Slow hosting costs you visitors and Google cares about it. You can test any live website speed for free with Google PageSpeed Insights.
When one company owns a dozen brands, the brands stop competing on service. It also explains why so many "different" hosts have identical checkout pages and identical upsells. Regulators have noticed these tactics and in January 2024 the owner of Crazy Domains paid $56,340 in ACCC penalties over misleading claims about "free" products added at checkout (ACCC media release). Read every cart line by line, whoever you buy from.
Ownership: Australian-owned (Nexigen Digital), founded in Melbourne in 2010. The largest genuinely Australian-owned host after years of consolidation took out most of the others.
Servers: Australian data centres in Sydney and Melbourne.
Support: Australian-based phone and chat on AEST hours.
Known for: publishing its renewal prices, which almost nobody else does, and free SSL and email on standard plans.
Watch for: not the cheapest first-year price on the page, because the first year is not where they play the game.
Link: VentraIP web hosting
Ownership: founded in Australia, now owned by Singapore-registered Dreamscape Networks and managed by US-based Newfold Digital.
Servers: local Australian data centre options.
Support: 24/7, overseas-based.
Known for: aggressive first-year pricing on domains and hosting.
Watch for: renewal prices only visible after login, add-ons pre-selected at checkout, and the January 2024 ACCC penalty over exactly those practices.
Link: Crazy Domains hosting
Ownership: Australian (Webcentral Group), grown out of Melbourne IT, one of the original .au registrars.
Servers: Australian-based infrastructure.
Support: extended hours, phone and chat.
Known for: longevity, and being where a lot of very old Australian domains and sites still live.
Watch for: first-year promotional pricing with unpublished renewals; products and pricing that have drifted behind the market while the group grew by acquisition.
Link: WebCentral hosting
Ownership: US-based global giant, publicly listed.
Servers: global; GoDaddy has not historically run Australian data centres, so ask where your site will actually sit.
Support: 24/7, overseas-based.
Known for: sheer scale, heavy advertising and an enormous product range.
Watch for: steep first-year discounts with much higher renewals, and a checkout dense with add-ons.
Link: GoDaddy hosting
Ownership: independent, Europe-based.
Servers: you choose the data centre region, including an Australian option, so your site can sit close to your visitors.
Support: 24/7 chat with a strong reputation.
Known for: performance and tooling at the premium end of shared hosting.
Watch for: renewal prices that jump well above the introductory rate. Excellent hosting, priced like it.
Link: SiteGround hosting
Ownership: independent, US-based, WordPress specialist.
Servers: global regions including Australia.
Support: 24/7, WordPress-literate, which is rarer than it should be.
Known for: managed WordPress hosting done properly: staging sites, automatic updates, serious performance.
Watch for: the price. Built for businesses whose website is the business. More than most small businesses need.
Link: WP Engine
Ownership: independent, Europe-based.
Servers: mostly overseas; check the closest region before you buy.
Support: 24/7 chat, overseas-based.
Known for: genuinely cheap hosting that performs well for the money.
Watch for: long upfront terms to get the advertised price, and the distance: when something breaks, everyone who can fix it is in another time zone.
Link: Hostinger
VentraIP. Local ownership, local data centres, local phones, published renewals.
Hostinger, with your eyes open about overseas support and multi-year upfront terms.
SiteGround or WP Engine. You are paying for performance, staging and WordPress expertise.
That is managed hosting, and it is what we do for our clients. What our hosting includes.
Someone else handles updates, backups, security and fixes as part of the service. This is what Small Business Web designs provides under our Wordpress Maintenance plans.
This is separate from website hosting, and mixing them up causes half the email problems we untangle. Our business email guide covers this in more detail.
Small Business Web Designs provides a dedicated VPS host server run from a local Sydney data centre. Our hosting is completely managed with daily backups, full security monitoring, WordPress updates and a team who already knows your site because we built it. We don't lock you into contracts, you can cancel anytime. We prefer not to use external hosts because we know and manage our server best.
If you are comparing us with the providers above, the honest difference is who fixes things. With DIY hosting, the host keeps the server running and everything on your actual website is your problem. With managed hosting, it is ours. Learn about what is included and what it costs, and what your website really costs to run each year is in our ongoing costs guide.
Moving hosts feels harder than it is. Over 400 of our builds started on one of the platforms above before we migrated them. If you are stuck somewhere that is not working, talk to us.
Usually yes. Unless your site handles thousands of visitors an hour or runs heavy applications, shared or managed hosting covers it. Just have a plan for managing your own updates and website maintenance.
What matters is speed for your visitors, and a good Australian data centre is the safe way to get it for an Australian audience. It also keeps your data onshore, which some industries care about.
It varies. Many hosts now include free SSL certificates, others still sell them as an add-on. Whoever you buy from, make sure SSL appears on the quote before you pay, because a site without it shows a Not Secure warning.
Because the sign-up price was a promotion and the renewal is the real price. It is a common industry tactic. Before buying, find the renewal price so you know what you're signing up to.
The domain is your address, hosting is the building. They can live with different companies, and often should. Our domain registration guide covers the address side, including what registrars charge.