WordPress Hosting Plans

This article contains all the information you need about Kinsta’s WordPress Hosting plans, including how Kinsta counts WordPress install, how to add a new plan, manage multiple plans, switch your plan, and request a custom plan, reseller, and whitelabel plan.

If you’re thinking of leaving Kinsta or need to remove a WordPress plan, refer to Cancel WordPress Plan.

How Kinsta Counts WordPress Installs

Kinsta offers a variety of WordPress hosting plans to meet our customers’ different needs. Each plan, from Starter to Enterprise and beyond, has its own unique combination of metrics like monthly visits, SSD storage, and CDN bandwidth.

For many of our customers like web design and development agencies, the most important plan metric is the number of WordPress installs.

What Is a WordPress Install?

Every Kinsta plan supports a certain number of WordPress installs. As an example, our Pro plan supports two WordPress installs, while our Enterprise 2 plan features 80 WordPress installs.

On our hosting platform, a WordPress install or “site” consists of two environments – live and staging – both of which support a single installation of WordPress Core software in their respective MySQL databases. Furthermore, we do not allow for the creation of additional databases in PHPMyAdmin, command line, or any other method. In other words, the only way to create an additional database at Kinsta is to add a new site or WordPress install.

WordPress Installs vs Domains

WordPress is capable of operating in two different modes – single-site and multisite.

WordPress Single-Site Mode

In the default single-site mode, you can map domain.com and www.domain.com to resolve to a single WordPress site. If you want your site to be accessible over other domains like old-domain.com and www.old-domain.com, you can use redirect rules on your webserver to accomplish that. For example, if you want your Kinsta site to be accessible over domain.com, www.domain.com, old-domain.com, and www.old-domain.com, you can add all four domains to your Kinsta site, and set up an automatic 301 redirect to your primary domain with our handy Force HTTPS tool.

As you can see, we do not count each domain as an individual WordPress install because each domain eventually resolves to the same WordPress install.

WordPress Multisite Mode

WordPress also includes a multisite mode, which allows you to create additional subsites that reside in the same MySQL database as your primary site. At Kinsta, we permit WordPress multisite configurations on Pro plans and above. With WordPress multisite, you can host domain, subdomain, and subdirectory subsites in a single WordPress install.

Kinsta’s site creation wizard supports WordPress multisite mode.
Kinsta’s site creation wizard supports WordPress multisite mode.

For example, all five of the domains below can be hosted in a single WordPress install on Kinsta when you use multisite mode.

  1. domain.com (domain)
  2. www.domain.com (subdomain)
  3. domain.com/es/ (subdirectory)
  4. Fr.domain.com (subdomain)
  5. Another-domain.com (domain)

So, now you’re probably wondering why we offer Enterprise plans that support hundreds of WordPress installs when it’s possible to use WordPress in multisite mode. The key factor to keep in mind is that – in multisite mode – the primary site and all subsites share the same resources like high-performance C3D CPUs, RAM, and PHP workers.

Furthermore, our free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates only support up to 100 hostnames. This means you’ll need a custom SSL or use a service like Cloudflare for SSL termination if you want to host more than 100 multisite subsites on Kinsta.

Elaborating on the point above, our Enterprise 3 plan supports 120 WordPress installs, and each one of those installs have access to 12 PHP workers. On the other hand, if you tried to host 120 subsites on a Business 2 plan, all of those sites would need to share 4 PHP workers. WordPress multisites also have limitations in terms of plugin and theme flexibility, so it’s not always the best solution when you need multiple unique WordPress sites.

Add a New Plan

Follow the steps below to add a plan to a new account or add a plan to an account where you previously canceled your plan.

In MyKinsta, click your name in the upper-right corner of MyKinsta and select Company settings from the dropdown menu. In the left navigation, My Plan should be selected, taking you to the Plans & subscriptions page.

Go to the Plans & subscriptions page in MyKinsta.
Go to the Plans & subscriptions page in MyKinsta.

To create a new WordPress site, click the Start WordPress Plan button in the WordPress site section. Choose a monthly or annual WordPress plan and click the Continue button. Complete the Billing and Summary steps, adding a new payment method if needed.

Start a new WordPress plan in MyKinsta.
Start a new WordPress plan in MyKinsta.

Multiple Plans

While you can’t have multiple WordPress Hosting plans under a single MyKinsta company, there are two ways you can easily manage multiple plans:

Option 1: Create Multiple Companies

You can create multiple companies and add new a new plan within that company.

Switch between multiple companies in MyKinsta.
Switch between multiple companies in MyKinsta.

Option 2: Create Separate Accounts and Grant User Access

You can create a completely separate account by signing up on the plans page with a different email address. You can then invite your first user to your second account’s company.

Invite users to your company or site in MyKinsta.
Invite users to your company or site in MyKinsta.

Switch Your Plan

Whether you want to upgrade or downgrade, switching your Managed WordPress Hosting plan at Kinsta is easy. Usually, it can be done with a few clicks in MyKinsta without reaching out to our Billing team.

There is no downtime involved, and everything is automatically prorated down to the second. Follow the steps below.

There are a multitude of reasons why you might need to upgrade or downgrade your hosting plan. Here are a few common examples:

  • You want to take advantage of Kinsta’s annual discount (two months free).
  • You need more disk space or are launching additional WordPress sites.
  • You have a very demanding site and need additional PHP workers as recommended by our support team.
  • Your website has become popular, and you need to increase your visitor count limit.
  • You’re no longer working with a client and don’t need as large of a plan.
  • You’re shutting down sites and are under the limits included in your current plan.
  • You’re on Kinsta’s legacy plans and want to switch to our new plans based on visitor counts. (Note: once you switch from our legacy plans to our new plans, you can’t switch back)

System is Prorated

Our system is prorated, which means we calculate the unused time on the old plan and the remaining time on the new plan within the monthly or annual billing period. We use Stripe as our payment provider, and the prorated amount is calculated down to the second. You can, in fact, upgrade or downgrade multiple times in a month, and everything is automated on our end.

Upgrades Are Not Applied Retroactively

Important note about overages: When you upgrade plans, your new plan takes effect immediately from the time you make the change. If you’ve incurred any overages before upgrading, those overages will still be applied to your next invoice. This is because when you upgrade plans, your new plan is only in force going forward from the moment you make the change. The new upgraded plan is not applied retroactively.

For example, let’s say you register for the Starter plan ($35 per month / basically $1.17 per day / allows 25k visits). Over the next 30 days, you get 100,000 visits which results in an overage of 75k visits. On the 30th day, you upgrade to the Business 1 (B1) plan. We would reimburse you $1.17 for the remainder of the Starter plan and charge you $3.83 for one day on the B1 plan. So before considering any overage, the total cost would have been $37.76 ($33.93 for 29 days on the Starter plan, $3.83 for one day on the Business 1 plan). You would then still be responsible for the one-time overage of 75k visits, which comes out to $75 ($1 / 1,000 visits).

Monthly Plans

Proration Example 1

You sign up for a Business 1 monthly account and then decide to switch to a Business 2 monthly account 10 days into your current period. As long as the difference in the final amount due is lower than $100 there are no payments made at this time, the additional cost will be added to your next invoice. If the total amount due is increased by more than $100 we may charge the amount automatically.

  • The Business 1 plan is $115 USD/month, and the Business 2 plan is $225 USD/month.
  • 10 days were used under the Business 1 plan (for this example, in a 30 day month), and 20 days under the Business 2 plan.
  • This means you have 20 days of the Business 1 plan that will be credited for the time remaining in your current billing term in the amount of $76.67.

Calculation: $115 / 30 * 20 = $76.67

  • And 20 days of your new Business 2 plan that will be due in the amount of $150.

Calculation: $225 / 30 * 20 = $150

  • The total amount of this upgrade for the remaining 20 days in your current billing term would be $73.33.

Calculation: $150 – $76.67 = $73.33

  • As plans are always paid for in advance, your next invoice will contain the balance due from your upgrade and also the full price of next month’s Business 2 plan, which is $225 for a total of $298.33.

The total paid amount at the beginning of your new period is $298.33.

Calculation:

  • Unused time on Business 1 (20 days) = -$76.67
  • Remaining time on Business 2 (20 days) = $150
  • Price for 1 month of Business 2 = $225
  • Total: $298.33

Proration Example 2

You sign up for a Pro monthly account and then decide to downgrade to a Starter monthly account 13 days into your current period. There are no refunds made at this time. Your next invoice(s) will be reduced by any credit amounted.

  • The Pro plan is $70 USD/month, and the Starter plan is $35 USD/month.
  • 13 days were used under the Pro plan (for this example, in a 30 day month), and 17 days under the Starter plan.
  • This means you have 17 unused days of the Pro plan that will be credited for the time remaining in your current billing term in the amount of $39.67.

Calculation: $70 / 30 * 17 = $39.67

  • And 17 days of your new Starter plan that will be due in the amount of $19.83.

Calculation: $35 / 30 * 17 = $19.83

  • The total credit amount of this downgrade for the remaining 17 days in your current billing term would be $19.84.

Calculation: $19.83 – $39.67 = -$19.84

  • As plans are always paid for in advance, your next invoice will apply the credit from your downgrade toward your next month’s Starter renewal, which is $35, for a total due of $15.16.

The total paid amount at the beginning of your new period is $15.16.

Calculation:

  • Unused time on Pro (17 days) = -$39.67
  • Remaining time on Starter (17 days) = $19.83
  • Price for 1 month of Starter = $35
  • Total: $15.16

Annual Plans

When switching from a monthly to an annual plan, your monthly plan will be closed, and a new annual plan opened. The system automatically calculates a credit based on the time left on your monthly plan and applies the credit toward the amount due for the new annual plan.

Switching Between Annual Plans

Any changes to an annual plan (upgrades or downgrades) will cancel the plan and create a new plan with a new billing date, including add-ons. The system will apply the remaining balance on the previous plan to the new one.

How to Switch Hosting Plans

In MyKinsta, click your name in the upper-right corner and select Company settings from the dropdown menu. In the left navigation, My Plan should be selected, taking you to the Plans & subscriptions page.

Update your hosting plan in MyKinsta.
Update your hosting plan in MyKinsta.

In the Update a WordPress plan modal, you’ll see your current plan highlighted. You can then select the plan you want to switch to. Note: You’ll see both the monthly plans and annual plans (with the two free months discount already applied).

Switch hosting plans at Kinsta.
Switch hosting plans at Kinsta.

If you’re on a custom plan, you’ll see a form to send a custom plan change request instead. Include the plan you want to switch to in your message, and our Billing team will be happy to assist you with that change.

Sending a custom plan change request in MyKinsta.
Sending a custom plan change request in MyKinsta.

We also have 15% discounts on all plans for charities and nonprofits and open-source projects. You can switch plans at any time, but if you do not see the option to select a new plan in the modal/pop-up that appears, you’ll see the custom plan change request form instead. Include the plan you want to switch to in your message, and our Billing team will switch your plan and manually add the discount for you.

Once you’ve selected your new plan, click Update. Your new plan limits (number of sites, visitors, disk space, etc.) will then be reflected in MyKinsta. Note: You may need to refresh your screen.

And, of course, if you have any questions regarding switching plans, feel free to open a ticket with our Account Management team.

Important Notes

  • Each of our plans includes a predefined number of free migrations. However, these do not reset when you switch plans. For example, say you’re currently on a Starter plan, and you used your one included migration to move to Kinsta. If you later upgrade to Pro (which comes with two migrations), you’ll get one extra migration added to your account, not two.
  • Changing plans with multiple sites may take a while to complete. In the meantime, you can close the modal/pop-up and use MyKinsta. If you’re concerned the changes are taking too long, please contact our Support team to check into that for you.

Custom WordPress Hosting Plan

Kinsta’s plans and pricing structure are based on the needs of our customers, from small to large, and can accommodate the vast majority of use cases. However, we understand that a fixed Managed WordPress Hosting plan may not always be the best fit.

As we always listen to customer feedback, we understood we needed to be more nimble with our plans. That’s why for Managed WordPress Hosting, you can request a custom plan offer from our sales team.

How Kinsta’s Plans and Pricing Structures Work

Before getting into custom plans, let’s get an understanding of how our plans and pricing structure work with some key metrics that make up a WordPress hosting plan. You can also watch the following video, which explains our WordPress plans and pricing structure:

  • Number of WordPress Installs: This is the first step. A WordPress install can be anything here, from a small blog to a large multisite and anything in between. WordPress is flexible in that sense and so are we. Almost any WordPress use case is supported!
  • Monthly Visits: This is a big indicator of the amount of work our server needs to perform to keep your site running stable and fast. We use a server-based measurement method to calculate the number of visits your site gets.
  • SSD Storage: This is the disk space that’s needed to host all your website files and databases combined (here’s how to check disk usage in WordPress).
    When you’re considering disk space, you usually think of it as a fixed quantity rather than a dynamic metric. When comparing it to visits, for example, if your site doesn’t get updated that frequently, you won’t likely need much disk space. The same thing could be said if you have many sites (or installs) that won’t likely affect your total disk space usage that much because any change has a relatively smaller impact on it. You can customize any standard hosting plan’s SSD storage limit by adding any amount of disk space add-ons.
  • PHP Workers: PHP workers determine how many simultaneous uncached requests your site can handle at any given time. Depending on the complexity and popularity of your site(s), you might need more of these. Read more on PHP workers in our detailed guide.

When determining what WordPress hosting plan is right for you, all of these metrics are equally important. But it’s the metric with the highest requirement that suggests the best plan to choose. This way we make sure we’re able to accommodate all your current needs.

For example, Bob only has one static site, but it gets ~100k visits per month. Our Starter plan looks like a good economical fit at first because it offers 1 WordPress install. This plan has a monthly visits limit of 25,000. Although we don’t charge for occasional and unplanned traffic surges, Bob’s site generates traffic that regularly goes over that monthly visit allowance, making the Starter plan too little for him. That is why Bob should opt for our Business 1 plan, which is capped at 100k monthly visits, even though this plan has room for up to 5 WordPress installs.

Custom Plans

If none of our current plans seem to be a good fit for you, you can request a WordPress custom plan tailored to your exact needs.

To request a custom plan, open a new ticket with our Account Management team and let us know what you need. Your Account Manager will create a custom hosting plan proposal for you to review. You will be able to access it and view it online via a private link or as a PDF file. Your proposal will contain a detailed overview of your custom plan’s specifications and pricing, as well as an overview of what we took into account to determine the custom plan’s price.

If everything in the proposal looks good to you, reply and confirm it with your Account Manager, and they’ll send you details on what to do next to get started with your new custom plan.

All custom plan proposals have an expiration date. If we don’t hear back from you after you’ve received the proposal, it will expire and you’ll need to request a new one with your account executive.

Reseller or White Label Plans

While we do not currently offer reseller plans that include a billing system, we have an affiliate program for all of our services, a referral program for all of our paid services, and an Agency Partner Program for Managed WordPress Hosting.

Kinsta’s Affiliate Program

As a Kinsta affiliate, you can earn commissions on referrals of three different services: Managed WordPress Hosting, Application Hosting, and Database Hosting.

As part of the affiliate program, you can earn a commission for every referral.

Kinsta’s Referral Program

Kinsta’s customer referral program lets you earn credits by referring others to Kinsta with a referral link. As soon as your referrals begin using and paying for any of Kinsta’s services, your credits begin accruing. Those credits are applied to your next invoice and lower the amount due.

WordPress Agency Partner Program

With Kinsta’s Agency Partner Program, you can resell hosting while you build, manage, and launch client sites with ease.

Even if you’re not quite ready to join our Agency Partner Program, you can use a standard plan for reselling. For example, if you’re a small agency with 5 clients, you can signup for a Business 1 plan and resell our hosting services to your clients with that plan.

Legacy Plan Details

We moved to a visitor-based pricing model in November 2017. For those of you still on our legacy bandwidth-based hosting plans, see the details below regarding account changes, upgrades, etc.

You can still upgrade and downgrade between the bandwidth-model plans from within MyKinsta.

The only exceptions are the Starter and Pro plans. They can only be used with the visitor-based pricing model. You can switch to these at any time by reaching out to our Support team.

Changes to Plans

Below is a summary of the changes to our plans that were made since we introduced visitor-based pricing in 2017:

  • Business 1 plan previously had 1 install and 5 GB SSD. It now has 3 installs and 30 GB SSD.
  • Business 2 plan previously had 5 installs. It now has 10 installs.
  • Business 3 plan previously had 15 installs. It now has 20 installs.
  • Business 4 plan previously had 20 installs. It now has 40 installs.
  • Enterprise 1 plan previously had 40 installs. It now has 60 installs.
  • Enterprise 2 plan previously had 60 installs. It now has 80 installs.

Plan Details

Below are additional details for each legacy bandwidth-model plan.

Legacy Business Plans

DetailsBusiness 1Business 2Business 3Business 4
Price$115$225$340$450
# of Installs3102040
Server Bandwidth50 GB100 GB200 GB400 GB
Disk Space30 GB40 GB50 GB60 GB
PHP Workers4466
Backup Retention14 days14 days20 days20 days
Free Migrations1234
CDN Included200 GB free300 GB free500 GB free500 GB free

Legacy Enterprise Plans

DetailsEnterprise 1Enterprise 2Enterprise 3Enterprise 4
Price$675$1,000$1,350$1,650
# of Installs6080120150
Server Bandwidth600 GB900 GB1200 GB1500 GB
Disk Space100 GB150 GB200 GB250 GB
PHP Workers881616
Backup Retention30 days30 days30 days30 days
Free Migrations5555
CDN Included1 TB free1 TB free1 TB free1 TB free

Bandwidth overage: $1/GB
CDN overage: $0.01/GB

CDN Bandwidth

All legacy bandwidth-based clients are receiving the same amount of free CDN bandwidth as the visitor-based plans:

  • Starter plan includes 50GB
  • Pro plan includes 100 GB
  • Business 1 plan includes 200 GB
  • Business 2 plan includes 300 GB
  • Business 3 plan includes 500 GB
  • Business 4 plan includes 500 GB
  • Enterprise 1 plan includes 1 TB
  • Enterprise 2 plan includes 1 TB
  • Enterprise 3 plan includes 1 TB
  • Enterprise 4 plan includes 1 TB
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