WPEngine Pricing Evaluation: Does It Offer Value For Money?
By Sam Nguyen
In this article, we show you the evaluation of WPEngine prices so that you can make an informed decision in choosing the best plan.
Key Takeaways
- WPEngine presents five plans catering to different needs – Startup, Professional, Growth, Scale, and Custom. Plans range from $24 to $232/month or higher, depending on your needs.
- Its value lies in the optimization, security, support, and seamless online experience. If you’re interested in giving it a try, the platform offers a generous 60-day money-back guarantee.
What Is WPEngine?
WPEngine is a company that provides managed WordPress hosting for over 90,000 WordPress sites. It offers a platform that is fast, reliable, secure, and scalable for WordPress users. WPEngine also has products and services that help developers and agencies create and optimize WordPress experiences.
What sets WPEngine apart is that it goes beyond traditional hosting by managing various aspects of your website. This includes automated backups, automatic updates, and protection against hacking attempts.
Overall, WPEngine’s specialization in WordPress hosting and its features make it a notable choice for businesses looking for dedicated WordPress hosting solutions.
WPEngine’s Pricing Plans
WPEngine offers 5 different pricing plans to accommodate different needs and scales of websites. Startup, Professional, Growth, Scale, and Custom plan. The plans differ in terms of features, capacity, and support.
You can find a comparison of these plans, along with their key features, in the table provided below.
| Startup | Professional | Growth | Scale | Custom | |
| First-month deal | $24 | $48 | $92 | $232 | Custom |
| Monthly Price | $30 | $59 | $115 | $290 | Custom |
| Monthly Price (annual subscription) | $20 | $40 | $77 | $194 | Custom |
| Storage | 10 GB | 15 GB | 20 GB | 50 GB | 50+ GB |
| Bandwidth/month | 50 GB | 125 GB | 200 GB | 500 GB | 500+ GB |
| Website Visits/month | 25,000 | 75,000 | 100,000 | 400,000 | 400,000+ |
| Number of Sites | 1 | 3 | 10 | 30+ | 30+ |
WPEngine does not offer a traditional free trial, but they have a 60-day money-back guarantee for all their plan (except for the Custom plan). It’s important to note that you’re essentially receiving 4 months for free when you opt for the annual plan.
Startup Plan
The Startup plan offered by WPEngine is designed as an entry-level option for smaller websites and businesses that do not require a lot of resources or features but still want to enjoy the benefits of a managed WordPress hosting service.
This plan aims to provide essential features while offering a cost-effective solution for those just starting out in the online world.
Pricing
The Startup plan costs $240/year or $30/month. While it might appear relatively competitive to other hosting providers, WPEngine’s focus on managed WordPress hosting and its specialized features contribute to its pricing structure.
Features
The plan includes hosting for one site, 10GB of storage, 50GB of bandwidth, and up to 25,000 visits per month. These are sufficient resources for a small website or blog that does not have high traffic or media needs.
The plan also comes with automated SSL certificates, encrypting your site and making it more secure and trustworthy for visitors. It includes daily backups, which save your site data and allow you to restore it in case of any issues or errors.
Startup plan provides WordPress core updates, which keep your site updated with the latest features and security patches from WordPress. You can access the Genesis Framework and 35+ StudioPress themes, premium WordPress tools that help you create and customize your site with ease and elegance.
Help and Support
The Startup plan includes access to the WPEngine Support Center, which contains articles, videos, and instructions for troubleshooting and guidance. Additionally, users on this plan have access to WPEngine’s 24/7 live chat support with speed response.
Overall, WPEngine’s Startup plan is tailored for small websites and blogs, offering essential features combined with managed hosting services. It is also suitable for customers who are new to WordPress or on a tight budget and want to start with a simple and affordable plan that they can upgrade later if needed.
The Startup Plan is not suitable for customers who need multisite geotargeting, phone support, or other advanced features that are only available in higher-tier plans. It is also unsuitable for customers with a large or complex website requiring more resources or customization than the Startup Plan can offer.
Professional Plan
The Professional Plan is the second-tier plan offered by WPEngine. The Plan is suitable for customers with a medium-sized website or blog that requires more resources or features than the Startup Plan can provide or who want to host and manage multiple sites easily.
Pricing
The Professional Plan costs $472/year or $59/month. You can save $236 (equal to 4 month fees) if you pay upfront for 12 months.
Features
The Professional plan includes hosting for three sites, 15GB of storage, 125GB of bandwidth, and up to 75,000 monthly visits. It comes with all the features of the Startup Plan, such as automated SSL certificates, daily backups, WordPress core updates, Genesis Framework, and 35+ StudioPress themes.
Furthermore, the plan presents additional features that are unavailable in the Startup Plan. These include the optional WordPress multisite add-on, which can be integrated after the initial sign-up process.
It also supports geotargeting, which allows you to display different content based on the location of your visitors.
Help and Support
The Professional plan includes access to the WPEngine Support Center, offering helpful articles, videos, and instructions for troubleshooting. In addition, users on this plan receive 24/7 live chat support, providing real-time assistance for any issues that may arise.
Overall, the Professional Plan is best suited for medium-sized websites or blogs requiring more resources or features, and customers want to host and manage multiple sites easily. It is also suitable for customers who want to use their own SSL certificates, get phone support, or use geotargeting for their content.
The Professional Plan is unsuitable for customers who need hosting for more than three sites or require more storage, bandwidth, or visits than the Professional Plan can offer.
Growth Plan
WPEngine’s Growth plan is designed to cater to businesses and websites that are experiencing significant growth and require increased resources, features, and support to handle higher traffic and more complex requirements.
Pricing
The Growth Plan costs $920/year or $115/month. It includes the ability to add 10 sites, 20 GB storage, 200 GB bandwidth, and 100,000 visits per month. You can also add more sites for $20 per month each.
Features
The Growth plan comes with a robust set of features tailored to support growing websites and businesses:
- 24/7 WordPress customer support
- Auto-renewing SSL and SSH access
- Security patching & plugin risk scans
- 10 Premium themes included
- Genesis blocks for easy site creation
- WordPress multisite add-on
Help and Support
The Growth Plan comes with 24/7 phone, chat, or email support. You can also access a knowledge base, a community forum, and a resource center for self-help. The support team is friendly and knowledgeable about WordPress issues.
Overall, the Growth plan is ideal for businesses, e-commerce websites, and growing online platforms requiring higher resources, performance optimization, and support.
It’s particularly well-suited for websites with substantial traffic volumes, multiple domains, and evolving online needs. Organizations looking to handle increased visitor traffic, execute frequent updates, and maintain optimal website performance can benefit from the features offered by the Growth plan.
Scale Plan
WPEngine’s Scale plan is tailored for websites and businesses that require extensive resources, advanced features, and robust support to manage high traffic, complex functionalities, and dynamic content. This plan is designed to cater to enterprises, large organizations, and fast-growing online platforms.
Pricing
The Scale plan is priced at $2320/ year or $290/ month. While it represents a higher investment, the Scale plan offers comprehensive features and capabilities suitable for demanding online ventures.
Features
The Scale Plan offers the same features as the Growth Plan, plus some additional ones.
- The plan includes hosting up to 30+ websites
- 50 GB of storage space, enabling the management of extensive website content and data.
- 500GB Bandwidth per Month for handling significant traffic volumes.
- It has premium SSL certificates, SSH gateway access, and imported SSL certificates.
- 10 StudioPress Themes
- Flexibility to transfer sites between different WPEngine accounts.
- Powerful Genesis framework for effective website development.
- You can also use Prod/Stage/Dev environments for each site and create 1-click staging and backup.
- Compatibility with PHP 7.3 for optimized performance.
- Support for large file uploads.
- CDN Content Delivery Network for improved loading speeds across geographical regions.
- Tools to optimize and enhance overall website performance.
- The plan is equipped to handle up to 400,000 visits per month, ensuring scalability for growing platforms.
Help and Support
The Scale Plan comes with the same help and support as the Growth Plan, plus 24/7 ticket support. You can contact the support team via phone, chat, or email anytime you need assistance. You can also access a knowledge base, a community forum, and a resource center for self-help.
Overall, the Scale plan is made for enterprises, large organizations, and rapidly expanding websites that demand a higher level of resources, performance optimization, and dedicated support.
It provides substantial traffic requirements, functionalities, and evolving content demands. Businesses aiming to provide exceptional user experiences, manage extensive website portfolios, and accommodate significant visitor traffic can leverage the extensive resources and capabilities offered by the Scale plan.
Custom plan
WPEngine’s Custom plan is designed for businesses and organizations with unique and extensive hosting needs. This plan offers tailored solutions, advanced features, and personalized support to cater to the specific requirements of large enterprises, mission-critical sites, and websites that demand top-tier performance.
Pricing
The Custom plan does not have a set pricing structure and requires potential customers to contact WPEngine’s sales specialists for a customized quote. The absence of fixed pricing indicates the plan’s flexibility to accommodate varying needs.
Features
You have to contact a sales specialist to receive a custom quote based on your needs and preferences. It includes 30+ sites, 50+ GB storage, 400+ GB bandwidth, and millions of visits per month. You can also add more sites for a custom price.
The Custom Plan offers the same features as the Scale Plan, plus some additional ones like Priority support, Isolated environment type, Application performance monitoring, 99.99% SLA, Pre-launch technical health assessment, and Premium onboarding.
It also has high availability features that ensure your site is always online and accessible.
Help and Support
The WP Engine Custom Plan comes with the added benefit of priority support. This means that subscribers to this plan will receive enhanced and expedited customer support, ensuring a more responsive and efficient assistance experience.
Overall, the Custom Plan is suitable for very large businesses and mission-critical sites that need more sites, storage, bandwidth, and visits than the Scale Plan. It is also ideal for those who want to have dedicated dev environments, consultative onboarding, launch readiness assessment, and customer success management. It is also designed for those who need high-availability features to ensure their site is always online and accessible.
Additional WPEngine Costs
Additional Sites
You can add more sites to your plan for an extra fee of $20 per month. You can add up to 25 sites on the Startup plan, while the number of sites you can add goes up on more advanced plans.
Automated Plugin Updates
WPEngine automatically updates your WordPress core and PHP versions for free. However, if you want to have automated plugin updates, you need to pay an extra fee of $3 per site per month for the Startup and Professional plan, $8 for the Growth plan, and $16 for the Scale plan. This service scans your plugins for compatibility issues, updates them safely, and restores them if needed.
Security
WPEngine provides proactive security features such as threat detection, blocking, and patching for free. However, if you want to have more security options, you need to pay an extra fee for an extra layer of security with Managed Application Firewall, DDOS mitigation, Cloudflare CDN, and SSL. The prices are as follows:
- Startup: $15
- Professional: $25
- Growth: $28
- Scale: $48
Site Monitoring
WPEngine monitors your site’s performance and uptime for free. However, if you want to have more insights and analytics, you need to pay an extra $5 for the services.
Final Thought
The decision depends on the specific demands of your website or business. While WPEngine’s pricing plans may be less budget-friendly, the value lies in the optimization, security, and support that contribute to a seamless online experience for both businesses and visitors. We hope you find this article helpful. Let us know if you have any questions in the comment section below.
FAQs
