way, so check before you choose:
| Host | What the host says happens above the plan's limits |
|---|---|
| Cloudways | If you exceed your bandwidth, the server keeps working and the extra is charged; on Autonomous, resources keep scaling and overage is charged on disk, bandwidth and autoscaling, with an optional monthly budget cap |
| Krystal | On managed WordPress hosting it will not automatically switch your site off or charge extra for an unexpected traffic spike, and it tells you if you regularly reach your plan limit |
| WP Engine | Its plans page notes that taxes and overages may apply, and that visit numbers are estimates |
If a site is close to a limit every month, moving up a plan is usually simpler than paying overage. Krystal, for example, says it tells you if you regularly reach your plan limit, and Cloudways suggests a bigger server when CPU or RAM use sits above 80% consistently.
Number of sites and installs
The number of WordPress sites you run has a direct effect on cost, and each host treats it differently:
- Cloudways: no limit on the number of applications on a server; Cloudways suggests moving to a bigger server if CPU or RAM use sits above 80% consistently
- Krystal: Personal and Business plans host one site, upgradeable to five; the Agency plan hosts five, upgradeable to ten
- WP Engine: plans are sized by a range of sites, alongside visits and storage
If you run several sites, compare one shared plan with separate plans for sites with very different needs, such as a busy shop and a small brochure site.
WordPress Multisite, where one WordPress install runs a network of sites, is different again: hosts support it on different plans, so check before you buy. WP Engine, for example, says Multisite is not supported on its single-site Essential plans and can be added as an extension on Essential plans of three or more sites. Our WordPress multisite hosting guide explains when Multisite makes sense, and WordPress agency hosting covers hosting client sites.
Not sure which host to choose?
See the three hosts side by side on the features each one lists.
Server size on cloud hosting
Cloud hosting prices work differently from plans sized by visits. You pay for a server of a given size, and how many sites and visitors it handles depends on what those sites do.
Cloudways Flexible. You choose one of five cloud providers (DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud), a server type and a size measured in RAM, vCPUs, NVMe storage and transfer bandwidth. Cloudways says prices on DigitalOcean, Vultr and Linode are the same in every region, while AWS and Google Cloud prices vary by region, and that you see the exact price for your region before you launch. Servers can be resized with vertical scaling.
Cloudways Autonomous. Plans are built around a baseline number of autoscaling servers, with allocations for disk space and bandwidth; visits are unmetered. Extra usage is charged as overage, and Cloudways offers a budget control to cap monthly autoscaling spend.
With server-based pricing, the key question is how much capacity your sites need at their busiest. Our WordPress cloud hosting guide explains how cloud servers work, and dedicated WordPress hosting covers servers and resources reserved for your sites, which are usually scoped and priced with the host's sales team.
Included features versus paid add-ons
A fair cost comparison puts the plan price next to what the plan includes. A feature that is included on one host can be a paid extra on another, so list them side by side. These are examples from each host's own plans page:
| Host | Examples listed as included | Examples listed as optional add-ons |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudways | Staging, automated and on-demand backups, Let's Encrypt SSL, a server firewall, Redis and Object Cache Pro, 24/7 support, migration of your first site | Enterprise Cloudflare CDN, Site Manager (safe updates and visual regression testing), Malware Protection, Rackspace Email, Advance Support; off-site backup storage is billed separately |
| Krystal | Automatic updates, LiteSpeed Cache, two staging sites per live site, daily backups, Patchstack-powered Intelligent Protection, SSL, migration of up to three sites | Extra sites, more frequent backups, mailboxes (not included on managed WordPress as standard), extra migrations |
| WP Engine | Daily backups, SSL and SSH, security patching and plugin risk scans, DDoS protection, EverCache, a CDN, staging and development environments | Automatic plugin updates and uptime monitoring on Essential, advanced DDoS and managed WAF, front-end optimisation, application performance monitoring on Business and Enterprise |
Two items often catch people out:
- Email. Cloudways offers Rackspace Email as an add-on, and Krystal adds mailboxes separately on managed WordPress. Budget for an email service if you need one.
- Malware clean-up. Krystal says its team can step in to investigate or remove malware; on Cloudways, automated malware removal is the Malware Protection add-on.
Add-on prices are on each host's own site. If you are weighing price against what is included, our cheap WordPress hosting guide looks at what lower-priced plans can leave out.
Should you pay monthly or annually?
How you pay changes both the price and how committed you are. Each host states its billing options on its own pricing page:
| Host | Billing options the host shows | Currency and tax shown |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudways | Usage tracked hourly and invoiced on the 1st for the month just ended, with no contract; you can add funds to your account in advance instead of paying annually | US dollars, excluding applicable taxes |
| Krystal | Monthly, annually or every two years | Pounds, excluding VAT at 20% |
| WP Engine | Monthly or annual | Currency selector including pounds; WP Engine says UK customers are billed in GBP, with UK VAT unless a valid VAT ID is given |
Pay monthly WordPress hosting suits a new site where you are still learning how much traffic to expect, or a project with an uncertain lifespan. A longer term makes more sense once you know your plan size. Whichever you choose, check two things before you buy:
- The renewal price. First-term prices and renewal prices can differ, so check both on the host's plans page
- What happens if you change plan. Cloudways bills each plan for the time you used it; Krystal lets you move to a larger plan as you grow
Trial and refund terms are on each host's site: Krystal lets you try its managed WordPress plans for 30 days before paying, and Cloudways offers a trial without a credit card.
The hidden costs of hosting: time, fixes and downtime
The figure on a hosting invoice is only part of what a website costs to run. The rest shows up as staff time, disruption and fixes. A useful way to compare WordPress website hosting costs is to ask, for each item below, whether the host covers it or whether it lands on you:
| Hidden cost | What it looks like | What to check on a host's plans page |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance time | Hours each month on updates, testing and checks | Managed or automatic updates, update testing (Cloudways' Site Manager add-on includes visual regression testing), staging |
| Slow pages | Visitors leave before a page loads, and enquiries drop | Server caching, a CDN, and performance monitoring tools |
| Security clean-up | A hacked site needs cleaning and may be blocklisted | Firewall, vulnerability protection, malware scanning and whether removal is included or an add-on |
| Restores | A broken update or lost content needs rolling back | Backup frequency, how long backups are kept and how quickly you can restore |
| Downtime | Lost orders, missed leads and a poor first impression | The uptime guarantee or SLA, what it excludes and how credits are claimed |
| Moving later | A rushed migration when you outgrow a plan or host | Migration help, and how easy it is to change plan |
None of these appear on a price list, but for a business site they can outweigh the difference between two plans. Our guide to managed WordPress hosting explains what managed hosting covers, and secure WordPress hosting looks at the security layers in more detail.
Where to see each host's current prices
Hosts set and update their own prices, and several run time-limited offers, so the reliable place to see what you would pay today is each host's own pricing page:
- Cloudways: the pricing page (opens in a new tab) shows server sizes for each cloud provider, the hourly and monthly rate and the add-ons
- Krystal: the managed WordPress page (opens in a new tab) has a plan selector with monthly, annual and two-yearly billing
- WP Engine: the plans page (opens in a new tab) has a currency selector and a feature comparison across its plans
On each page, check how the plan is measured, switch between the billing terms on offer, note the renewal price and open the full feature comparison before you look at add-ons.
Enterprise and dedicated options are usually priced with the host's sales team; see enterprise WordPress hosting. If you are only experimenting, our guide to trying WordPress without paying for hosting covers the options.
Working out which plan fits
Before you open a pricing page, gather your monthly visits, storage, number of sites and any traffic peaks, so you compare like with like. Our WordPress hosting plans guide walks through choosing a plan step by step, and plans are bought directly from each host on its own site.
Plans and lower-cost options
Frequently asked questions
How much does WordPress hosting cost per month in the UK?
It depends on how the host sizes its plans (visits, storage, number of sites or server size), which features are included, any add-ons and the billing term. Each host publishes its current prices on its own site: Krystal shows prices in pounds excluding VAT, WP Engine offers a pound option, and Cloudways lists prices in US dollars.
Why do WordPress hosting prices vary so much?
Because hosts measure plans differently and include different things. Some size plans by visits and storage, others by server resources; some include staging, malware removal or email while others offer them as add-ons; and billing ranges from hourly usage to prepaid terms. Compare what is included and how the plan is measured, not just the headline price.
Which hosts show prices in pounds?
Krystal shows its prices in pounds excluding VAT. WP Engine's plans page has a currency selector that includes pounds, and it says UK customers are billed in GBP. Cloudways lists its prices in US dollars, excluding applicable taxes.
Which add-ons usually cost extra?
Common add-ons include object caching such as Redis, extra PHP capacity, more frequent or external backups, extra storage, premium staging, automatic update tools, a premium CDN, malware protection and email. Which of these are included and which are add-ons varies by host, so check each host's plans page.
Can I pay for WordPress hosting monthly?
Yes, at all three hosts covered here. WP Engine offers monthly or annual billing, Krystal offers monthly, annual or two-yearly billing, and Cloudways tracks usage by the hour and invoices monthly.
How do I work out which plan I need?
Note your monthly visits, storage, number of sites, any shop or Multisite needs and your busiest periods, then compare them with the plan limits on each host's pricing page. If you are unsure, start with a reasonable estimate on a monthly term: Cloudways and Krystal both say you can move up as your site grows.
See Cloudways' managed hosting plans
Cloudways lists its cloud providers, server sizes and locations, including London, on its own site.