Our recommendations, the tradeoffs behind them, and when your current setup may be enough. Each article explains its evidence and what remains untested.
Choose Kinsta (or another managed WordPress host) if nobody on your team will patch, monitor and restore a server. Choose a DigitalOcean Droplet only if a named person already does that work and wants control of the stack. On October 29, 2026 Kinsta's Single 35k plan listed $35/month ($350/year billed annually) and a 2 GiB DigitalOcean Droplet listed $12/month; the roughly $200-a-year gap is cheap if it replaces even a few hours of server work, and expensive if you already do that work anyway.
For a solo course owner with no server administrator, start with a managed WordPress host: Kinsta publishes its PHP thread counts per plan (2 threads on the $35/month Single 35k), which makes capacity easier to reason about; WP Engine's Essential plan is the shared-environment entry tier. Choose a managed VPS (Liquid Web or KnownHost, from $43.25/month listed for KnownHost Basic) when you need root access or more raw resources and accept owning the application layer. None of these has been load-tested by us for a student count; keep your current host if a cache or plugin fix solves the problem.
SiteGround GrowBig is a reasonable first home for a small WordPress course or membership site that has one owner, modest enrollment and a budget for the regular price, not just the intro price. Plan on $29.99 a month after the first year, not $4.99. Skip StartUp for a paid course site because it has no staging. Skip SiteGround shared hosting entirely if you expect hundreds of students logged in at the same hour, need long PHP processes, or cannot live with fair-use CPU limits that are enforced by monitoring rather than a fixed allocation.
Use a worked example
Prove scheduled work and mail still arrive
Use the worked acceptance kit to separate configuration from observed results.
Turn a busy class into a hosting requirement: PHP threads, uncached requests, LearnDash's own app sizing table, and a rehearsal you can run before you pay.
The exact MemberPress URLs to exclude from cache, the logged-in cache settings for common plugins, and how to tell a cache problem from a capacity problem.
A cutover plan for LearnDash or MemberPress sites: freeze or sync learner data, keep Stripe webhooks from being lost, re-apply cache exclusions, and roll back without losing new orders.
How SiteGround's dynamic cache decides what to cache, which cookies and URLs it already bypasses, what a membership or course site still needs to exclude, and how to verify each page with the X-Proxy-Cache header.
Plan choice, PHP version, permalinks, staging, caching exclusions, cron and email checks for a LearnDash course site on SiteGround, drawn from SiteGround and LearnDash documentation.
What SiteGround's WooCommerce-branded plans include compared with its standard WordPress plans, how renewal cron, caching and staging behave for WooCommerce Subscriptions, and the signs a subscription store has outgrown shared hosting.
A starter, growing and high-volume shortlist built from LearnDash's documented server floor and the specs hosts publish, with first-year cost math and upgrade triggers.
MemberPress's own requirements plus four selection criteria: uncached logged-in traffic, payment webhooks, scheduled tasks and email, with how SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine and Liquid Web line up on published features.
Why renewals depend on a reliable scheduler and uncached checkout, what WooCommerce and Subscriptions require, and which published host features fit a small, growing or large subscription store.
LifterLMS's recommended versions, its own guidance on shared hosting and the $30-a-month line, caching rules, and a pre-purchase checklist mapped to real plans.
A three-year cost comparison using published Teachable plans and fees, LearnDash licence pricing, hosting and card processing, plus the control and maintenance trade-offs.
Published Kajabi tiers against a WordPress host, LMS plugin and email stack, priced at 100 and 1,000 students, with the work Kajabi takes off your plate.
MemberPress plan tiers and transaction fees against Paid Memberships Pro's free core and paid plans: gateways, course features and which suits a simple paywall.
How PHP workers (Kinsta calls them threads) cap concurrent uncached requests, what Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and a DigitalOcean server document about them, and a worked example sizing workers for a quiz deadline.
A pre-launch checklist covering how Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and DigitalOcean bill and enforce spikes, temporary upgrades, cache rules, checkout tests and support escalation.
Why host mail often falls short for enrollment and receipt emails, published free-tier limits at Mailgun, Postmark, SMTP2GO and Amazon SES, and the checks to run after setup.
Seat pricing against pay-per-GB delivery, domain-level privacy against signed embed tokens, LearnDash embedding rules, and a worked cost example for 500 students.
Paid Memberships Pro's own requirements and caching rules for logged-in members, mapped to SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine and Liquid Web by site size, with the capacity factors each host publishes.
What Liquid Web's October 2026 town hall recap says about LearnDash licensing, renewals, pricing and support for existing customers, and a practical checklist for renewal dates, site counts, add-ons and backups.
Course-feature vocabulary from LearnDash documentation and the SCORM and xAPI specifications, with a column on which features create database writes or file uploads that change what your hosting must handle.
What SPF, DKIM and DMARC each prove, how Gmail and Yahoo sender requirements apply to enrollment, receipt and newsletter email, and a setup checklist for each service that sends mail as your domain.
The difference between WP_MEMORY_LIMIT, WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT and the server PHP memory_limit, what LifterLMS, Tutor LMS and LearnDash publish about requirements, and what Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and a cPanel VPS let you change.
Why a single MP4 in the WordPress media library buffers for students on slow connections, how HLS renditions, playlists and segments work, and how a bitrate ladder changes storage and bandwidth math, with worked numbers.
A setup checklist for a new LearnDash install on Kinsta, built from both vendors' documentation: requirements, cache exclusions for course pages, PHP thread counts by plan, and Kinsta's server cron.
What WP Engine documents about caching for logged-in users, path exclusions, PHP workers, memory, the 60-second limit and alternate cron, turned into a LearnDash setup checklist.
The setup order for MemberPress on SiteGround from both vendors' documentation: cache exclusions for protected pages and payment notifications, a real cron job for reminders, and staying under SiteGround's email limits.
WooCommerce's official server requirements translated into plan features to check, plus what subscriptions and memberships add: scheduled jobs, cache exclusions, concurrency and execution limits.
Moodle's documented PHP, database, cron, moodledata and document-root requirements for current releases, and why they point toward a VPS rather than WordPress-only managed hosting.
What LearnPress actually documents (WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+), why WordPress.org's recommendations are the better floor, which add-ons raise resource needs, and a sizing table by concurrent learners.
Sensei LMS's published minimums, what selling courses adds through Sensei Pro and WooCommerce, the stricter server floor that results, cache rules and a year-one cost example on SiteGround and Kinsta.
What the H5P plugin writes to disk and the database, the PHP extensions and upload settings it depends on, why it adds files faster than megabytes, and a checklist before you publish interactive lessons.
What a SCORM zip contains and unpacks into, the PHP upload and execution limits it has to clear, how file counts hit hosting caps, the current state of WordPress SCORM plugins and a pre-upload checklist.
How Spaces object storage and its built-in CDN are billed, the private versus public file trade-off for paid course material, the limits that affect video files, and monthly cost examples for three course libraries.
DigitalOcean's documented block on SMTP ports 25, 465 and 587, which provider ports and API routes still work, and a setup and test sequence for enrollment and receipt email.
Check the destination IP, TLS, page content, and redirects before a hosting cutover. Includes six recorded curl runs, including a wrong IP that still returned 200.
Research guide with a recorded demonstration on our own domainRead guide
A 15-minute decision test: is your problem the server or the application, what managed hosting actually covers, and when an upgrade is worth the money.
Worked first-year and renewal costs for SiteGround, Kinsta, DigitalOcean and KnownHost, plus the overlap, backup and labor lines most quotes leave out.
When a course or membership site needs shared WordPress hosting versus a cloud VM you administer. Research comparison of published plan limits, not a benchmark.
What SiteGround documents about its free Migrator plugin, the sites it does not suit, the paid manual transfer, and the 48-hour windows to plan around.
What happens to Stripe webhook endpoints, signing secrets and retries when a membership site changes host or domain, with MemberPress and WooCommerce steps.
Moving a course or membership site to a new domain: 301 redirect mapping, Google's Change of Address requirements, member logins, payments and email links.
A cancellation checklist for the old host: final backups, email and DNS still hosted there, refund windows, domains held at the host, and auto-renewal.
A research review of SiteGround shared hosting for small LearnDash and MemberPress sites: what the plans include, where logged-in traffic meets limits, and who should skip it.
Published storage, site counts, staging, backups and CPU thresholds for each SiteGround shared plan, mapped to course-site stages, with a worked upgrade example.
First-term versus renewal cost for StartUp, GrowBig and GoGeek over one, two and three years, how auto-renewal and refunds work, and when a longer prepay makes sense.
Shared-style plans with fair-use CPU limits versus visit-metered managed hosting: cost at three traffic levels, logged-in caching, staging, backups and who each suits.
Published visits, storage, bandwidth, overage rules, disallowed plugins and renewal wording for SiteGround and WP Engine, with a decision checklist by budget and student volume.
What SiteGround handles that a Droplet owner must do, with published Droplet, backup and SiteGround prices and a worked total-cost example including admin hours.
Published SiteGround Cloud resources and prices versus GoGeek, the signals that justify the move, cheaper fixes to try first, and the billing terms that change.
What SiteGround documents about CPU seconds, executions, memory, inodes and database size, why logged-in course pages use them, and a checklist for reading the usage graph before upgrading.
The three common reasons course creators leave SiteGround shared hosting, which type of host answers each one, and the cases where staying (or moving up inside SiteGround) is the better call.
SiteGround's published hourly sending caps and recipient rules, set against the emails a course site sends at enrollment and during drip schedules, with a worked example of when to move transactional mail elsewhere.
What SiteGround's 30-day (shared) and 14-day (cloud) money-back guarantee covers, why domain fees can still be due, how renewal refunds are prorated, and what to check before buying or cancelling.
Kinsta's single-site and multi-site plans with visits, storage, CDN and PHP threads, the add-on and overage prices, the money-back terms, and a worked first-year estimate for a membership course site.
WP Engine's Essential capacity tiers, Business and Enterprise plans, the per-site and per-license add-ons including the eCommerce Performance Pack, visit and bandwidth rules, and a first-year total for a typical membership site.
Where a low-cost plan genuinely works for a course site, the three corners not to cut, and a renewal-inclusive three-year cost table built from published prices.
Ten questions on skills, budget, branding, data ownership and integrations that point you to a hosted platform or WordPress, with published price anchors.
A five-part formula for a course site's real monthly hosting bill (base plan, visits or bandwidth, storage, add-ons, renewal) with three worked examples using prices published on 29 October 2026.
A line-item first-year budget for a self-hosted WordPress course site (hosting, domain, LMS licence, payment fees, email and video) at a lean and a comfortable tier, using prices published on 29 October 2026.
What managed WordPress plans from Kinsta and WP Engine add over SiteGround's premium shared plans (caching, staging, backups, metering and support scope), with a cost-per-feature table and the signs you should not upgrade yet.
Control, plugin freedom, multiple applications, support boundaries and pricing model compared for KnownHost and Liquid Web VPS plans against Kinsta and WP Engine, with the signals that point to each.
Published uptime SLAs from Kinsta, WP Engine, DigitalOcean, Liquid Web and KnownHost, plus SiteGround's stated guarantee: uptime figure, exclusions, credit amounts and claim deadlines, and what a credit is worth during a launch outage.
Documented support channels and scope for plugin conflicts, custom code, migrations, malware, DNS and performance at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Liquid Web, KnownHost and DigitalOcean, with a checklist to test support before you buy.
Which CDN Kinsta, WP Engine and SiteGround bundle, whether it caches HTML or only static files, bandwidth terms and add-ons, and what a CDN does and does not do for logged-in lesson pages.
Published region lists for Kinsta, SiteGround, WP Engine, DigitalOcean and Liquid Web, why a CDN does not cover logged-in lesson pages, and how to pick an origin region.
What Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Liquid Web and KnownHost document about malware scanning, cleanup cost and conditions, plus a recovery checklist for a hacked membership site.
Which plans at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and Liquid Web support Multisite, how domain mapping and SSL work, and when separate installs are the safer choice.
An ordered checklist using Bluehost's backup tools and SiteGround's documented migration paths, with LMS progress, payment and email checks before you change DNS.
How GoDaddy separates domain, DNS, hosting and email, how to carry email records across, and an acceptance checklist before you cancel GoDaddy hosting.
Measurable signals such as CPU-second warnings, slow logged-in pages and late scheduled tasks, how to tell them from fixable app issues, and next steps by budget.
Auto-renewal, refund, resource enforcement, suspension and data-after-termination clauses at SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine, Liquid Web, KnownHost and DigitalOcean, with where each is published.
Published monthly and annual prices at Kinsta, SiteGround, WP Engine and DigitalOcean, what you can get back after prepaying, and a break-even example for a course site that may move.
Usage evidence to collect first, what lower tiers remove, published downgrade rules at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and DigitalOcean, and a rollback plan.
Published migration and DNS timings from Kinsta, SiteGround, WP Engine and KnownHost, how site size and method change them, and a day-by-day planning template.
What Kinsta, SiteGround, WP Engine, Liquid Web and KnownHost say their free or paid migration offers cover, what none of them cover, and when paying is worth it.
What DigitalOcean documents for WordPress on each product, App Platform's ephemeral filesystem and SMTP limits, published prices, and who should choose neither.
What Liquid Web publishes about its managed WordPress and VPS plans, what is bundled for logged-in course traffic, where support scope is unclear, and who will overpay.
WP Engine’s published plans and add-ons, its cache rules for logged-in users, disallowed plugins, visit overages and backups, read for a LearnDash or MemberPress site.
KnownHost’s published managed VPS plans, control panel options, management scope and backups, and who gains from dedicated resources without running the server.
Published frequency, retention, pricing and consistency of DigitalOcean Droplet backups and snapshots, why neither replaces an off-server WordPress backup, and a restore plan.
Which hosts publish data processing terms and EU regions, what choosing an EU data center does and does not settle, and a practical checklist. Not legal advice.
Platform fees by plan on Teachable, Kajabi, Podia and Thinkific against processor-only fees on WordPress, with break-even points and monthly cost tables at three revenue levels.
List prices, renewal costs, site and visit limits, backups and support compared, with a two-year cost example and the point where Liquid Web's managed WordPress plans make sense for a course site.
A fully managed WordPress platform against a self-managed cloud server: published prices, who is responsible for what, and a worked monthly comparison that counts administration time.
Which paths to monitor on a course or membership site (login, lessons, checkout, scheduled jobs, certificate expiry), what common monitors include on their free tiers, and an alert checklist.
The verifiable facts behind SiteGround: founding, ownership, Google Cloud infrastructure, published security measures, backup and refund policies, the documented November 2021 crawling outage, and what to check before paying.
The promotions SiteGround listed on its own site on 30 October 2026: first-year intro pricing that needs no code, the free domain and transfer offer, the agency partner perks, and why the student program is not an option.
Official prices, renewal rates, backups, staging, data centers and refund terms for SiteGround and Hostinger WordPress plans, checked 30 October 2026, with a four-year cost example and who each fits.
Entry and mid plans from both official pages on 30 October 2026: term pricing, renewals, backups, staging, migration terms and money-back rules, plus a three-year cost example for one LearnDash site.
A checklist built from SiteGround's knowledge base: confirm DNS, check SSL Manager, cover www, reinstall Let's Encrypt, enforce HTTPS the recommended way, fix mixed content and know when to contact support.
SiteGround's Site Tools restore options, retention and on-demand limits by plan, and a course-site decision table for when to restore files only versus the database, with a pre-restore export checklist.
Published multi-site limits, per-site cost, client access and site transfer features from SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine, KnownHost and DigitalOcean, with a 5-site and 15-site LearnDash cost example.
Fix the WordPress database connection error after a migration in the order WordPress.org documents it: the four wp-config.php values, database user privileges, the DB_HOST value your new host publishes, then table repair.
Why an HTTPS course site still loads http:// assets after a migration, which of them browsers block, how to find every one, and how to fix site URLs, stored content, embeds and page-builder data.
Cloudflare's documented causes of redirect loops (Flexible mode, Always Use HTTPS, HSTS and conflicting rules), the fix order for a WordPress course site, and a pre-cutover check that the new origin has its certificate.
WordPress's documented recovery path for the critical error message after a host move: the recovery-mode email, the debug log, and the PHP version, extension and memory differences that LMS and membership plugins are sensitive to.
What happened to Media Temple, with dates as WP Tavern reported them, where former accounts now live, how to export a site from GoDaddy cPanel hosting, and the migration terms SiteGround, Kinsta and WP Engine publish.
What Google and Squarespace say changed when Google Domains registrations moved to Squarespace, which features are not supported, and how to verify MX, SPF, DKIM and DNSSEC before a host migration or registrar transfer.
What LearnDash's own documentation says about moving away from LearnDash Cloud: backups, the non-transferable license, plugins to replace, DNS, and the 24-hour cancellation window, plus a first-year cost comparison on SiteGround and Kinsta.
PHP workers, full-page and edge cache, object cache, staging, SSH/SFTP, visits and bandwidth, each matched to the label Kinsta, WP Engine and SiteGround use and what it means for logged-in students.
What each DNS record type does, which ones change when you move a course site to a new host and which must stay untouched, with a before/after zone table for a site that also runs email.
Plain definitions of the terms in WordPress migration docs and quotes, each paired with the specific risk it signals for a membership or LMS site and the question to ask.
How to read a VPS spec sheet from KnownHost, Liquid Web or DigitalOcean: cores and vCPUs, RAM, storage, transfer, root access, control panel licensing and the management scope each provider documents.
Why drip releases, membership expiries and renewal reminders run late on quiet course sites, how WP-Cron is triggered, and how SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine and a DigitalOcean Droplet each document replacing it with a server-side schedule.
What an inode is, how image sizes, cache folders, local backups, staging copies and mailboxes inflate the file count on a course site, the published inode limits for SiteGround and KnownHost plans, and how to measure and cut usage.
A cross-host table built from Kinsta's and WP Engine's published banned-plugin lists and the Liquid Web and Nexcess managed WordPress pages, flagging the caching, backup, migration, related-posts and view-counter plugins course sites often run, with each host's stated alternative.
Which of SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine, Liquid Web, KnownHost and DigitalOcean include mailboxes, which only relay transactional mail or block SMTP, and what a course owner should budget for mailboxes and a sending service when the host provides neither.
Which PHP versions Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Liquid Web and KnownHost document, how each handles end-of-life versions and automatic upgrades, how much notice they describe, and the php.net support dates a course site should plan around.
A developer-access table for Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Liquid Web, KnownHost and DigitalOcean: SSH and authentication, WP-CLI, Git deployment, SFTP, root access and plan restrictions, so you know before buying whether a developer's workflow will work.
The exact dashboard location, retention window and download route for PHP error and access logs at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and a DigitalOcean WordPress Droplet, with a worked example of tracing a failed checkout.
Published upload and POST size limits at WP Engine, SiteGround and Kinsta, whether each can be raised, the Cloudflare proxy cap that overrides them, and SFTP routes for large course assets.
Which hosts issue free certificates, which cover wildcard subdomains for course portals, which accept uploaded certificates, and who renews each, at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and DigitalOcean.
What Kinsta, WP Engine and SiteGround document about proxying through your own Cloudflare account, the SSL mode each expects, the conflicts with their built-in layers, and a setup order that avoids certificate and redirect loops.
Hosting account roles, per-site access, billing-only users and two-factor options at Kinsta, WP Engine, DigitalOcean, Liquid Web and SiteGround, with a role map for giving a VA, developer or bookkeeper access without the owner login.
Refund windows, eligibility, exclusions such as domains and overages, renewal refunds and how to request a refund at SiteGround, Kinsta, KnownHost, WP Engine, Liquid Web and DigitalOcean, from each host's terms.
How long SiteGround, Kinsta, WP Engine, Liquid Web, KnownHost and DigitalOcean keep files and backups after cancellation or non-payment, what else disappears with the plan, and an export-first checklist.
How many WordPress sites and how much storage the entry and mid tiers at Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround and Liquid Web allow, whether staging counts, and a worked example for a course site plus staging plus a separate sales site.
How cPanel's account-based tiers work, what one versus ten hosted accounts costs at cPanel's published prices, which managed VPS offers say the license is included, and the questions to ask before you assume it is.
A cross-platform table of what each hosted course platform's help docs say you can export (students, progress, quiz data, videos, payments), what has no export at all, and the gaps you will rebuild by hand when you move.
What a merchant of record is responsible for, what Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi and Podia each say they calculate, collect and remit, and what a self-hosted WordPress seller using Stripe has to handle instead.
Payout timing, first-payout delays, reserves and holds on Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi and Podia from their help docs, plus a cash-flow example for a launch month.
The DNS records each hosted course platform asks for, whether it supports a root domain or only a subdomain, and how to connect it without breaking email or the website already on your domain.
A day-by-day orientation to the Site Tools sections a course owner actually uses on SiteGround (domain, SSL, backups, caching, cron, email, staging, security and resource usage) with what to check on day one and what can wait.
A tour of the MyKinsta areas that matter for a course or membership site (domains, caching, backups, staging, users, email, analytics) with the setting to confirm in each during your first week.
How sites and environments relate in the WP Engine User Portal, and the backup, cache, cron, SSL and user settings to confirm before you invite students.
What the WordPress 1-Click image installs, what its setup script does, and the firewall, backup, monitoring, mail and cron jobs you own from day one, each tied to DigitalOcean documentation.
What you control on a new KnownHost managed VPS, how WHM and cPanel divide the work, how to create a cPanel account per site, and the backup, SSL and security settings to confirm in week one.
Portal orientation, staging, backups, automatic plugin updates with Visual Comparison, and PHP workers on Liquid Web managed WordPress, sequenced for a course launch.
The six separate pieces behind a course website (domain, DNS, server, database, SSL and email), who supplies each on shared, managed and VPS hosting, and what breaks when one lapses.
A week-by-week watch list for the month after moving a course or membership site: cron and renewals, email authentication and bounces, certificates, search crawling, backups, and the evidence to keep before cancelling the old host.
SEO checks for a same-domain host move grounded in Google Search Central guidance, how they differ from a domain or URL change, and a sampling method for course and lesson URLs.
A post-migration security checklist for WordPress course and membership sites: which secrets to rotate, which copies to delete, and the order for closing the old host without losing your rollback.
WordPress.org's recommended versus legacy requirements, what PHP, the database, HTTPS and the web server each do, and how to confirm them on any plan before you buy.
A minimal inbound and outbound rule set for a WordPress Droplet built from DigitalOcean documentation, the limits and defaults that surprise people, and how to avoid locking yourself or the Droplet Console out.
Which Droplet metrics and alert options DigitalOcean provides, what needs the metrics agent, starting thresholds for CPU, memory and disk on an LMS, uptime checks and their cost, and who should be paged for what.
How DigitalOcean reserved IPs move between Droplets, what they cost assigned and parked, the outbound-traffic and SMTP catches, and a server-swap runbook that skips TTL waits on every rebuild after the first.
What Kinsta's built-in APM records, how long it runs and keeps data, its documented performance cost, and how to read a slow quiz or checkout trace to decide whether a bigger plan, more PHP memory or a code fix is the right spend.
What DevKinsta can pull from and push to Kinsta according to Kinsta's docs, what each push overwrites, and how to keep student data and live payment keys safe on a local copy of a course site.
How Local's Connect feature pushes and pulls with WP Engine production, staging and development environments, what a push overwrites, which files never move, and a safe sequence when the live site holds membership data.
What KnownHost includes for backups on WordPress hosting and managed VPS, how JetBackup 5 restores a single file, a database, cron jobs or a whole cPanel account, and a restore drill sized for a course site.
Where Kinsta, WP Engine and SiteGround keep their own backups, why those copies share your host account's risks, which hosts offer an external backup add-on, and a 3-2-1 plan with worked monthly costs.
Plain definitions of recovery point and recovery time objectives, how host backup schedules set your real numbers, and a one-page plan with roles, where credentials live and the order to restore a course business.
A step-by-step move from WP Engine to Kinsta built from both vendors' documentation: what to export before you start, the free migration timeline, and the redirects, cache rules, cron and email settings that do not transfer on their own.
A step-by-step SiteGround to Kinsta move: which SiteGround plugins to remove, why your mailboxes need a new home, and the DNS order that avoids losing email.
Export a WP Engine backup, move the site with SiteGround Migrator or by hand, swap WP Engine caching and cron for SiteGround equivalents, and verify a membership site before DNS.
Take Kinsta's weekly downloadable backup, import to SiteGround, recreate the redirects, cron and caching Kinsta handled for you, and check SiteGround plan limits on arrival.
Build the Droplet, move files and database, split email off because SMTP ports are blocked, and take on the server jobs a shared host used to do for you.
Strip server-specific config from a DigitalOcean WordPress build, decide what replaces your cron, object cache and mail, then follow the import route Kinsta or WP Engine documents.
Back up from HostGator cPanel, import to SiteGround, sequence email and DNS so nothing bounces, and run a member-login verification pass before switching.
For the common case where the domain stays registered at Namecheap: the nameserver switch that wipes records if done in the wrong order, the exact host-record edits, and the email choice.
How WHM's Transfer Tool and KnownHost's free migration help work, what they move (accounts, mail, databases), what they skip, and the checks to run after the copy.
What Wix's help centre says you can and cannot take with you, where an RSS import fits, how to rebuild members and payments, and a redirect map to protect search traffic.
What Squarespace's WordPress export file includes and omits, why images can break after you cancel, how to rebuild member areas and products, and how to map URLs.
Podia's documented contact and sales exports, how subscriptions behave in your connected Stripe account, and the order to rebuild products, access and student emails.
MemberPress Importer's documented CSV templates and import order, how Stripe subscription IDs link imported records to existing billing, the PayPal caveats, and a test-import plan.
What Themeum's migration tool lists as carried over from LearnDash, its version requirements, the warning that originals are deleted, and what to verify or rebuild by hand.
An inventory, upload, embed-swap and cleanup sequence for lesson videos, with the WP-CLI commands and dry-run checks that make bulk embed changes safe.
Stripe's documented options for keeping one account versus copying data to a new one, what a copy leaves behind, and how WordPress membership plugins attach to subscriptions that already exist.
Why a hosted course platform export rarely includes usable passwords, how to import student accounts and enroll them in courses, and a password-reset email plan that avoids a flood of support tickets.
The order to import users and content when combining two WordPress sites, which IDs change and what breaks when they do, and how to build a redirect map for the domain you retire.
An itemised annual budget for a 500-student LearnDash site on SiteGround shared hosting, Kinsta managed hosting and a DigitalOcean VPS, including the LearnDash license, transactional email and video delivery, from fetched price pages.
Worked annual budgets for a logged-in-heavy 2,000-member membership site on shared, managed WordPress, multi-site managed and managed VPS hosting, with the line items that grow with membership called out.
Storage plus delivery math for a 50-hour (3,000-minute) course library at three viewing levels, using the published pricing of Cloudflare Stream, Mux and Bunny Stream, with Vimeo's bandwidth thresholds as a check.
License, hosting tier and add-on costs for an active 1,000-member BuddyBoss community on a KnownHost managed VPS, Kinsta managed WordPress and a DigitalOcean Droplet, with the resource assumptions behind each choice.
Extension, payment processing, hosting and email costs for a 300-subscriber subscription course store on WooCommerce, itemised from fetched pricing, with monthly versus annual billing compared.
A worked estimate of monthly transactional email volume for a 5,000-student course site, priced on published Amazon SES, Postmark and Mailgun tiers, with the host-mail and Gmail limits that change the answer.
Rollback triggers, what to keep running on the old host, a decision timeline for the cutover window, and how to reconcile orders and enrollments taken on the new host before you switch back.
A fill-in inventory for a course or membership site move covering DNS, email, scheduled tasks, webhooks, integrations, licenses, certificates and account access, with commands and places to look for each item.
When and what to tell students and members before, during and after a course site move, with plain-text email templates, an on-site banner, a support plan and the rules that keep the notice a service message.
Who should own the domain, hosting and payment accounts on a contractor-built course site, how Kinsta and WP Engine document site transfers and user roles, and a handover checklist.
A weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly maintenance calendar for a WordPress course or membership site run by one person, covering updates, backup restore tests, PHP support dates, certificates, licenses and access reviews.
A step-by-step staging workflow for LMS, membership and checkout plugin updates, with what Kinsta, WP Engine and SiteGround document about copying, email, cron and database pushes, and a test script for enrollment and checkout.
A pre-renewal hosting review for course and membership sites: when each host commits you, usage versus plan limits, the regular renewal price, unused add-ons, a backup restore test and a decision log.
What happens after a .com or other generic domain expires under ICANN policy, how one registrar's grace, suspension and redemption timeline works, and the auto-renew, contact-email and lock checks that prevent a lapse.