Where should a small business host its website?
Updated October 30, 2026
For most small businesses, a hosted website platform is simpler than running your own server. But who owns the accounts matters more than where the site is hosted. Make sure your business owns the domain, the hosting login, and the content, and know before you start how hard it would be to leave, because some platforms can’t hand you a working copy of your site.
Steps
- Decide who will update the site: you, or a designer.
- Match the platform to the job. A website builder for a simple site; WordPress or Webflow if you need more control.
- Register your domain in your own business account, not a designer’s or an employee’s.
- Open the hosting account with a company email address, with multi-factor sign-in and at least two admins.
- Ask what’s included, including https, backups, and how you’d move the site later.
- Add up the three-year cost, including renewals.
- Write down where everything lives, and put renewal dates on a shared calendar.
Details
The main choices
Pick the simplest option that does what you need. Website builders like Wix and Squarespace are the simplest: you edit the site yourself, and hosting, security updates, and the secure connection are included, in exchange for less customization. Webflow gives more design control, with a steeper learning curve. WordPress is flexible, with a huge ecosystem of themes and plugins, but it needs regular updates and security attention, from you or a managed host. An agency-hosted site is convenient, but you depend on the agency.
Leaving is harder than joining
Check what you could take with you before you commit, because hosted platforms differ a lot:
- Wix: sites must run on Wix’s servers and can’t be exported to another host. Your content is yours, but moving means rebuilding (Wix Help Center).
- Squarespace: exports some content as a WordPress-format file. Store pages, style settings, custom code, and more than one blog don’t come with it (Squarespace Help Center).
- Webflow: code export needs a paid Workspace plan, and it doesn’t include the content management system (CMS), forms, or store, though CMS content can be exported separately as a spreadsheet file (Webflow Help Center).
- WordPress: the files and database can move to another host, as long as you have access to them.
Before changing platforms or designers, save a copy of every page’s text and images.
Ownership matters more than the platform
Three things should belong to your business: the domain name, the hosting or platform account, and the content. If any one lives in a designer’s or an employee’s personal account, you can lose access when they leave. See Who owns my domain name, and why does it matter? for the domain.
Moving the website doesn’t mean moving email
Your email usually runs as a separate service on the same domain, so you can move the website without moving the domain or email. Only the settings that point visitors to the website change. The ones that route email stay as they are. How do I set up email with my own domain? covers that side.
What “included” should mean
Ask what the price includes: the secure connection (https), backups or version history, uptime, support, and a way to restore the site after a bad update. Ask what happens to the site if you stop paying.
Three-year cost, not first-month cost
Add the platform or hosting fee, domain renewals, paid themes, plugins, or apps, and any monthly fees for updates and support. Some prices rise after an introductory period, so look at the renewal price.
Questions to ask a designer
- Whose account will the domain and hosting be in?
- How do we get a full export of the site?
- Who updates the site, and who covers when you’re unavailable?
- What do you hand over if we part ways?
Where doing it yourself gets risky
- The site lives in your designer’s account. If they leave, so does your access.
- Hosting with no backups, so one failed update can mean a rebuild.
- WordPress plugins and themes you don’t keep updated. Nearly all newly reported WordPress security flaws are in plugins and themes, not in WordPress itself.
- Changing an email setting while moving the website, which can stop email at the same time.
Signs it’s time for help
You can decide most of this yourself. It’s time to get help if:
- You can’t say who hosts your site, or whose account it’s in.
- The site went down and nobody knew who to call.
- Your website and email stopped working at the same time.
- You’re about to change designers or platforms and don’t have the logins.
Write down whose account your domain, hosting, and site content are in. If any answer is “not ours,” we can talk through who should own what.
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