As WordPress experts with 15 years of experience working with WordPress and plugin developers, countless third-party service providers, and the very wise WordPress community as a whole, we’ve learned a thing or two about the best (and worst) tools and vendors in the industry. We build highly dynamic websites with a wide variety of functionality, which has taught us over the years what works well, and what doesn’t. For us, it was a learning experience with many failures along the way, choosing the wrong service. We don’t want others to have to take the hard way to their solution – so we’re sharing our favorites here.
Disclaimer: some, but not all, of the links below are affiliate links. What does that mean? If you click a link and then complete a purchase through one of these providers, I may get a small affiliate commission – think of it as a tip to say “thanks for the recommendation.” Clicking the link itself doesn’t generate a commission and I have no way of tracking who clicks – or even buys, for that matter – so please don’t let this stop you from clicking a link to learn more about a service. I emphatically state that I will never recommend a service (for commission or any other reason) that I have not used myself and stake the Webscaper’s reputation on. I will only ever recommend (for commission or not) services that I actively use and genuinely love.
Website Hosting Providers
SiteGround
If speed, security, and support are of primary concern, SiteGround is the host for you! They provide the very best in managed WordPress hosting – you cannot go wrong with SiteGround. The support cannot be beat; they never overbook servers, and they have fantastic security measures in place to protect your site from hackers and malware. Learn more at SiteGround >
Backup & Security
BackupBuddy
We can’t recommend BackupBuddy enough. Backups are essential if you hope to restore your site after an unexpected catastrophe (and they do happen). Manual backups are tedious, require that you remember to perform them, and still require advanced knowledge and time to restore a site. BackupBuddy is made for performing automatic, scheduled backups, and their backups are bundled in such a way that sites can be restored (or even moved to a new server) in just minutes. We strongly recommend all of our client websites have BackupBuddy. Learn more at BackupBuddy >
Sucuri
Website security is a concern that any site owner has. With WordPress, keeping your WordPress software updated is the first step to preventing malware and intrusion. But nothing can guarantee that your site will never be compromised (especially on shared hosting servers). Sucuri provides website monitoring and alerts you to any suspicious activity on your website, so you can immedately take steps to remedy the issue. The most valuable feature of Sucuri is their malware removal service; if your site is infected, Sucuri will fully clean and restore the site at no additional cost. Learn more at Sucuri >
Email Marketing
MailChimp
We love MailChimp. We’ve been using MailChimp from the beginning and even after having used numerous other email marketing systems with clients over the years, we choose to stay with MailChimp and love to see how they’re growing. MailChimp used to be seen as the less professional among the major email marketing providers, but in the past couple of years has completely risen above that stigma and proven themselves to be a solid, competitive choice. We recommend them because they are the easiest provider to use, with the most intuitive user interface. They have excellent templates to choose from, and flexibility in creating your own design. And most appealing to many of our startup and non-profit clients: a MailChimp account is FREE until you hit your first 200 subscribers. After that, rates are pretty similar among providers… but by then we’re sure you will love MailChimp so much you won’t want to consider switching. Learn more at MailChimp >