Key facts
- WordPress builds each page on request using PHP and a database, unlike a static site.
- The admin area, logged-in pages and the WooCommerce basket and checkout cannot be cached.
- WordPress scheduled jobs run off visitor traffic unless a real server cron job replaces them.
- Half an hour a month on updates and checks adds up to six hours a year.
- dijihost managed WordPress hosting is £1 a day + VAT (£365 a year + VAT).
- Core, theme and plugin updates, daily backups, free SSL, Cloudflare DNS and free migration are included.
- WooCommerce shops and multi-site setups are quoted separately.
The short answer
Here is the number first. Fully managed WordPress hosting from dijihost is £1 a day + VAT, which is £365 a year + VAT, or £35 a month + VAT. Look around the rest of the UK market and you will see WordPress hosting advertised from a couple of pounds a month upwards.
The gap between those figures has almost nothing to do with disk space. It is about who does the work, and who picks up the phone when something goes wrong on a Sunday.
Why WordPress costs more to host than a plain website
A static website is a set of files. The server hands them over and that is the end of it, which is why hosting one is cheap and stays cheap. The wider market is laid out in what web hosting costs in the UK.
WordPress does not work that way. It builds every page on request: it runs PHP, asks the database a series of questions, and assembles the answer while the visitor waits. Some of that can be cached and reused. A few parts cannot be cached at all:
- The admin area, which is rebuilt on every single click
- Anything shown only to a logged-in user
- A WooCommerce basket and checkout, which have to be accurate to the second
- Scheduled jobs, which WordPress fires off the back of visitor traffic
That last one surprises people. WordPress has no clock of its own. It waits for a visitor and uses that visit to run whatever was due, so a quiet site does its scheduled work late and a busy site does it over and over. On a server with headroom none of this matters. On an oversold one it is the difference between a page appearing straight away and you watching a spinner.
The work behind the price
Take the hardware out of a managed price and what is left is labour. WordPress core ships releases through the year. A site of any age carries a long list of plugins, each on its own release schedule, and a theme on top. Every update has to be applied and then checked, because the update that breaks something rarely announces it.
Half an hour a month spent updating and checking is six hours a year. Put your own hourly rate against that and the cheap plan looks different. It also assumes the month goes well, and the month it does not is never the month you set aside for it.
That is what the difference in price buys: a person responsible for the site rather than a dashboard. Somebody notices when the site stops responding at ten to seven on a Friday evening, which is when these things tend to happen. What that person does week by week is set out in managed WordPress hosting explained.
What you are paying now
To compare properly, take a full year of your current hosting at the renewal rate, add the last bill from whoever fixed the site when an update went wrong, then add the six hours. We see this a lot: a business adds it up and finds it was already paying managed money for hosting that manages nothing.
Does paying more make the site faster?
Up to a point, yes. Moving off a crowded shared machine onto one with proper headroom makes an immediate difference, and so does having PHP and caching set up by somebody who knows what WordPress likes.
Past that point you are no longer buying speed. You are buying people. A well-specified server will still sit there while a broken plugin takes your contact form down for a fortnight. And where the delay comes from images and the plugin list rather than the machine, a bigger server buys very little, so rule out the usual reasons a WordPress site runs slowly before spending anything.
What £1 a day covers, and what pushes the price up
Our price covers managed hosting on UK servers, 24/7 monitoring, daily backups kept for 14 days, free SSL certificates that renew themselves, Cloudflare DNS, 10 email accounts, and every core, theme and plugin update handled for you. Migration from your current host is free, and you can have a Plesk login if you like poking about. PHP versions from 5.6 to 8.5 can be set per site. More detail is on our WordPress hosting page.
As a site grows, a few things predictably move the price:
- Plugins. Anything that runs on the front end does work on every page view, so a site that has picked up a plugin every few months for years asks the server for far more on the same traffic.
- Logged-in users. Content behind a login skips the cache, so a membership area, client portal or busy set of editors makes a site expensive to serve without a single extra visitor.
- A shop. Order tables grow, the two pages that matter most cannot be cached, and the busy weeks land all at once. That is why WooCommerce hosting is quoted per shop.
Several sites on one account, or an old system running alongside a new one, are priced on their own too. None of this is a reason to buy more server than the site needs today. It is a reason to be on something that can be made bigger without moving house.
Frequently asked questions
How much does WordPress hosting cost in the UK?
Fully managed WordPress hosting from dijihost is £1 a day + VAT, which is £365 a year + VAT. That covers core, theme and plugin updates, a check that the site still works afterwards, daily backups kept for 14 days, SSL, security monitoring and a free move from your current host. Shops and multi-site setups are quoted separately.
How much work does a WordPress site need each month?
Not much in a good month and a fair bit in a bad one. Core, theme and plugin updates come round constantly, and each one needs applying and then checking that nothing on the site broke. Half an hour covers a quiet month. The month a plugin update takes the contact form down, it does not.
Does a WooCommerce shop cost more to host than a blog?
Usually, yes. A shop runs more code on every page, keeps basket and checkout pages out of the cache, and gets busiest at exactly the times you cannot afford a slow site. dijihost quotes WooCommerce hosting per shop, based on catalogue size and order volume, rather than selling a fixed plan.
Is it cheaper to host several WordPress sites together?
Sometimes. It depends what the sites do and how much looking after they need, so we would rather look than promise. What one account does give you is a single renewal date, one invoice, and the same people answering about all of them. Tell us how many sites you have and we will price the lot as a group.
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