Two different billing models
SiteGround sells shared plans at a low first-year price that renews at a regular rate, with data transfer described as unmetered and visit numbers presented as a reference point rather than a limit. Its constraint is CPU usage: a fair-use system monitors CPU and memory and may limit an account that uses more than its share for a long period.
Kinsta bills by plan size measured in visits or server bandwidth. Its overage documentation says a visit is a unique IP address within 24 hours, and that going over your visit allowance costs $0.50 per 1,000 visits, with alerts at 80% and 100%. In return, each plan has a published PHP thread count and memory pool.
Cost at three traffic levels
These scenarios use each vendor's published monthly visit figures. SiteGround's figures assume cached traffic, so a membership site may need a larger plan than the visit count suggests. Kinsta's pricing page marks its Single 35k plan as not recommended for ecommerce or membership sites, so the 20,000-visit row uses Single 65k for Kinsta. Kinsta prices are the annual billing figures.
| Monthly visits | SiteGround plan | SiteGround year 1 / year 2 | Kinsta plan | Kinsta per year (annual billing) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20,000 | GrowBig | $59.88 / $359.88 | Single 65k | $500 |
| 60,000 | GrowBig | $59.88 / $359.88 | Single 65k | $500 |
| 120,000 | GoGeek | $95.88 / $539.88 | Single 125k | $900 |
Caching and capacity for logged-in members
Neither host can serve a members-only dashboard from page cache the way it serves a public sales page. SiteGround's Speed Optimizer documentation says logged-in content is not cached by default. Kinsta's Redis documentation says membership sites, ecommerce sites and forums do not make great use of page caching, and its PHP documentation explains that cached content does not need PHP threads while dynamic requests do.
What differs is how capacity is stated. Kinsta publishes threads per plan: Single 35k has 2 PHP threads in a 512MB pool, Single 125k has 6 threads in 1.5GB, and Single 500k has 8 threads in 2GB. Each thread handles one request at a time, and extra requests wait. SiteGround publishes CPU-second red-flag values per hour, day and month in a 2021 fair-use article and says repeated overuse may lead to limits on the account.
For object caching, SiteGround lists Memcached as a SuperCacher option included with its plans. Kinsta sells Redis as an add-on at $100 a month per site. MemberPress's hosting guide recommends disabling Memcached on SiteGround and does not recommend Kinsta's Redis add-on for MemberPress, so test object caching on staging before relying on it either way.
Staging, backups and support scope
Kinsta's staging documentation notes that standard staging may go to sleep after 24 hours of inactivity and has at most 2 PHP threads, so it is for testing, not for running a load test of your live cohort.
| SiteGround (GrowBig/GoGeek) | Kinsta (Single plans) | |
|---|---|---|
| Staging | One-click WordPress staging on GrowBig and GoGeek | Free standard staging per install; Premium staging is a paid add-on |
| Automatic backups | Daily, up to 30 copies on shared plans | Daily; 14-day retention on Single plans up to 315k visits |
| Email hosting | Included, up to 10GB shared mailbox storage | Not provided; Kinsta recommends a separate email provider |
| Sites per plan | Unlimited | 1 on Single plans |
| Overage model | Fair-use CPU monitoring; possible limits | $0.50 per 1,000 visits over allowance |
| Refund window | 30 days on shared plans | 30 days after activation, first-time customers only |
Who should choose which
- Choose SiteGround if: you have a modest membership, want email and several sites on one bill, and your budget is tight in year one.
- Choose Kinsta if: concurrent members matter more than price, you want a published PHP thread count, and you are comfortable paying $500 a year or more for one site.
- Avoid Kinsta Single 35k for membership sites; Kinsta's own pricing table does not recommend it for that use.
- Avoid SiteGround shared if your launches already trip fair-use warnings after caching exclusions are set correctly; compare SiteGround Cloud with Kinsta instead.
- Either way: count visits honestly. Kinsta counts unique IPs per day, so 300 students logging in daily is roughly 9,000 visits a month before any marketing traffic.
Questions before you decide
Is Kinsta faster than SiteGround for members?
We have not measured either. Kinsta publishes PHP threads per plan, which makes capacity easier to estimate; SiteGround publishes fair-use CPU thresholds instead. Test your own site on staging before deciding.
Does Kinsta include email?
No. Kinsta's documentation says it does not provide email as part of its hosting plans and recommends a separate provider. Budget for one if you move from SiteGround, where email accounts are included.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- SiteGround WordPress hosting plans and prices Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround shared hosting feature comparison Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Fair use of server resources (page dated 12 October 2021) Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround tutorial: Speed Optimizer caching settings Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround tutorial: Memcached option Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Backup service Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround tutorial: SiteGround Staging Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta WordPress hosting pricing Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: Overages Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: PHP and PHP threads Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: Redis cache add-on Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: Staging environment Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: Email Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta docs: WordPress hosting money-back guarantee Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- MemberPress docs: What web hosting works best with MemberPress Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: What is your refund policy? Accessed 29 Oct 2026
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