Why course sites are different from brochure sites
Most hosting plans are sized in visits or bandwidth, and most visit estimates assume visitors who read cached pages. A course site behaves differently: students log in, open lessons, mark progress and pay. Those requests usually skip the page cache and run PHP and database queries every time. WP Engine's cache documentation, for example, lists default exclusions for pages where a cookie beginning with wordpress_ is set, for wp-login.php and the admin area, and for pages named cart or checkout. So a plan sized for 25,000 mostly anonymous visits is not evidence that it will stay fast with a few hundred students active at once.
Course traffic also arrives in waves. A launch email, a live cohort start or an assignment deadline pushes many logged-in users onto the site within minutes, then traffic drops away. Monthly visit numbers average that out. When you read a plan's visit allowance, ask what happens in your busiest hour, not across your average month.
Finally, a course site holds data you cannot recreate: enrolments, lesson progress, orders and renewals. That makes backup retention, restore behaviour and staging more important than headline speed.
The twelve questions
| # | Question | Why it matters for a course | Write down |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What are your monthly visits today and in 12 months? | Plans are priced in visit or bandwidth tiers, and some hosts bill overages | Current analytics figure and a realistic 12-month estimate |
| 2 | What is your busiest hour? | Launches and cohort starts concentrate load | Peak concurrent students during your last launch or live session |
| 3 | What share of page views are logged in? | Logged-in views usually bypass page cache and use PHP and the database | Rough split of public pages versus lesson and account pages |
| 4 | How many WordPress sites do you need? | Single-site plans and multi-site plans price very differently | Live sites plus any separate sales or community site |
| 5 | What will you pay at renewal, including tax? | Introductory prices often end after the first term | First-term price, renewal price, billing term and tax treatment |
| 6 | Is there a visit or bandwidth overage? | A successful launch can create a surprise bill | Overage rate and how a visit is counted |
| 7 | Do you need staging? | Testing LMS, membership and payment plugin updates before live | Whether staging is included on your exact plan |
| 8 | How long are backups kept, and can you download them? | Problems with progress or renewals can go unnoticed for weeks | Retention days, manual backup slots, download access |
| 9 | Who patches the server and PHP? | Unmanaged servers leave security updates to you | Named person and hours per month, or the host |
| 10 | What does support cover, and how fast? | A broken checkout during a launch cannot wait a day | Channels, hours, response target, and whether WordPress issues are in scope |
| 11 | Can you move away easily? | You may outgrow the plan | Export options, backup download, migration help |
| 12 | Who is the second person who can log in? | Single points of failure cause long outages | A second administrator for the hosting account and DNS |
How each host type answers, with published examples
The examples below are list prices and plan details from each provider's own pages on 29 October 2026. They are not performance measurements and they change often; re-check before buying.
| Host type | Published example | What you get | Fits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Budget shared | SiteGround StartUp $2.99/mo prepaid 12 months, renews at $17.99/mo; GrowBig $4.99/mo, renews at $29.99/mo (ex. VAT) | StartUp: 1 site, 10 GB, around 10,000 visits estimate. GrowBig: unlimited sites, 50 GB, about 100,000 visits estimate, staging | A first course with modest traffic and a tight budget | Renewal jump; staging only on GrowBig and GoGeek; no published CPU or memory figures |
| Managed WordPress (entry) | Liquid Web Pro WordPress 50k: $19/mo monthly or $17.10/mo on annual billing; Kinsta Single 35k: $35/mo or $350/yr | Liquid Web: 1 site, 50k monthly visitors, 14-day daily backups, staging. Kinsta: 35,000 visits, 10 GB, 14-day backups, staging | Owners who want staging and managed backups without running a server | Visit tiers; plan-specific retention; usage-based extras |
| Managed WordPress (annual) | WP Engine Essential displayed at $28/mo billed annually ($336 due) | Shared environment, daily backups kept 30 to 60 days, staging and development environments, 24/7 chat | Owners happy to prepay a year for a managed platform | Undiscounted renewal price was not shown; visit-based overages on listed plans |
| Managed VPS | KnownHost Basic managed VPS from $43.25/mo | 4 vCPU, 6 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, 3 TB bandwidth; cPanel, DirectAdmin or Plesk options; nightly OS and control panel updates applied by KnownHost | Several sites or heavier logged-in load with a host that patches the server | The plan page does not say backups are included; JetBackup is an optional $8.95/mo add-on; WordPress itself is still yours |
| Self-managed cloud | DigitalOcean Basic Droplet 2 GiB/1 vCPU $12/mo; daily backups add 30% of the Droplet cost | Root access, fixed resources, 2,000 GiB transfer on that size | Teams with someone who administers Linux | Droplets are described as completely unmanaged; you secure the operating system |
Worked example: first-year price versus second-year price
Take one course site expecting about 30,000 visits a month by next year, with staging needed for plugin updates. SiteGround StartUp's estimate of around 10,000 visits and its lack of listed staging rule it out, so compare GrowBig: 12 months at $4.99 is $59.88 in year one, then 12 months at $29.99 is $359.88 in year two, before VAT. The second year costs six times the first.
Liquid Web Pro WordPress 50k at $19 a month is $228 a year on monthly billing, or $205.20 a year at the $17.10 annual-billing rate. Kinsta Single 35k is $350 a year on annual billing. WP Engine Essential displayed $336 due for a year. KnownHost Basic plus JetBackup is $52.20 a month, or $626.40 a year. A DigitalOcean 2 GiB Droplet with daily backups is $15.60 a month, or $187.20 a year, before anyone's time.
Over two years, SiteGround GrowBig totals $419.76 and Liquid Web Pro 50k on annual billing totals $410.40 on these list prices. The cheapest first invoice is not the cheapest two-year cost, which is why question 5 asks for the renewal price. Add your own administration hours to the DigitalOcean and KnownHost figures before comparing; our hosting total cost guide covers that step.
Scoring the answers
Score each host type 0, 1 or 2 against each question: 2 if it answers the question well for your situation, 1 if it is workable with effort or extra cost, 0 if it fails. Double the weight on the questions that would hurt most if wrong. For most course businesses that is questions 3 (logged-in share), 8 (backups) and 9 (who patches the server). A total does not choose for you, but a 0 on a doubled question usually removes an option.
- If nobody on the team will log in to a server, self-managed cloud scores 0 on question 9. Remove it.
- If staging is required and the budget is under $5 a month in year one, only plans that list staging remain; on SiteGround that means GrowBig at $4.99 a month for the first 12 months (GoGeek is $7.99).
- If you expect a launch spike well above your monthly average, prefer plans that publish what happens at the limit, such as an overage rate or usage-based autoscaling, over plans that only publish an estimate.
- If renewals or progress errors could go unnoticed for weeks, prefer 30-day retention (Liquid Web Elite, WP Engine Essential) or plan your own off-host copy.
Who should skip which type
Skip budget shared hosting if you already run launches with hundreds of students logging in at once, or if the renewal price is close to an entry managed plan anyway. Skip managed WordPress if you need software the platform does not allow, or if you run many small sites where a multi-site VPS would be cheaper. Skip a managed VPS if you have one small site; you pay for capacity you will not use. Skip self-managed cloud unless a named person will patch the operating system, PHP and the database, watch disk space, and restore a backup without the host's help.
Before you pay: a short checklist
- Screenshot the plan page with the first-term price, renewal price, billing term and tax note, and date it.
- Confirm staging, backup retention and backup download on the exact plan, not the plan family.
- Ask support how a visit is counted and whether logged-in users bypass the cache.
- Confirm who handles server updates and what support will and will not troubleshoot.
- Plan a migration rehearsal on a temporary URL before you change DNS.
- Set calendar reminders 30 days before the first renewal.
Questions before you decide
Is a monthly visit allowance a good way to size a course site?
Only partly. Visit allowances are a billing measure. A course site's load depends more on how many logged-in students are active at once, because their pages usually skip the page cache.
Is the cheapest first-year plan the cheapest choice?
Often not. On 29 October 2026 list prices, SiteGround GrowBig cost $59.88 in year one and $359.88 in year two, so a plan that looks far cheaper upfront can cost about the same as an entry managed plan over two years.
Do I need a VPS for a course site?
Not by default. A VPS gives fixed resources and more control, but you or a managed VPS provider must run it. Consider it when logged-in load or the number of sites outgrows managed WordPress plans.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- SiteGround: web hosting plans and renewal prices Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: staging tool plan availability Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Liquid Web: managed WordPress plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta: pricing Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WP Engine: plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WP Engine: cache exclusions Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WP Engine: understand billable visits Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- KnownHost: managed VPS plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- DigitalOcean: Droplet pricing Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- DigitalOcean: Droplet policies Accessed 29 Oct 2026
Sources link directly to providers. Product buttons may use separately labeled affiliate links. Read our disclosure.