SiteGround StartUp Review
SiteGround is one of the most popular website hosting services on the internet.
It allows you to host your website at competitive rates.
It offers both shared hosting and cloud hosting and it’s suitable for personal and business websites.
SiteGround comes with a CMS (content management system) like WordPress (.org).
WordPress is used by over 40% of all websites on the internet, so it’s a highly recommended CMS.
Just so that you know that this article is reliable and credible—I’m the founder of this website that’s also hosted on SiteGround.
I’ve used SiteGround’s StartUp hosting for about 2 years, so I have loads of experience with it.
If you’re looking to host your website on SiteGround, you might be debating between other hosting services.
This article contains a personal SiteGround StartUp review (2+ years of experience), its speed, pricing, customer service, and more.
- SiteGround StartUp: Pros and Cons
- Pricing (vs Bluehost and DreamPress)
- Speed (via Pagespeed Insights)
- Customer service
- SiteGround StartUp: Overall review
| Pros (check features) | Cons |
| Fast and secure | Limited storage (10 GB) |
| Exceptional customer service | Traffic limit (10k monthly visits) |
| Free email, SSL, CDN, and daily backups |
SiteGround StartUp is a fast and secure shared WordPress hosting service that comes with a lot of free services.
The services include free email, an SSL certificate, and CDN.
In addition, it has automatic daily backups that you can restore in case something goes wrong with your site.
The automatic daily backups feature saved my site a lot of times when I messed up a plugin or theme.
However, StartUp does not have on-demand backup copies (only the GoGeek and GoBig plans have it).
This means that you cannot create manual backups, but you’ll still have automatic backups.
There are a couple of free SiteGround-developed plugins that you can use.
SiteGround Optimizer speeds up your site while SiteGround Security prevents hackers.
If you’re not expecting much traffic or you’re just starting out, you can choose the StartUp plan first.
Once your website starts getting more than 10k monthly visitors or you’ve exceeded the storage limit, you can upgrade to GoBig.
Pricing (vs Bluehost and DreamPress)| Hosting service | SiteGround StartUp | BlueHost Choice Plus | DreamPress |
| Standard pricing | $14.99 per month (check prices) | $9.99 per month | $16.95 per month |
Compared to other popular WordPress hosting services, SiteGround’s StartUp pricing is on the higher end.
This is because it comes with multiple free services and you can host unlimited websites.
Other hosting companies usually upsell their customers by paying for automatic backups, an SSL certificate, and others.
For StartUp, what you see is what you get—there isn’t an essential feature that you need to purchase.
If you’re let down by the pricing, click here to save up to 80% on SiteGround StartUp hosting.
Overall pricing rating: 3.5/5 stars (pricier than its competitors, but fewer upsells).
Speed (via Pagespeed Insights)
When this site was on StartUp hosting, its desktop speed is usually close to 100 (tested via Google’s Pagespeed Insights).
The mobile page speed is between 60 to 80 with ads but can go up to the 90s without ads.
In terms of Google Search Console’s page experience, the site passes 97% and 99% of core web vitals on mobile and desktop respectively.
This site is currently on SiteGround’s cloud hosting because its exceeded the storage and traffic limits.
The only setback is that SiteGround does not have the best TTFB (time to the first byte).
TTFB is basically the server’s response time—which is not the most important speed factor.
With a fast theme (get fast WordPress themes on https://themeforest.net/), a caching plugin, and an optimizer plugin, your site can easily hit a perfect speed score.
Overall speed rating: 4/5 stars (hosting is just one of the factors that contribute to a fast website).
Customer service
SiteGround’s customer service is the best 24/7 support that I’ve ever dealt with.
Most of their representatives are professional and can solve the issue that you’re facing in minutes.
For example, I had a storage issue with my website and I contacted SiteGround support for help.
The representative managed to detect that a backup plugin was responsible for the storage overload.
After I deleted the plugin, my site’s storage was reduced by 50%.
Their contact page contains a list of topics that you can choose from—Site transfers, Domain, Downtime, and more.
Customer service rating: 5/5 stars (SiteGround has a 98% overall client satisfaction rating).
SiteGround StartUp: Overall reviewOverall, StartUp meets all of my expectations in terms of speed, uptime, security, and customer service based on my review.
I’ve used StartUp for about 2 years and it has a 99% uptime.
One of the main reasons why I love SiteGround is because of their customer service.
If you’re a beginner, setting up your first website can be a daunting experience.
With SiteGround support, you can contact them if you have any issues or questions regarding your website.
SiteGround is also listed as one of the best WordPress hosting services by WordPress.org.
To be listed on there, a hosting service’s customer base, ease of WordPress installation/upgrades, design, and software needs to be optimal.
StartUp Overall rating: 4.5/5 stars (you can start a 30-day money-back guarantee trial of StartUp hosting).
Further readingSiteGround Tutorial for Beginners
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