What the WooCommerce plans actually include
On 29 October 2026 SiteGround's WooCommerce hosting page and its WordPress hosting page showed the same three plans at the same prices: StartUp $2.99, GrowBig $4.99 and GoGeek $7.99 per month introductory, prepaid for 12 months and renewing at $17.99, $29.99 and $44.99. Storage is the same 10 GB, 50 GB and 100 GB, and the plan-exclusive features match (staging and on-demand backups from GrowBig, Staging plus Git and priority support on GoGeek).
The difference is in the setup. The WooCommerce page lists WooCommerce Service and WooCommerce Auto-Install among core features and says WordPress, WooCommerce and the Storefront theme come pre-installed. Its FAQ says WooCommerce hosting usually uses more server resources, but the plan cards do not show different resource allocations. Treat the WooCommerce plans as the standard plans with a store pre-installed, not as a different tier of server.
| Plan | Intro / renewal per month | Storage | CPU seconds or executions per hour | Staging | Emails per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StartUp | $2.99 / $17.99 | 10 GB | 1,000 | No | 400 |
| GrowBig | $4.99 / $29.99 | 50 GB | 2,000 | Yes | 400 |
| GoGeek | $7.99 / $44.99 | 100 GB | 4,000 | Yes, plus Git | 800 |
Renewals depend on cron, and WP-Cron depends on traffic
WooCommerce Subscriptions creates renewal orders through scheduled actions. Its troubleshooting documentation says that if cron jobs are not running or the Action Scheduler queue fails, renewals are not created when expected, and that low PHP limits can stop scheduled actions from running.
SiteGround's real cron tutorial explains that WordPress's wp-cron.php runs when someone loads a page, so on a quiet night scheduled tasks wait for a visitor. SiteGround's fix is to disable WP-Cron in wp-config.php and add a Site Tools cron job running wp cron event run --due-now, with Twice Per Hour as its recommended interval. For a subscription store, a 30-minute interval means a renewal can run up to half an hour late; that is usually acceptable, but it should be a decision rather than an accident.
After the change, open the Action Scheduler view from the WooCommerce Status menu and look for pending or failed renewal actions and errors in the Logs column, as the WooCommerce Subscriptions troubleshooting documentation suggests.
Caching: what SiteGround handles and what it does not
SiteGround's dynamic cache bypasses the WooCommerce session and cart cookies (wp_woocommerce_session, woocommerce_cart_hash, woocommerce_items_in_cart=1) and URLs containing cart, checkout, my-account, add-to-cart and addons. With default WooCommerce page slugs, the cart, checkout and account pages are served dynamically without extra configuration, which the WooCommerce page summarises as keeping carts and checkouts dynamic.
Two gaps remain. If you renamed those pages (for example /basket/ or /subscribe/), add the new slugs to Speed Optimizer's Exclude URLs list. And Speed Optimizer's JavaScript combine and defer options carry SiteGround's own warning that they may break scripts that depend on execution order; test checkout and payment fields after enabling either.
Staging is useful, and dangerous for a live store
SiteGround's staging tool (GrowBig and GoGeek) offers Full Deploy, which replaces both the files and the database of the live site with the staging copy, and Custom Deploy, which lets you choose which files and database tables are deployed. On a store taking orders and renewals, a full deploy can overwrite orders, subscriptions and customer accounts created since the copy was made. Use Custom Deploy for code and settings changes, and take an on-demand backup first.
The staging copy itself also needs care. WooCommerce Subscriptions detects a changed site URL and switches the copy to manual renewals so it does not charge customers twice, but its documentation warns that if Subscriptions is first activated on a staging site, that site runs in live mode, and that emails from WordPress, WooCommerce or other plugins may still be sent from staging.
Where a subscription store outgrows these plans
The next steps differ in cost and disruption. SiteGround Cloud started at $100 a month for 4 cores and 8 GB RAM, with no migration needed. Managed hosts publish ecommerce-specific options: WP Engine's plans page listed an eCommerce Performance Pack at $99 a month per site (including EverCache, Slow Query Monitor and Dynamic Plugin Loading), and Kinsta marks its plans from Single 65k ($50 a month) upward as recommended for ecommerce and membership sites.
- Renewal day pressure: if hundreds of renewals fall on the same date, each one runs PHP and may send several emails, against hourly CPU-second and 400 or 800 email caps.
- Order emails: receipts, renewal notices and failed-payment emails count toward the hourly email cap, each recipient separately.
- Resource-usage notices or slowdowns during launches or renewal batches.
- Database size and inode growth from orders and logs approaching 200,000, 400,000 or 600,000 inodes on StartUp, GrowBig or GoGeek.
- A need for more than one person to deploy safely, with backups taken more often than daily.
Verdict
For a course or subscription store with tens to low hundreds of active subscriptions, GrowBig or GoGeek is a defensible choice, provided you set up a real cron job, keep standard WooCommerce slugs or extend the exclusions, use Custom Deploy, and move transactional email off the server once volumes grow. Choose GrowBig over StartUp for staging alone. Do not choose the WooCommerce-branded plan expecting more resources than the equivalent WordPress plan; the published specifications are the same.
Questions before you decide
Is SiteGround WooCommerce hosting different from its WordPress hosting?
On 29 October 2026 the plans, prices and storage were the same. The WooCommerce plans add WooCommerce and the Storefront theme pre-installed.
Will SiteGround cache my checkout?
Not with default WooCommerce slugs. SiteGround's dynamic cache bypasses URLs containing cart, checkout and my-account and requests carrying WooCommerce cart and session cookies. Renamed pages need manual exclusions.
Why did a subscription renewal run late?
Renewals depend on scheduled actions. If WP-Cron only runs when visitors arrive, a renewal waits for traffic. A Site Tools cron job running wp cron event run --due-now removes that dependency.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- SiteGround: WooCommerce hosting plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: WordPress hosting plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: Shared hosting features comparison Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Dynamic caching configuration Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: Speed Optimizer frontend optimization tutorial Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: How to replace WP-Cron with a real cron job Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: Deploying a staging copy Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Acceptable use of SiteGround's email service Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: Cloud hosting plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WooCommerce: Common issues and error messages for WooCommerce Subscriptions Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WooCommerce: How Subscriptions handles staging sites and migrations Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- WP Engine: Plans and pricing (USD) Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Kinsta: Pricing Accessed 29 Oct 2026
Sources link directly to providers. Product buttons may use separately labeled affiliate links. Read our disclosure.