Websites

Where should a small business site live?

For a small business site the hosting bill is small, so the questions that matter are different: does the free plan allow a business site, what happens the month you get busy, and who answers when it breaks. Two of these hosts are for WordPress, three are for modern static and framework sites.

Checked against each vendor's own pages on October 14, 2026. Every cell links to its source. Prices and plans change often, so click through before you buy.

	VercelVercel	NetlifyNetlify	Cloudflare Workers and PagesCloudflare	WP EngineWP Engine	SiteGroundSiteGround
Free plan	$0 Hobby plan, no time limit: 100 GB transfer, 1M CDN requests a monthAlso capped at 200 projects, 50 domains per project and 100 deployments a day. Hobby is also limited to personal, non-commercial use.Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel pricing	Free: $0 forever, 300 credits per month, sites pause when used upCaps are credits only. The pages do not list bandwidth, build minutes, or site counts. Derived, not stated: bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB, so 300 credits is about 15 GB.Netlify Personal vs Free comparison Netlify pricing	$0, no time limit. Caps: 100,000 requests/day, 10 ms CPU per invocation. Static asset requests are free and unlimited.Daily cap resets at midnight UTC; over the cap, Error 1027.Workers pricing Workers limits	No free plan or trial. Plans listed are Essential, Business and Enterprise, all paid.The plans page lists no free plan or trial; the only 'free' wording is 'Build, design, and stage a free website' under Transferable sites, which is a feature, not a plan.WP Engine Plans & Pricing	No free planA 30-day money-back guarantee instead.SiteGround web hosting
Commercial use on the free plan	No. Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use onlyThe free plan's stated terms rule out a business site.Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel pricing	Not published: no commercial or fair-use term for the free planThe agreement says the free tier is offered at Netlify's sole discretion and can be discontinued, and says it exists to let users experience the Services. It does not say whether a business site is allowed. The Terms of Use page defers to the subscription agreements and an Acceptable Use Policy and has no commercial-use language.Netlify Self-Serve Subscription Agreement Netlify Terms of Use	Not publishedNeither the free plans page nor the developer platform page contains commercial or fair-use language for the Free plan.Cloudflare Free plan	Not applicableNo free plan exists, so no free-plan commercial terms apply.WP Engine Plans & Pricing	Not applicableNo free plan. The entry plan is described as for personal projects and small sites, the next one for a growing business.SiteGround web hosting
First paid plan	Pro: $20/mo platform fee, includes $20 usage credit, billed monthly. Included usage: pricing page shows 1 TB Fast Data Transfer and 10M CDN requests a month; Pro docs say 1M CDN requests and 1 TB transfer.The pricing page (10M requests) and the Pro docs Flat Rate CDN line (1M requests) disagree on request count; transfer is 1 TB on both. Includes 1 deploying seat; extra Owner or Member seats are $20/month each. No yearly price shown.Vercel Pro Plan docs Vercel pricing	Personal: $9 per month, 1,000 credits, no visit or GB countShown as a monthly price only. No yearly price was seen. Credits cover bandwidth and requests; no visit or GB allowance is stated. Pricing page also lists credit packs (Personal 500 credits for $5) with auto-recharge.Netlify pricing Netlify Personal vs Free comparison	Workers Paid: $5 USD per month minimum per account; includes 10 million requests/month and 30 million CPU ms/monthUsage-based, monthly. Additional requests $0.30 per million; additional CPU $0.02 per million CPU ms. Static asset requests are free and unlimited. No annual price shown.Workers pricing	Essential: $28.00 USD per month, billed annually (pay $336.00 today). Visits 25,000-400,000 per month (estimates); bandwidth 75 GB.Both the plans page and the small-business pricing page show USD $28.00 per month billed annually. Footnote on the plans page notes a first-year discount for new Essential customers; 'Taxes and overages may apply during checkout.' The visits range is labelled 'Numbers are estimates only.'WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine Small Business Pricing	StartUp: $2.99/mo first term, renews at $17.99/moPrepaid for 12 months. One website, unlimited traffic, 10 GB storage.SiteGround web hosting
Custom domain and SSL	Yes. HTTPS certificates are listed as included on all plans, and Vercel auto-issues a certificate for each domain added to a projectThe pricing page lists HTTPS certificates and TLS/SSL as Included on all plans. Certificates come from Let's Encrypt. Uploading custom certificates is Enterprise only. Hobby allows 50 domains per project but is non-commercial.Vercel Working with SSL Certificates docs Vercel pricing	Yes: custom domains with SSL listed on the Free planPricing page lists the feature under Free, and the comparison table checks it for both Free and Personal. Neither page describes certificate renewal or any SSL fee.Netlify pricing Netlify Personal vs Free comparison	Automatic SSL certificate issued. No separate certificate plan neededNeeds an active Cloudflare zone you own, with no existing CNAME on the hostname. The page does not state plan requirements or cost. The Free plan page says it provides free SSL.Workers custom domains Cloudflare Free plan	Free SSL included on Essential. Custom domain not stated on the plan pages.Plans page: 'Free SSL and SSH' and 'Auto-renewing SSL and SSH access' on all plans. No plan page mentions custom domains, so only the SSL half is confirmed.WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine Small Business Pricing	Yes: free SSL, CDN and daily backups on every planSiteGround web hosting
What happens when you exceed the plan	Hobby: hard cap, no extra usage can be bought; after exceeding limits you generally wait 30 days. Pro: on-demand billing after the $20 credit, uncapped by defaultPro spend management can add alerts and automatic actions at a spend threshold; a default notification is set at $200 per billing cycle. Per-unit overage rates are on the pricing page (CDN requests from $2 per 1M, transfer from $0.15 per GB).Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel Pro Plan docs	Free: all sites pause when credits run out and Free cannot buy extra credits. Paid plans can buy credit packs or turn on auto recharge (off by default).Agreement text separately says usage over free-tier capacity can incur fees, which conflicts with the billing FAQ; the FAQ is the more specific source. Credit pack prices are not on the FAQ; the pricing page lists Personal 500 credits for $5 and Pro 1,500 credits for $10.Netlify billing FAQ for credit-based plans Netlify pricing	Free: hard cap, over 100,000 requests/day returns Error 1027. Paid: billed at $0.30 per additional million requests and $0.02 per additional million CPU ms.Static asset requests are free and unlimited.Workers limits Workers pricing	Overage billed. FAQ gives $2 per 1,000 extra monthly visitors for Startup, Professional, Growth and Scale plans only. Essential rate not published; no pause or hard cap found.Pricing page says only 'Taxes and overages may apply during checkout.' The $2 rate applies to older-named plans, not Essential.WP Engine FAQ WP Engine Small Business Pricing	Unlimited traffic on every plan; no overage statedStorage is the stated cap: 10 GB on StartUp.SiteGround web hosting
Support channel	Email support on Pro only. Hobby lists no email supportThe pricing page names no support channel for Hobby or Pro. Community support is not mentioned on the pages checked.Vercel Hobby Plan docs	Free: basic email support marked on the comparison table. Personal: prioritized email support. The billing FAQ says Netlify Support is reachable on any plan.The main pricing page lists priority email support only under Personal and nothing for Free; the comparison page marks Free with email support. No response times are published.Netlify Personal vs Free comparison Netlify pricing	Free: community forum and Developers Discord only; support cases only for billing, account and registrar issues. Pay-as-you-go: no SLA, requests answered in order received.The support page names Pay-as-you-go but not Workers Paid, so Workers Paid support is not stated. Email support is not mentioned.Contacting Cloudflare Support	Essential: 24/7 chat support. Business: 24/7 chat & phone support. Email and ticket not stated.Plans page does not mention email or ticket support. FAQ refers only to a '24-hour Support team'.WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine FAQ	24/7 expert human support on every planGoGeek adds priority support.SiteGround web hosting
Our pickOpinion, not a vendor claim	The pick for a Next.js site, on Pro from day one. Hobby is not for business sites, and overage keeps you up.	Solid for static sites, but the free plan pauses every site when credits run out. Pay the $9 and turn on auto recharge.	Cheapest serious option and the free plan is generous. Support is community-only until you pay.	The managed WordPress host for a business that wants someone else to patch it. No hard cap found on visits.	Cheapest WordPress start, with a renewal six times the promo. Budget for the renewal, not the sale.

Vercel

Free plan: $0 Hobby plan, no time limit: 100 GB transfer, 1M CDN requests a monthAlso capped at 200 projects, 50 domains per project and 100 deployments a day. Hobby is also limited to personal, non-commercial use.Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel pricing
Commercial use on the free plan: No. Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use onlyThe free plan's stated terms rule out a business site.Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel pricing
First paid plan: Pro: $20/mo platform fee, includes $20 usage credit, billed monthly. Included usage: pricing page shows 1 TB Fast Data Transfer and 10M CDN requests a month; Pro docs say 1M CDN requests and 1 TB transfer.The pricing page (10M requests) and the Pro docs Flat Rate CDN line (1M requests) disagree on request count; transfer is 1 TB on both. Includes 1 deploying seat; extra Owner or Member seats are $20/month each. No yearly price shown.Vercel Pro Plan docs Vercel pricing
Custom domain and SSL: Yes. HTTPS certificates are listed as included on all plans, and Vercel auto-issues a certificate for each domain added to a projectThe pricing page lists HTTPS certificates and TLS/SSL as Included on all plans. Certificates come from Let's Encrypt. Uploading custom certificates is Enterprise only. Hobby allows 50 domains per project but is non-commercial.Vercel Working with SSL Certificates docs Vercel pricing
What happens when you exceed the plan: Hobby: hard cap, no extra usage can be bought; after exceeding limits you generally wait 30 days. Pro: on-demand billing after the $20 credit, uncapped by defaultPro spend management can add alerts and automatic actions at a spend threshold; a default notification is set at $200 per billing cycle. Per-unit overage rates are on the pricing page (CDN requests from $2 per 1M, transfer from $0.15 per GB).Vercel Hobby Plan docs Vercel Pro Plan docs
Support channel: Email support on Pro only. Hobby lists no email supportThe pricing page names no support channel for Hobby or Pro. Community support is not mentioned on the pages checked.Vercel Hobby Plan docs
Our pick: The pick for a Next.js site, on Pro from day one. Hobby is not for business sites, and overage keeps you up.

Netlify

Free plan: Free: $0 forever, 300 credits per month, sites pause when used upCaps are credits only. The pages do not list bandwidth, build minutes, or site counts. Derived, not stated: bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB, so 300 credits is about 15 GB.Netlify Personal vs Free comparison Netlify pricing
Commercial use on the free plan: Not published: no commercial or fair-use term for the free planThe agreement says the free tier is offered at Netlify's sole discretion and can be discontinued, and says it exists to let users experience the Services. It does not say whether a business site is allowed. The Terms of Use page defers to the subscription agreements and an Acceptable Use Policy and has no commercial-use language.Netlify Self-Serve Subscription Agreement Netlify Terms of Use
First paid plan: Personal: $9 per month, 1,000 credits, no visit or GB countShown as a monthly price only. No yearly price was seen. Credits cover bandwidth and requests; no visit or GB allowance is stated. Pricing page also lists credit packs (Personal 500 credits for $5) with auto-recharge.Netlify pricing Netlify Personal vs Free comparison
Custom domain and SSL: Yes: custom domains with SSL listed on the Free planPricing page lists the feature under Free, and the comparison table checks it for both Free and Personal. Neither page describes certificate renewal or any SSL fee.Netlify pricing Netlify Personal vs Free comparison
What happens when you exceed the plan: Free: all sites pause when credits run out and Free cannot buy extra credits. Paid plans can buy credit packs or turn on auto recharge (off by default).Agreement text separately says usage over free-tier capacity can incur fees, which conflicts with the billing FAQ; the FAQ is the more specific source. Credit pack prices are not on the FAQ; the pricing page lists Personal 500 credits for $5 and Pro 1,500 credits for $10.Netlify billing FAQ for credit-based plans Netlify pricing
Support channel: Free: basic email support marked on the comparison table. Personal: prioritized email support. The billing FAQ says Netlify Support is reachable on any plan.The main pricing page lists priority email support only under Personal and nothing for Free; the comparison page marks Free with email support. No response times are published.Netlify Personal vs Free comparison Netlify pricing
Our pick: Solid for static sites, but the free plan pauses every site when credits run out. Pay the $9 and turn on auto recharge.

Cloudflare Workers and Pages

Cloudflare

Free plan: $0, no time limit. Caps: 100,000 requests/day, 10 ms CPU per invocation. Static asset requests are free and unlimited.Daily cap resets at midnight UTC; over the cap, Error 1027.Workers pricing Workers limits
Commercial use on the free plan: Not publishedNeither the free plans page nor the developer platform page contains commercial or fair-use language for the Free plan.Cloudflare Free plan
First paid plan: Workers Paid: $5 USD per month minimum per account; includes 10 million requests/month and 30 million CPU ms/monthUsage-based, monthly. Additional requests $0.30 per million; additional CPU $0.02 per million CPU ms. Static asset requests are free and unlimited. No annual price shown.Workers pricing
Custom domain and SSL: Automatic SSL certificate issued. No separate certificate plan neededNeeds an active Cloudflare zone you own, with no existing CNAME on the hostname. The page does not state plan requirements or cost. The Free plan page says it provides free SSL.Workers custom domains Cloudflare Free plan
What happens when you exceed the plan: Free: hard cap, over 100,000 requests/day returns Error 1027. Paid: billed at $0.30 per additional million requests and $0.02 per additional million CPU ms.Static asset requests are free and unlimited.Workers limits Workers pricing
Support channel: Free: community forum and Developers Discord only; support cases only for billing, account and registrar issues. Pay-as-you-go: no SLA, requests answered in order received.The support page names Pay-as-you-go but not Workers Paid, so Workers Paid support is not stated. Email support is not mentioned.Contacting Cloudflare Support
Our pick: Cheapest serious option and the free plan is generous. Support is community-only until you pay.

WP Engine

Free plan: No free plan or trial. Plans listed are Essential, Business and Enterprise, all paid.The plans page lists no free plan or trial; the only 'free' wording is 'Build, design, and stage a free website' under Transferable sites, which is a feature, not a plan.WP Engine Plans & Pricing
Commercial use on the free plan: Not applicableNo free plan exists, so no free-plan commercial terms apply.WP Engine Plans & Pricing
First paid plan: Essential: $28.00 USD per month, billed annually (pay $336.00 today). Visits 25,000-400,000 per month (estimates); bandwidth 75 GB.Both the plans page and the small-business pricing page show USD $28.00 per month billed annually. Footnote on the plans page notes a first-year discount for new Essential customers; 'Taxes and overages may apply during checkout.' The visits range is labelled 'Numbers are estimates only.'WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine Small Business Pricing
Custom domain and SSL: Free SSL included on Essential. Custom domain not stated on the plan pages.Plans page: 'Free SSL and SSH' and 'Auto-renewing SSL and SSH access' on all plans. No plan page mentions custom domains, so only the SSL half is confirmed.WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine Small Business Pricing
What happens when you exceed the plan: Overage billed. FAQ gives $2 per 1,000 extra monthly visitors for Startup, Professional, Growth and Scale plans only. Essential rate not published; no pause or hard cap found.Pricing page says only 'Taxes and overages may apply during checkout.' The $2 rate applies to older-named plans, not Essential.WP Engine FAQ WP Engine Small Business Pricing
Support channel: Essential: 24/7 chat support. Business: 24/7 chat & phone support. Email and ticket not stated.Plans page does not mention email or ticket support. FAQ refers only to a '24-hour Support team'.WP Engine Plans & Pricing WP Engine FAQ
Our pick: The managed WordPress host for a business that wants someone else to patch it. No hard cap found on visits.

SiteGround

Free plan: No free planA 30-day money-back guarantee instead.SiteGround web hosting
Commercial use on the free plan: Not applicableNo free plan. The entry plan is described as for personal projects and small sites, the next one for a growing business.SiteGround web hosting
First paid plan: StartUp: $2.99/mo first term, renews at $17.99/moPrepaid for 12 months. One website, unlimited traffic, 10 GB storage.SiteGround web hosting
Custom domain and SSL: Yes: free SSL, CDN and daily backups on every planSiteGround web hosting
What happens when you exceed the plan: Unlimited traffic on every plan; no overage statedStorage is the stated cap: 10 GB on StartUp.SiteGround web hosting
Support channel: 24/7 expert human support on every planGoGeek adds priority support.SiteGround web hosting
Our pick: Cheapest WordPress start, with a renewal six times the promo. Budget for the renewal, not the sale.

Yes
With conditions
Not yet
Not confirmed

Match the host to the site, then read the overage line

A WordPress site wants a WordPress host. A Next.js or static site wants one of the platform hosts. After that, one line in the pricing page matters most.

01Overage behaviorA site that pauses when you exceed the plan goes dark during your best week. A site that bills overage stays up. Know which you have.
02Commercial useSome free tiers are for personal projects by their terms. A business site on one of those is running against the vendor's rules.
03Support pathCommunity forums are fine until 9pm on a Friday. Check what the first paid plan buys you.

Keep the domain registered somewhere other than the host. It makes leaving a one-afternoon job.

Spearworks AI

Want your site moved somewhere it will stay up?

I move client sites to Vercel with the domain kept in your name, then run the free Labs audit on it so nothing drifts. Migration is a fixed quote after a free look at the current site.

Book a free consult

Nathan Spear · spearworksai.com

Spearworks Labs · All comparisons · Checked October 14, 2026. Not affiliated with any vendor listed.