Kinsta Cost: Is it Too Expensive? Unveiling the Truth

Kinsta cost and pricing plans

By Ecombridges    •   Updated February 24, 2024

Kinsta is a premium managed WordPress hosting provider that offers top-of-the-line performance, security, and support for your WordPress website. But is Kinsta cost worth it?

Leveraging the power of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and a custom-built hosting environment, Kinsta is dedicated to providing an unparalleled hosting experience for WordPress users.

In this comprehensive Kinsta WordPress hosting review, we'll explore the key features, benefits, and pricing plans that make Kinsta stand out among other hosting services.

Whether you're a blogger, small business owner, or developer, Kinsta is designed to deliver the best in managed WordPress hosting.

Let's unveil the truth behind Kinsta premium WordPress hosting plans!

Who are Kinsta's Customers?

Over 120,000 small businesses and companies like Tripadvisor, Hootsuite, and Flippa use Kinsta's premium hosting services, counting over 55,000 developers. Kinsta is also the N°1 SMB hosting provider on G2.

Bloggers, online store owners, agencies, and Fortune 500 companies use Kinsta hosting to get peace of mind and focus on growing their businesses without dealing with technical issues. Indeed, Kinsta offers excellent support from its engineers.

Kinsta Pricing: A Range of Hosting Plans for Every Need

Kinsta offers a variety of hosting plans to suit different needs and budgets. While their managed WordPress hosting solutions may be more expensive than shared hosting options, their superior performance, security, and support are well worth the investment.

Their pricing plans cater to a range of users, from individual bloggers and small businesses to large enterprises requiring dedicated resources.

Regardless of your needs, Kinsta hosting plans deliver the best WordPress hosting experience possible.

Here is a breakdown of Kinsta pricing plans, depending on whether you want to host a WordPress website, an application, or a database:

1 – WordPress sites

Kinsta pricing plans mainly differ by how many WordPress websites you can host, your monthly visits, and the number of PHP workers per site. Higher plans also offer more bandwidth and SSD storage, besides other benefits.

You can start with the Starter plan and upgrade later as you get more traffic or websites to host.

Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting Plans

Here is a breakdown of the various Kinsta pricing plans:

Kinsta managed WordPress hosting pricing overview
Kinsta pricing plans
  • Starter plan ($35/month): 1 website; 25,000 visits/month, 10GB SSD disk space, 100GB CDN, 2 PHP workers.
  • Pro ($70/month): 2 websites; 50,000 visits/month, 20GB SSD disk space, 200GB CDN, 2 PHP workers.
  • Business 1 ($115/month – Most Popular): 5 websites; 100,000 visits/month, 30GB SSD disk space, 400 GB CDN, 4 PHP workers.
  • Business 2 ($225/month): 10 websites; 250,000 visits/month
  • Business 3 ($340/month): 20 websites; 400,000 visits/month
  • Business 4 ($450/month): 40 websites; 600,000 visits/month
  • Enterprise plans (from $675/month): 60+ websites; 1,000,000+ visits/month

If you have an e-commerce or membership site, I recommend the Business 1 plan, as you get 4 PHP workers instead of 2. However, the Starter plan will do the job if you don't get too much traffic.

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Single Plans

They also have single-site plans for up to 25% off the regular price. It's convenient if you only run 1 website and want to save money while accessing more resources.

For example, the Business 1 plan for 1 website at $90/month (or $75/month billed annually) gives you 100,000 visits/month, 10 GB storage, 400 GB CDN, 6 PHP workers, and 14 days of backup retention.

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2 – Applications

If you're a developer, you can use Kinsta's Platform as a Service to host your applications on Standard, Memory Optimized, or CPU Optimized VMs.

You can deploy your application quickly from your GitHub repository, and they support PHP, Node.js, Ruby, Java, Python, Go, and Scala.

Kinsta offers plans starting from $7/month for a hobby project and up to $480/month for the top-performance memory-optimized machines. You get from 0.3 to 8 CPU and 0.3 to 32 GB RAM.

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3 – Databases

You can also host your databases with Kinsta hosting starting from $18/month. Pricing depends on CPU count, RAM, and storage space. Choose between 0.25 and 60 CPU, 0.25 and 240 GB RAM, 1GB and 100GB storage space.

They support popular databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and Redis.

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Is Kinsta cost worth it?

I use Kinsta to host an e-commerce site, and even if I like to have more flexibility as I get with my websites hosted on Cloudways, I like the simplicity and performance of Kinsta-managed WordPress hosting.

With Kinsta, my online store runs smoothly, it's fast, and I don't struggle with high CPU issues creating database connection issues as I do with cheap VPS hosting.

Why is that? Here are the main reasons that justify Kinsta's cost, in my opinion:

Reason 1: Kinsta uses a premium tech stack

Google Cloud C2 VMs

Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform's (GCP) Premium Tier Network and C2 VMs with highest-end CPUs.

These compute-optimized virtual machines offer high performance for your website. At Kinsta, all plans have these C2 machines, even the Starter Plan.

Google Cloud C2 VMs are very expensive. I couldn't afford one using Google Cloud directly, so Kinsta allows me to access these premium VMs to host my store.

Compared to shared hosting or Virtual Private Servers (VPS) alternatives, Kinsta hosting provides customers with Google Cloud's groundbreaking Compute Engine machines that offer up to 96 CPUs and hundreds of gigabytes of RAM. With these remarkable capabilities, you can rest assured that your website runs on state-of-the-art technology.

GOOGLE CLOUD Premium Tier Network

As Kinsta uses Google's premium tier network, you'll benefit from Google's private global optic fiber network with a speed of up to 10,000 TB/second, more secure and faster than the public internet.

GET YOUR OWN CONTAINER

Unlike VPS hosting providers, Kinsta uses containers to allocate resources. It means you'll get dedicated resources and won't share them with other customers. With Kinsta hosting, you're sure you get the resources you pay for.

SCALABLE

Kinsta lets you scale up or down with a click by choosing another pricing plan. It's incredibly convenient if you have traffic peaks, like for an online store doing promotions on social media.

Cloudflare enterprise

KinstaCDN uses Cloudflare Enterprise to secure your site and make it faster worldwide:

  • High-performance CDN using 275+ data centers worldwide to cache your static files locally for fast loading, close to your site visitors.
  • Secure firewall with DDoS protection (Distributed Denial of Service)
  • Edge Caching
  • HTTP/3 Support
  • Support for Wildcard SSL certificates to secure your subdomains
  • Reserved IPs: You can be sure you'll have a clean, dedicated IP and not risk sharing the IP with spam or adult websites.

Reason 2: Premium Support

Kinsta offers 24/7/365 live chat support in 5 languages from engineers and developers experts with WordPress hosting. Their support is knowledgeable and reactive. If your application is business-critical, you don't want to lose sales due to technical issues.

Kinsta has premium pricing, but it works, and their technical support is top-notch. You're in good hands with Kinsta managed WordPress hosting.

However, suppose you're more technical and want to avoid paying for support. You may consider directly using Cloudways or cheap VPS providers like Vultr or Digital Ocean.

Kinsta Hosting Review: My Experience with Kinsta Hosting

I started using Kinsta at the beginning of 2022 to host an e-commerce site.

Here is what I like and don't like about Kinsta hosting:

What I like about Kinsta

1 – Peace of mind

With Kinsta, you can focus on growing your business, and you know you're in good hands.

I like Kinsta's reliable, fast WordPress hosting using cutting-edge technology from Google Cloud. It works, and it's fast.

Their admin panel is clean and easy to use. I can rely on their technical support if needed as they are knowledgeable, which is challenging to get with many other web hosting providers! My business won't disappear if I get hacked, as Kinsta offers a hack-free guarantee.

I don't struggle with high CPU issues causing database connection errors, as I experience with Cloudways.

I monitored my Kinsta site availability with UptimeRobot. I got these stats: 99.866% website availability (30d average) and 387.592 ms average load time in the last 24 hours. My website has been operational for 25 days. I probably restarted the server then, or there was scheduled maintenance.

2 – High Performance

With Kinsta, I can access top-performing Google Cloud machines and Google top-tier private optic fiber network, Cloudflare Enterprise, and Kinsta server-level caching.

I couldn't afford these expensive VMs by hosting my site directly on GCP.

What could be better about Kinsta?

1 – Pricing

In life, you often get what you pay for. Kinsta is not the cheapest managed WordPress hosting service, but you get high value.

The Starter plan at $35/month is good for starting your business. However, the cost can add up if you choose other plans. It only makes sense if you can still get a good ROI with your site. Kinsta hosting caters to business owners, not hobbyists.

If you're getting started, go for the Starter plan if you only have 1 website to host. You can still scale later if you like Kinsta and want to host other websites or if your traffic is growing.

Choose monthly billing on your Kinsta plan to test the service, and if you like it, switch to an annual plan to save money, as you get 2 months free.

You must pay extra for a premium add-on if you want Nginx or Redis, as they're not included by default.

2 – Restrictions

Kinsta keeps tight control of its tech stack. They want to deliver optimal performance for all their customers, which involves using resources wisely. They implement security and performance best practices at the server level, making some plugins redundant.

Therefore, they have a list of banned or restricted plugins involving caching and backups. Kinsta offers server-level caching and supports WP Rocket even if it disables its caching as it's redundant with server-level caching.

I use UpdraftPlus to do offsite backups with Kinsta. Still, I had to buy the premium version as Kinsta pushes for incremental backups. I can only do 1 full monthly backup with UpdraftPlus due to Kinsta restrictions.

Kinsta creates daily backups, and you can also get automatic offsite backup once a week or per month for a small fee to Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage. Still, for extra piece of mind, I like to do my own offsite backups, not relying on my hosting provider.

They also force PHP updates to avoid running on deprecated versions. The latest PHP versions are faster than the previous ones, and in case of an issue, you can contact Kinsta's support team. It's inconvenient if you don't want to update your site, but WordPress evolves with PHP, so it's okay for me.

After the initial frustration, I quickly adapted to Kinsta hosting rules. I'm now happy to run my WooCommerce store on a high-performing infrastructure using Google Cloud, as Shopify does.

Kinsta Company: A Brief Overview

The company was founded in 2013, and Kinsta's mission is to offer the best managed WordPress hosting services on the market. They cater to many clients, from small businesses and bloggers to enterprise-level organizations.

Their hosting infrastructure is built on GCP, ensuring lightning-fast performance and scalable resources for your WordPress websites.

As a managed WordPress hosting provider, Kinsta handles the technical aspects of running a WordPress site on the server side. It includes server management and updates, security, and performance optimization. Of course, you still install and configure plugins yourself, depending on your business needs.

This lets you focus on what matters most: creating great content and growing your online presence.

Performance: High-Speed Hosting Powered by Google Cloud Platform

One of the key selling points of Kinsta managed WordPress hosting is its exceptional performance. With a hosting environment built on GCP, Kinsta leverages the same infrastructure used by Google to deliver lightning-fast load times and unbeatable uptime for your WordPress site.

Kinsta also utilizes server-level caching, ensuring optimal page load speeds without the need for additional caching plugins. This means your site visitors will enjoy a fast and seamless browsing experience, ultimately leading to higher engagement and conversions.

Security: Comprehensive Protection for Your WordPress Site

Kinsta understands the importance of securing your WordPress website, so they employ a multi-layered approach to security, including features like:

  • Site isolation: Each site is hosted in its own isolated container running on Linux, preventing issues on other sites from affecting yours.
  • DDoS protection: Kinsta's hosting infrastructure is designed to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks automatically.
  • SSL certificates: Free SSL certificates are included with all Kinsta WordPress hosting plans, ensuring secure connections for your visitors.
  • Two-factor authentication (2FA): This feature adds an extra layer of security to your Kinsta account by requiring a unique code in addition to your password.

In the unlikely event that your site is compromised, Kinsta's support team will work with you to restore and clean your site free of charge.

Scalability: Hosting Plans That Grow with Your Needs

Kinsta offers a wide range of hosting plans to accommodate websites of all sizes and traffic levels. Their pricing plans are designed to provide you with the resources you need, whether you're just starting out or managing a high-traffic site.

As your site grows and your needs change, you can easily upgrade your Kinsta hosting plan to ensure your site continues to perform at its best.

I really like the possibility of scaling up or down on the Google Cloud Platform. It is not possible with managed cloud hosting providers using Vultr, Linode, or DigitalOcean unless you clone your server.

Expert Support: 24/7 Assistance from WordPress Professionals

Kinsta's support team consists of experienced WordPress experts who are available around the clock to help you with any issues or questions. Their commitment to providing top-notch customer service is evident in the rave reviews they receive from satisfied customers.

Whether you need assistance with site migration, troubleshooting a technical issue, or have a question about your hosting account, Kinsta's support team is there to help you every step of the way.

  • 24/7/365 live chat support with their engineers.
  • Free premium migrations
  • Hack-free guarantee: If your site gets infected by malware, Kinsta malware experts will work to clean your site, offering you peace of mind. You can learn more on their blog and knowledge base.

MyKinsta Dashboard: A Custom-Built, User-Friendly Interface

Kinsta has developed a custom dashboard called MyKinsta, which is specifically designed for managing WordPress sites.

The user-friendly interface makes it easy to perform tasks like creating backups, setting up staging sites, monitoring resource usage, and more.

Kinsta WordPress hosting admin dashboard
The MyKinsta dashboard

The MyKinsta dashboard is a refreshing alternative to traditional cPanel interfaces, offering a streamlined experience tailored to WordPress users.

To test out the MyKinsta dashboard, you can request a live demo here.

Offsite Backups and Google Cloud Storage Integration

Kinsta provides automatic daily backups for your website, allowing you to quickly restore your site in case of any issues. Additionally, Kinsta offers integration with offsite storage solutions like Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage. This is particularly useful if you want to store your backups in a separate location for added peace of mind.

Always use the Latest PHP Versions for Optimal Performance

Kinsta is committed to staying up-to-date with the latest PHP versions, ensuring your site benefits from the best performance and security features. Unlike some web hosts that delay updating their environments, Kinsta quickly rolls out the latest PHP versions, resulting in faster load times and more efficient resource usage.

When should you use Kinsta?

You should use Kinsta managed WordPress hosting if:

  • You value peace of mind with excellent support. As a business owner, you want to focus on growing your business instead of wasting your time stressing over technical issues.
  • You want the best performance with reliable, fast hosting, access to a premium tech stack, and dedicated resources you don't share with others.
  • You want an easy-to-use, clean admin dashboard without too many settings.
  • You want to be able to scale up or down quickly, depending on your traffic.
  • You are looking for a premium service and can afford a Kinsta plan, for example, the Starter plan.

When should you avoid using Kinsta?

You should not use Kinsta hosting if you:

  • You don't need technical support. In that case, you can go directly to the cloud providers and manage your server yourself instead of using managed WordPress hosting.
  • You want cheap hosting and don't care about performance issues.
  • You want full flexibility without banned or restricted plugins. You prefer to pay for server resources and not see artificial restrictions on the number of monthly visits and WordPress installs you can host with your pricing plan. In that case, consider using Cloudways if you're tech-savvy. Kinsta's main premium competitor is WP Engine, but it has the same pricing structure as Kinsta.
  • You need root access. By the way, Cloudways doesn't provide it either. You won't need root access if you're a business owner using WordPress. However, if you're a developer, consider going directly to the cloud provider for root access.

FAQ

Kinsta cost and pricing plans FAQ

What is managed hosting?

Managed hosting is a service provided by web hosting companies where they take care of server setup, maintenance, security, and updates on behalf of the customer. This allows website owners to focus on their core business or content creation without worrying about the technical aspects of running a website, as the hosting provider handles those tasks.

What is managed WordPress hosting?

Managed WordPress hosting is a specialized managed hosting service tailored specifically for WordPress websites, providing optimized performance, security, and support.

Is Kinsta worth it?

Despite its premium pricing, Kinsta is worth it for those who prioritize high performance, security, and expert support for their WordPress websites.

Is Kinsta only for WordPress?

Kinsta is specifically designed for WordPress, offering managed WordPress hosting solutions. However, you can also host your applications and databases.

Is Kinsta the best WordPress hosting?

Kinsta is one of the best WordPress hosting providers, with WP Engine and Cloudways.

Final Thoughts on Kinsta Pricing: Is Kinsta Worth It?

Kinsta's dedication to providing top-notch WordPress hosting is evident in every aspect of its service. From its high-performance Google Cloud infrastructure to its expert support team, Kinsta has crafted a hosting solution optimized for WordPress users.

While Kinsta's managed WordPress hosting may come at a higher cost than shared hosting options, the benefits in terms of performance, security, and support are unmatched.

If you're looking for a reliable, fast, and secure WordPress hosting solution, Kinsta is the perfect choice for you. Read our full Kinsta review to learn more.

You can try Kinsta risk-free with their 30-day money-back guarantee.

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