How to Connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce

Do you want to connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce?

PayPal Commerce allows your customers to pay via credit cards without leaving your website. Even better, they also don’t need a PayPal account to make a payment.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce and start accepting credit cards on your website.

Why Use PayPal Commerce in WordPress?

PayPal Commerce offers an easier checkout solution for businesses and online stores to use on their WordPress websites.

Unlike a standard PayPal payment form, your customer can pay using their PayPal account or by entering a credit card number. They don’t need to have a PayPal account to complete the payment.

You can choose which credit card networks you want to accept and show their logo at the checkout. PayPal Commerce supports Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Maestro, and Discover.

PayPal Commerce also lets you accept one-time payments as well as recurring payments for subscriptions and online donations.

It offers a cleaner payment experience, and users can make a payment without leaving your website.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce.

We’ll be showing you multiple methods. You can choose one that best suits your business needs.

• Method 1. Add PayPal Commerce to Any WordPress Website
• Method 2. Add PayPal Commerce in WordPress Using Easy Digital Downloads
• Method 3. Add PayPal Commerce in WordPress Using MemberPress

Method 1. Add PayPal Commerce to Any WordPress Website

This method is easier and recommended for all users who are not using an eCommerce platform on their website.

For this method, we’ll be using WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder on the market and allows you to easily create forms for your website.

With WPForms, you can create an online payment form and start accepting payments without using a full-fledged shopping cart plugin.

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You’ll need at least the ‘Pro’ plan to unlock the PayPal Commerce feature.

Upon activation, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your plugin license key. You can find this information under your account on the WPForms website.

Next, you need to visit the WPForms » Addons page.

From here, locate the box for ‘PayPal Commerce Addon’ and just click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

WPForms will now install and activate the PayPal Commerce Addon.

After that, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page and switch to the Payments tab.

From here, choose the currency and click on the ‘Connect with PayPal Commerce’ button to continue.

This will bring up a popup where you will be asked to log in to your PayPal account. After that, you will be asked to allow PayPal to connect with your WPForms account.

Click on the ‘Agree and Connect’ button to continue.

Depending on your account, PayPal Commerce will now walk you through the setup process. Simply follow the onscreen instructions to finish the setup.

Once finished, you’ll be returned to the Payments tab on your website, and you’ll see a green checkmark under ‘Connection Status’ for PayPal Commerce, indicating that the connection was successful.

Now that you’re ready to accept payments with PayPal Commerce, you need to create a payment form to add to your site.

Head over to the WPForms » Add New page and enter a name for your form. Then, you can choose a template or start with a blank form.

This will launch the WPForms Form Builder interface.

It is a drag-and-drop form builder where you can simply click on the fields to edit them or add new fields from the left column.

Next, you need to add the PayPal Commerce field from the left column to your form.

You can just drag the element from the left and drop it into the form preview on the right.

This will bring up a popup, reminding you that you need to enable PayPal Commerce payments for this form.

Click on the ‘OK’ button to close the popup, and then switch to the ‘Payments’ section in the left-hand menu of the form builder.

Once inside the ‘Payments’ section, click ‘PayPal Commerce’ and then enable the payment type (One-time payments or Recurring Payments).

Depending on your choice, you’ll see further options on the screen.

For instance, you’ll be asked to match the form fields to the payment fields. This means that your form’s ‘Name’ field will be mapped as the name field for PayPal Commerce.

Similarly, if you choose the Recurring Payments option, then you will be asked to create a plan and choose payment frequency and other options.

Once you are done setting up your form, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

You are now ready to add the form to your website.

Simply edit the post or page where you want to accept payments. In the block editor, add the ‘WPForms’ block.

Choose the form you created earlier from the block drop-down menu, and WPForms will load a preview of the form for you.

You can now save your post or page and preview it in a new browser window to see your PayPal Commerce payment form in action.

Method 2. Add PayPal Commerce in WordPress Using Easy Digital Downloads

For this method, we’ll be using Easy Digital Downloads. We recommend using this method if you want to sell digital goods like ebooks, software, music, graphics, photographs, and more.

Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin for selling digital downloads. It is super easy to use and supports many payment providers including PayPal Commerce.

First, you need to install and activate the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, you need to install and activate the PayPal Commerce Pro addon for Easy Digital Downloads. You’ll install it like any other plugin in WordPress.

Note: You’ll need at least the ‘Extended’ plan for Easy Digital Downloads to unlock this addon.

Once you have activated both plugins, login to your WordPress admin area and go to Downloads » Settings page, and switch to the Licenses tab.

You can find your license information under your account on the Easy Digital Downloads website.

Next, you need to set up PayPal Commerce as your payment gateway in Easy Digital Downloads.

To do this, go to the Downloads » Settings page and switch to the ‘Payments’ tab.

From here, you need to check ‘PayPal’ under the ‘Active Gateways’ section. Optionally, you can also choose it as your Default Gateway.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Next, you need to click on the ‘PayPal’ tab under ‘Payments.’

This will launch a popup where you can sign in with your PayPal account and follow the onscreen instructions to complete the connection.

Once finished, you will be redirected back to your website where you will see a success message.

After that, you need to check the ‘Enabled Advanced Credit and Debit Card Payments’ option.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.

Now, when you sell any product with Easy Digital Downloads, your customers will see the PayPal Commerce payment option during the checkout.

To learn more, see our complete guide on selling digital downloads in WordPress.

Method 3. Add PayPal Commerce in WordPress Using MemberPress

This method will use MemberPress, and it is recommended for users who want to sell memberships, pay-per-view content, or online courses on their websites.

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin on the market and allows you to easily sell subscriptions and online courses.

First, you need to install and activate the MemberPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the MemberPress » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the MemberPress website.

Next, you need to switch to the ‘Payments’ tab and click on the ‘(+) Add Payment Method’ button.

MemberPress supports Stripe and PayPal out of the box. You need to select ‘PayPal’ to continue.

Go ahead and add your PayPal email address and click on the ‘Update Options’ button to save your settings.

MemberPress will now show you that your PayPal method is outdated. You need to click on the ‘Upgrade to new PayPal Commerce Platform’ button to continue.

Next, you will be asked to connect to your PayPal account to MemberPress.

Click on the ‘Connect Live’ button to continue.

This will bring up a popup where you will be asked to log in with your PayPal account and give permission to connect MemberPress with your PayPal account.

Follow the on-screen instructions to finish the setup. Upon completion, you will be redirected back to your website where you continue setting up your membership website.

Note: If this is your first time using MemberPress, you may want to see our guide on how to build a membership site for detailed setup instructions.

Once you have added subscription plans or online courses, your customers will be able to see PayPal Commerce as a payment option.

We hope this article helped you connect PayPal Commerce to your WordPress website. You may also want to see our guide on making money online with your WordPress website or look at these proven online business ideas that you can start with very little investment.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 19, 2022 at 04:18PM

The Complete Social Media Cheat Sheet for WordPress (Updated)

Are you looking for a social media cheat sheet that you can follow to quickly set up social media profiles the right way?

If you are serious about your website or blog, then you simply can’t ignore social media. The problem is that each of these platforms has different requirements for cover photos, profile images, article covers, etc. This makes it quite overwhelming for new users to get started.

In this article, we will share our ultimate social media cheat sheet for WordPress.

Why Do You Need a Social Media Cheat Sheet for WordPress?

If you have been running social media profiles for your WordPress blog or website, then you would notice that each platform has different requirements.

For example, Facebook has specific requirements for image sizes while Pinterest needs totally different proportions.

It can be difficult to remember all that information when creating social media images for your articles or profile.

A cheat sheet helps you quickly look up all these options. It will also ensure that you don’t miss anything important when creating a social media profile or publishing a new article on your WordPress website.

That being said, let’s get started with our ultimate social media cheat sheet for WordPress users.

Here is a quick overview of the things we will cover in this article:

• Choose your social media platforms
• Social media image sizes checklist
• Setting up social media optimization in WordPress
• Social media settings for WordPress posts and pages
• Adding social sharing buttons to your website
• Setting up automated social sharing in WordPress

Choose Your Social Media Platforms

There are so many social media websites, but not all of them are helpful in growing your business or bringing traffic to your website.

Apart from bigger sites like Facebook and Twitter, you can choose platforms that work best with your website’s target audience and niche.

For example, if you run a fashion blog, then you may want to use Instagram to promote your content.

A food and recipe blog may want to focus on YouTube and Yummly.

Home decor or DIY websites may find Pinterest helpful in finding the right audience.

Choosing the right platforms for your target audience will help you create an effective social media marketing strategy to grow your business.

Social Media Image Sizes Checklist

To promote your blog or business on social media, you will need to setup profiles, upload your website logo and a cover photo, and create images to accompany your articles and links.

You can see our article on how to easily create images for your WordPress blog to learn how to make beautiful images without hiring a graphic designer.

Now the problem is that each social media platform has specific requirements for these images. Not using the right size would make your images look skewed or stretched.

Here is our quick cheat sheet for social media image sizes that you can use when creating images for your social accounts.

• Facebook image sizes
• Twitter image sizes
• Instagram image sizes
• YouTube image sizes
• Pinterest image sizes
• LinkedIn image sizes

Facebook Image Sizes

Facebook has specific recommendations for images to be used in different areas.

Cover image: 820 x 312 pixels on computers and 640 x 360 pixels for smartphones. Cover images should be less than 100 KB in filesize. It could be in JPEG or PNG file format. You can create a larger image while maintaining the same aspect ratio, and Facebook will automatically create smaller sizes to display on mobile devices.

Profile image: An square image of at least 170 x 170 pixels on computers and 128 x 128 pixels on smartphones. For business pages, this is where you would ideally display your custom logo. This image will be cropped to display as a circle.

Shared Image: 1200 x 630 pixels. This image will be displayed on your page with a maximum width of 470 pixels and in the feed maximum width of 600 pixels.

Group cover image: 1640 x 856 pixels.

Twitter Image Sizes

Twitter is the internet’s conversation hub. Following are the recommended image sizes for Twitter to make your profile more engaging and professional.

Header image: 1500 x 500 pixels. This full-width image appears as the cover image of your Twitter profile page.

Profile image: 400 x 400 pixels. This square image is cropped to be displayed in a circular format. Twitter allows you to upload JPG, PNG, and GIF formats with a maximum file size of 2MB.

In-stream image: 1200 x 675 pixels. This image is displayed when you share an article, retweet, embed a tweet, upload images, and more. If you are already using Twitter Cards then Twitter will be able to pick the correct image to display with your article description and title.

Instagram Image Sizes

Instagram’s main content is already in a visual format. If you are uploading photos directly from your phone using the Instagram app, then it will automatically take care of appropriate image sizes for you.

For other uploads, you can follow these Instagram image size recommendations for the best results.

Profile image: 320 x 320 pixels. You can use larger image dimensions as long as it is a square image.

Image thumbnail: 161 x 161 pixels. This image is displayed as your thumbnails for your photos.

Shared photos: 1080 x 1080 pixels. You can use a higher resolution image as long as it is a square image.

Shared videos: 1080 pixels wide.

Instagram Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels or minimum 600 x 1067 pixels. File size cannot exceed more than 4 GB which is quite a lot for a high-quality video.

YouTube Image Sizes

YouTube is not only the second most popular social media platform but also the second most popular search engine. Your YouTube channel image, cover image, and video thumbnails are crucial in getting more views for your videos.

YouTube Channel cover image: 2048 x 1152 pixels. You need to make sure that the image is horizontally centered so that it looks good on mobile devices where YouTube may crop the image to fit the user’s screen size.

Channel icon: 800 x 800 pixels. This image is displayed as your channel icon and may sometimes be cropped as a circular image.

Video thumbnail: 1280 x 720 pixels. Ask any YouTube creator and they will tell you that the video thumbnail is the most important part of video optimization on YouTube. This is what YouTube users will see on their homepage, in search, and in other areas. A highly optimized video thumbnail helps you get more views and grow your channel.

Pinterest Image Sizes

Pinterest is a visual social sharing platform, which means images play the most significant role in growing your Pinterest following.

Profile image: 165 x 165 pixels. You can upload a higher resolution image with a maximum file size of 10 MB.

Profile cover: 800 x 450 pixels. Select a board to feature as your profile’s cover. Pinterest will automatically fetch pins from that board to create your profile cover.

Board cover image: 222 x 150 pixels. Pinterest allows you to choose the cover image from the pins you have saved for that board.

Pinned image preview: 236 pixels wide. Pinterest automatically scales your pins to fit their grid. For best results, you need to upload the images with an aspect ratio of 2:3 to 1:3.5.

LinkedIn Image Sizes

LinkedIn can be a great source of traffic, connections, and building a brand image. It is a social networking platform for professionals and businesses, which makes it a powerful tool to help you grow your business.

Personal profile image: 400 x 400 pixels with a maximum image file size of 10 MB.

Banner image for personal profile: 1584 x 396 pixels with a maximum file size of 4 MB.

Company cover image: 1128 x 191 pixels.

Shared image: 1200 x 627 pixels.

Company profile / logo image: 300 x 300 pixels or higher resolution image with 1:1 aspect ratio.

Setting up Social Media Optimization in WordPress

Now that you have learned about proper social media image sizes, the next step is to make sure that your WordPress site is optimized for social media.

The most important aspect of this optimization is to set up automatic inclusion of Open Graph metadata. Open Graph metadata is a technology that allows you to include additional information to your web pages that social media and search engines need.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin that helps you get more traffic from search engines. It is also a complete website optimization tool including support for social media platforms as well.

Upon activation, you need to visit All in One SEO » Social Networks page. From here, you need to first add your social media profile URLs under the ‘Social Profiles’ tab.

You don’t need to add all URLs, you can simply skip the social media websites where you don’t have a profile.

Next, you need to switch to the Facebook tab. From here you can see that AIOSEO enables Open Graph metadata by default.

Below that you need to provide a default post Facebook image for your website’s front page. The image you provide here will be displayed when someone shares your website’s front page or root URL on Facebook.

Next, switch to the Twitter tab. Here you can choose the default card display for your website.

A ‘summary with large image’ option will display your Twitter share image with a summary of your article.

You can now switch to the Pinterest tab. From here you can add the Pinterest confirmation tag to your website.

You can click on the link on the screen to claim your website and get the confirmation code. For more details, you can see our guide on how to verify your WordPress site on Pinterest.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Social Media Settings for WordPress Posts and Pages

Just like the SEO settings for posts and pages, you can also optimize them for social media websites.

AIOSEO plugin allows you to easily set social options for your individual posts and pages.

Simply edit the blog post or page you want to optimize, and then scroll down to ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section below the editor.

Switch to the ‘Social’ tab and you can upload a custom title and description as well as an image for Facebook and Twitter shares. You can also see a preview of what your post will look like when shared on social media.

After that, you can click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to save your post or page.

Adding Social Sharing Buttons to Your Website

The easiest way to promote your website on social media is by encouraging your users to share your content. This can be achieved by adding social sharing buttons to your blog posts and pages.

First, you need to install and activate the Shared Counts plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Shared Counts is the best social media plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily add social sharing buttons to your WordPress blog posts.

Upon activation, simply head over to Settings » Shared Counts page to configure plugin options.

From here you need to scroll down to the ‘Display’ section and select the social media websites you want to display in the ‘Share Buttons to Display’ field.

After that, you can choose a button style and location where you want to display the buttons.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

You can now visit any post on your website to see social sharing buttons in action.

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add social share buttons in WordPress.

Setting up Automated Social Sharing in WordPress

Social media platforms are great for building a following and bringing more traffic to your website. However, it can become quite time-consuming to share content across different platforms and engage with your audience.

Luckily, there are several online tools that you can use to automate the process.

• Uncanny Automator is the best WordPress automation plugin that lets you connect your social media profiles with WordPress. Using the plugin, you can automatically share new blog posts on Facebook, Tweet them on Twitter, and share them on Instagram.
• Smash Balloon is the best social media feeds plugin for WordPress, and it allows you to create custom feeds on your WordPress site. You can easily embed posts from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on your site to boost engagement, increase social followers, and build trust with users.
• Revive Old Posts allows you to automatically re-share old blog posts to your social media profiles at regular intervals. Learn more in our tutorial on how to automatically share your old WordPress posts.
• Buffer is a platform that lets you set up a queue of social media updates and publish them on your preferred schedule.
• MonsterInsights helps you easily track social media traffic using Google Analytics. This helps you learn how your posts are performing on social media websites. For details, see this guide on how to track social media traffic with Google Analytics.

We hope this social media cheat sheet for WordPress helped you improve your social media marketing strategy. You may also want to see our list of best email marketing services and how to start your own podcast.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post The Complete Social Media Cheat Sheet for WordPress (Updated) first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 17, 2022 at 03:38PM

How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress Posts and Pages

Do you want to add a table of contents to your WordPress posts or pages?

A table of contents can make navigating a long article easier and improve your site’s SEO. However, they can be tricky for beginners to create.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages.

Why Add a Table of Contents to Posts and Pages in WordPress?

You may have seen the table of contents on websites like Wikipedia. We also use them on WPBeginner for our long guides such as our ultimate guide to WordPress speed and performance.

You can add a table of contents to posts on your WordPress website to make it easier to jump between the sections of a long article.

Not only do they improve the user experience, but they will also help your WordPress SEO. That’s because Google can use the table of contents to automatically add ‘jump to section’ links in search results.

A table of contents can also help your post be listed as a featured snippet at the top of the search engine results page. This will help you get the maximum SEO traffic.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages. We’ll show you how to do it automatically with a plugin and manually using anchor links:

• Adding a Table of Contents Automatically in WordPress (recommended)
• Adding a Table of Contents Manually in WordPress

Adding a Table of Contents Automatically in WordPress

AIOSEO, also known as All in One SEO, is the best WordPress SEO plugin and it comes with a built-in table of content block for WordPress.

We recommend this method because it saves you time by automatically generating the table of contents based on your subheadings, while also making it completely customizable with editable links.

The first thing you need to do is install the free All in One SEO Lite plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

You just need the free version to easily add a table of contents, but AIOSEO Pro offers even more features to help you rank better in search engine results pages.

Upon activation, you will need to configure the plugin using the AIOSEO setup wizard. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress correctly.

Adding a Table of Contents with AIOSEO

You’ll need to create or edit the post or page where you wish to add the table of contents. After that, click the blue ‘+ ’ icon and locate the ‘AIOSEO – Table of Contents’ block.

Simply drag the block onto the post or page where you wish the table of contents to appear.

Note: Once you add a table of contents, you may notice that the ‘AIOSEO – Table of Contents’ block will be grayed out. That’s because you can only have one table of contents per post or page.

The plugin will automatically identify the headings on the page and add them to your table of contents. If you use different heading levels (say H2 and H3), then lower level headings will be indented to show the structure of your content.

If you are still writing the contents of your post or page, then any headings added to the document will be automatically added to the table of contents.

Customizing the Table of Contents with AIOSEO

There are a few ways you can customize the table of contents to suit your needs. For example, you can click on a heading to rename it. This will rename the heading in the table of contents, but not the article.

AIOSEO will automatically create anchor links for each heading. You can click on the Link icon to edit the anchor text, and this is changed both in the table of contents and at the heading in the post content.

You can also click the eye icon next to any of the headings to hide it. AIOSEO Pro users can reorder the headings in the table of contents block. Doing so will rearrange the headings in the table of contents, but not in the article.

You will also find a setting for the block in the sidebar. Here you can choose a bulleted or numbered list style for your table of contents.

Finally, when you have finished customizing your table of contents, you need to click the ‘Done’ button to save your changes.

Now you will be able to see how the table of contents will look to your visitors.

It’s a good idea to add a heading or paragraph above the table of contents. This will make it clear to your readers that they are looking at a table of contents.

When your visitors click a link in the table of contents, they will be taken immediately to that heading in the article. This allows users to jump to the section they’re most interested in.

The reason why we like AIOSEO’s table of content feature compared to other WordPress table of content plugin is because it lets you customize the headings and selectively hide headings as needed.

This is a critical feature that most other table of content plugins simply don’t have.

Adding a Table of Contents Manually in WordPress

You can also create a table of contents manually using anchor links, without the need for a plugin. However, this will take more time and effort.

You can learn more about anchor links in our guide on how to add anchor links in WordPress.

Typing the Table of Contents

First, you need to add a ‘List’ block where you can add the headings for the table of contents. You can either type the headings into the list or copy and paste them one by one from your article content.

How to Add Anchor Text to Heading Blocks

Next, you will need to add an anchor attribute to each heading you want to reference in the table of contents. This will let WordPress know where to jump when a visitor clicks the heading in the table of contents.

You should first click on the heading, such as H2 or H3. Then you need to click the ‘Advanced’ arrow in the block settings pane to show the advanced settings.

After that, enter a unique word or phrase without spaces into the ‘HTML anchor’ field. If you like, you can use hyphens to separate each word.

Then, simply repeat this for all other headings that will be included in the table of contents.

Hint: If you paste the heading into this field, hyphens will be added automatically. This is an easy way to create a unique ID that also clearly represents the heading.

Adding Anchor Links to the Table of Contents

The last step is to link the headings in the table of contents to the HTML anchors you created.

You should highlight the first entry in your List block, and then click the ‘Link’ icon in the toolbar.

Next, you should type a hashtag (#), and then type or paste the anchor text for that heading.

The # tells WordPress to jump to that section of the current post. You do not add the domain name or other URL parameters.

Once that is done, you need to press ‘Enter’ or click the ‘Submit’ icon to create the link.

The anchor link will be added to your table of contents list. When your visitors click this link, they will be immediately taken to that heading in the post or page contents.

You can repeat these steps to add anchor links to the other headings in the table of contents.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages. You may also want to learn how to increase your blog traffic, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress Posts and Pages first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 16, 2022 at 11:23PM

5 Best Monthly Web Hosting Plans (Starts at $4.95/mo.)

Are you looking for the best monthly web hosting plans?

Most popular web hosting companies offer big discounts on annual, bi-annual, and multiple-year payment terms.

These discounts may be promoted as low monthly payments, but when you go to the checkout page, you’ll pay a hefty amount up front to buy the web hosting.

In this article, we will share some of the best monthly web hosting plans that let you truly sign up for a month-to-month hosting service.

Why Choose a Monthly Web Hosting Plan?

Many web hosting companies only offer discounts if you buy hosting for a full year or multiple years. That makes it can cost hundreds of dollars just to get started.

Plus, if you don’t like the web hosting service, you may not be able to get a full refund, and you will lose your initial investment.

A true monthly web hosting plan will be cheaper to get started. With a month-to-month hosting plan, you won’t commit to a hosting provider long-term, and it’s easier to move to another web hosting company.

This allows you to choose the best hosting provider with the features you need to host your WordPress website.

And more importantly, you will only pay a low monthly cost for the web hosting service you use.

Without further delay, let’s look at some of the best monthly web hosting plans for small businesses.

1. Dreamhost – $4.95/mo.

DreamHost is one of the most well-known web hosting companies, and they’re an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider. They offer the cheapest month-to-month web hosting plan on the market.

They provide a custom control panel to add your domain name, manage emails, and access web hosting features.

Moreover, DreamHost comes with automated website backups. These daily backups ensure the complete safety of your content.

When it comes to DreamHost’s monthly pricing, their WordPress Starter or Shared plan costs $4.95/month with a free SSL certificate, free website migration, and more. You will have to pay for the domain name separately which is fair.

But if you’re willing to commit for the year, then WPBeginner users can get up to a 72% discount on their Shared plan with a free domain name, free website builder, SSD storage, and more.

Our DreamHost coupon code is applicable on the 1-year and 3-year payment plans.

DreamHost has other web hosting solutions, including VPS hosting, managed WordPress hosting, dedicated server hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and cloud hosting.

Don’t miss our complete DreamHost review for more details on their shared hosting options and pricing plans.

2. Bluehost – $2.75/mo.

Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting providers and an officially recommended WordPress hosting partner.

Though they don’t offer a month-to-month web hosting plan, the initial cost is so low that we couldn’t resist adding them to this list.

And you’ll save triple your investment with a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a BIG discount on your web hosting package.

So if you’re just starting out, we recommend Bluehost as the best web hosting for beginners, startups, and small businesses.

The initial cost for your web hosting plan will be as low as $33 for the first year.

This also includes your free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a cPanel for a one-click WordPress installation.

However, on the renewal, you’ll need to pay the full cost for your web hosting plan and domain name. But by then, you’ll be able to grow your business to afford the price.

And if you still want to switch, you can easily move your WordPress site to a new web hosting company for a month-to-month hosting plan. Some web hosting providers also offer free migration services, so you’re safe anyway.

On a side note, we thoroughly tested Bluehost for its features, speed, and uptime. And we recommend it to everyone, all the time.

Most of our WPBeginner users start their websites with Bluehost web hosting and grow their businesses to the next level.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

3. Hostinger – $9.99/mo.

Hostinger is one of the leading web hosting companies on the global market. It offers WordPress website hosting, shared hosting, and cloud hosting plans.

The month-to-month shared hosting plan from Hostinger starts at $9.99 for a single website.

If you’re looking for a web hosting plan for multiple sites, then we recommend their WordPress Starter plan. It comes with a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and free unlimited email accounts.

The Hostinger WordPress Starter plan costs $14.99/month.

You can use WPBeginner’s exclusive Hostinger coupon code to get a discount on your monthly web hosting plan. The Hostinger promo code offers more discounts on longer commitments.

For example, if you choose to pay for up to 48 months, the cost for the WordPress basic hosting plan reduces to $1.99/month.

And WPBeginner users get an additional discount that makes it $1.79/month.

In short, you’ll pay $85.92 at once to get WordPress hosting for four years.

Their shared hosting plans costs similar to WordPress hosting. However, you’ll need to pay an additional setup fee.

Hostinger also offers Virtual Private Server hosting (VPS hosting) plans, Minecraft server hosting, and other solutions. We ran several tests on Hostinger, and here’s our complete Hostinger review that may interest you.

4. SiteGround – $19.99/mo.

SiteGround is one of the best WordPress hosting provider. Their web hosting is optimized for speed and security. We use SiteGround to host the WPBeginner website.

Among top features, SiteGround offers automatic WordPress updates, free CDN network to improve page load time, custom web application firewall to protect your web server against malware and DDoS attacks, and more.

Their customer support team is available 24/7 to help you with any of your concerns, which you may rarely have with SiteGround web hosting.

SiteGround has data centers all over the world since they use the Google Cloud network. It’s the reason they can provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee on their web hosting platform. Over the years of using their platform, we have never had downtime for WPBeginner site.

The SiteGround’s StartUp plan costs $19.99/month.

It’s an expensive monthly web hosting plan compared to other hosting providers on the list, but it also includes functionality like free site migration, free SSL certificate, eCommerce support, basic WordPress site management, out of the box caching addons, and more.

And WPBeginner’s exclusive SiteGround coupon code lets you buy their WordPress hosting plan with an 80% discount.

This reduces the cost to up to $2.99/month for the StartUp plan.

SiteGround’s discount deal is only valid when you choose to pay for up to 12 months upfront. So you’ll pay $35.88 for 12 months and get access to all their WordPress hosting features. The best part is that they also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Aside from WordPress, SiteGround also has cheap web hosting for other content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, Magento, and basically any other Linux based app.

We have done a detailed SiteGround review which shared performance tests from various locations along with coverage of their additional services like Site Scanner.

5. WP Engine – $27 / mo.

WP Engine is the most popular managed WordPress hosting company in the market. They are typically the go-to choice for large websites, enterprise customers, as well as small businesses and developers who want a fully managed web hosting platform with speed, security, and support.

WP Engine offers monthly cloud hosting plans starting at $27 per month on a month-to-month billing which gives you access to 10GB of disk space, 50GB of bandwidth, 10 premium themes from StudioPress, free automated migration, automated website backups, and more.

All their plans come with advanced developer tools like one-click staging, dev & prod site environments, threat blocking & security, built-in CDN for turbo website speed, transferable sites for easy client handoff, activity log, and more.

WP Engine also offers managed hosting solutions for WooCommerce online stores starting at $56 per month as well as enterprise cloud hosting starting at $600 per month.

But if you use the WPBeginner’s WP Engine coupon code and pre-pay for annual plans, then you will get 3 months free.

WP Engine also offers additional services like automated plugin updates, extra SOC2 level security with managed WAF, site monitoring, and more which can be purchased separately.

We did a detailed performance test of their platform in our WP Engine review that we highly recommend you checking out.

BONUS: Other Popular Month-to-Month Web Hosting Options

6. HostGator: One of the most popular web hosting providers, HostGator offers unmetered bandwidth, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and more. Their shared hosting plan costs $12.75 per month (including tax).

7. GreenGeeks: The eco-friendly WordPress hosting offered by GreenGeeks comes with multiple types of hosting, including reseller hosting, dedicated hosting for websites, and more. It has built-in caching for fast performance, and the price starts at $10.95 per month. You also need to pay a setup fee of $15 for the first time.

Which Month-To-Month Web Hosting Plan Should I Buy?

If you’re looking for true monthly web hosting with no long-term commitment, then DreamHost has the best monthly web hosting packages.

DreamHost’s top features include free website migration, free SSL, security, and a 97-day money-back guarantee.

With that said, when you’re starting a website, you want to get the best web hosting deal because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be switching hosting providers every month.

Most people that choose a reliable hosting provider rarely ever switch. In the 13 years of running WPBeginner website, we have switched hosting provider only once and that was after 10 years when we outgrew our previous provider.

So in that case, what’s more important is that you choose a provider that’s giving you the best deal with one year commitment.

We recommend either Bluehost, SiteGround, or Dreamhost for those just starting out.

Bluehost doesn’t offer a monthly web hosting plan but their 12-month plan ($33/for the first year) is one of the cheapest web hosting options on the market, and you get a free domain name worth $12.99.

On the other hand, SiteGround’s StartUp plan on a 12-months upfront payment ($35.88/for the first year) is close to Bluehost’s pricing for the basic plan.

However, SiteGround doesn’t offer a free domain, but their servers are blazing fast since it’s hosted on Google Cloud, and you get tons of advanced performance and security features which is why we use SiteGround for WPBeginner website.

If you’re looking for more managed web hosting provider with enterprise support, then WP Engine is going to be your best bet since they offer monthly web hosting plans for cloud hosting.

Note: At WPBeginner, we regularly look into dozens of web hosting companies that are not listed in this article like A2 hosting, GoDaddy, InMotion Hosting, Cloudways, Namecheap, LiquidWeb (Nexcess), and others. We decided not to list them all in this article because we don’t want to cause choice paralysis. If you choose a host from our recommended list, you won’t go wrong.

We hope this article has helped you find the best monthly web hosting plan. You may also want to check out our guides on the best email marketing services for small businesses, and our ultimate WordPress SEO guide to improve your website rankings.

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The post 5 Best Monthly Web Hosting Plans (Starts at $4.95/mo.) first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 16, 2022 at 03:37PM