One of our readers recently asked us about the ins and outs of WordPress VIP.
This managed WordPress hosting service is designed for enterprise and large-scale websites and is used by some of the industry’s biggest names.
We will break down what WordPress VIP is and its significant benefits, along with some great alternatives to consider.
This guide aims to help you clearly understand whether WordPress VIP is the right choice for your website needs.
Here is a quick overview of the topics we will cover in this article:
What Is WordPress VIP?
WordPress VIP is a high-end managed WordPress hosting platform for enterprise and large-scale websites.
It is offered by the folks behind WordPress.com, a company created by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. It is not to be confused with WordPress.org, the popular website builder that powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet.
For more details, please look at our article on the difference between WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.
WordPress VIP is sold as faster, more secure, and totally hassle-free WordPress hosting that you can buy.
Aside from the high cost, WordPress VIP has very strict coding standards and processes, which means it’s not suitable for most companies.
Who Should Use WordPress.com VIP?
WordPress.com VIP is suitable for large businesses and high-traffic websites with tens of millions of pageviews.
It is a powerful hosting plan designed specifically to handle high-traffic volume with unrivaled performance and security.
WordPress.com VIP pricing is a mystery because the website does not have a public pricing page. However, research shows that plans range from $5,000 to $25,000 USD per month for up to 5 websites with a minimum $5,000 USD setup fee per site.
For that price, you will get unlimited storage, bandwidth, CDN, and dedicated support.
Here are some of the top brands that are already using WordPress VIP.
Benefits of WordPress VIP
WordPress.com VIP is in its own class because it takes away the pain associated with managing a mission-critical, high-traffic, and content-rich website while still getting the full power of WordPress, which is the best website builder in the world.
Here are some of the key benefits of using WordPress.com VIP:
1. Fully Managed WordPress Platform
WordPress.com VIP is more than a managed WordPress hosting platform. It includes the following managed services:
- Automated hourly backups
- Proactive security and scanning
- Automatic updates for core software
- A review process for third-party plugins and custom code
- Uptime and performance monitoring
- Automatic scaling to handle massive traffic spikes without a blink
It is like having your own development team taking care of everything for you without any downtime on your website.
2. Planning & Training
Each WordPress.com VIP plan starts with a detailed planning and strategy assessment of your website. During this time, WordPress.com’s VIP team will work with your team to review your needs and what you want to do.
The team will also help you pick a theme (website design) and WordPress plugins for your project. If you already have a theme developed, then they will review every line of the code.
The same goes for third-party plugins and all custom code, which must be compatible with the platform’s coding and security standards.
They will train your development team about the platform, security, and performance.
This training also extends to your website’s editors, authors, and administrators so that they can make the most out of the WordPress VIP’s robust content management and publishing features.
3. Best Performance & Blazing Fast Speed
The entire hosting platform for WordPress.com VIP is optimized to offer the best WordPress performance. You don’t have to worry about caching, code optimization, a CDN service, or plugins.
The WordPress VIP platform is served by a delivery network of 20 data centers across the globe. This offers the best time-to-first byte result, latency, SSL security, and protection against DDOS attacks.
4. The Best WordPress Security
All WordPress.com VIP websites are protected by a custom-built infrastructure and WordPress security best practices to proactively block brute force and other types of attacks. All your website traffic will be fully encrypted from edge to origin.
Every piece of custom code is reviewed manually, which adds another security layer to protect your website from running potentially vulnerable code.
Alternatives to WordPress.com VIP
Despite its advantages, WordPress.com VIP is not for everyone, primarily because of the cost. However, many companies don’t like the additional restrictions and processes they must go through to push changes on their website.
Thankfully due to the growth of WordPress, other WordPress hosting providers have stepped up to offer similar levels of hosting plans as WordPress.com VIP.
Moreover, there are plenty of excellent WordPress maintenance services that provide a higher level of website monitoring, upkeep, and care.
Here is our pick of the top alternatives to WordPress.com VIP that offer enterprise-grade hosting services for e-commerce and high-scale websites.
1. WP Engine
WP Engine is the most popular managed WordPress hosting service on the market. Their enterprise offering is also the top WordPress.com VIP alternative for high-traffic websites and enterprise clients.
WP Engine’s enterprise plan is a high-redundancy, scalable, and fully managed hosting solution. Its platform is built on top of Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform with custom optimizations. In addition, it uses its proprietary caching solution to improve page load speed.
It also includes global CDN, managed onboarding, dedicated support response, and 24/7 performance and security monitoring.
WP Engine hosts top websites, including Under Armour, AMD, SoundCloud, JobVite, Thomson Reuters, and more.
2. Rocket.net
Rocket.net is one of the best managed WordPress hosting platforms and probably the fastest on the market. They have an incredibly high-performance infrastructure that reduces page load time severalfold.
They have daily backups, free Cloudflare enterprise, free CDN, a website application firewall (WAF), and expert support 24/7.
Plus, you get unlimited website migrations, auto-updates, real-time malware scanning, activity logs, and more.
3. SiteGround
SiteGround is an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider that has recently entered the enterprise hosting space. They specialize in offering custom infrastructure designed specifically for your needs. Their service is 100% managed, and you get a dedicated support team that works alongside you 24/7 all year round.
We switched all of our eCommerce websites, including WPForms, MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, and All in One SEO, to the SiteGround Enterprise structure, and we could not be happier with the decision. Their top-notch support is available through Slack, email, and direct personal phones.
We hope this article helped you learn more about WordPress VIP, its benefits, and alternatives. You may also want to see our comparison of the fastest WordPress hosting providers or our guide on which WordPress plan you should use.
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Jiří Vaněk
I was not familiar with WordPress VIP until today. Again, I learned something new thanks to wpbeginner. Thanks for the great explanation of this service.
Anjana Nilupul
Hi,
Thank you for this article. I’ve been a WPBeginner fan always. But I wonder, being such a huge website, WPBeginner hasn’t moved to WordPress VIP. What’s the reason for that? Also can you tell me if it was because they are pricy or they are too much for what WPBeginner requires at the moment?
Thank you
WPBeginner Support
For why we use what we use on WPBeginner you would want to take a look at our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/reasons-why-wpbeginner-switched-to-siteground-hosting/
As well as our blueprint:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/
Admin
David in Mississippi
You gave some rather scary prices for the WordPress VIP program, but failed to give any price ranges for the alternative services.
Yes, I realize that different levels of services will have different price structures, but you could have made this article SO MUCH better by giving us the low, mid, and upper price ranges for each service.
You can probably understand that most people don’t want to even consider any product or service without having at least some idea what it will cost.
BobH
Do any of these high end sites include management utilities like ManageWP?
WPBeginner Support
Hi Bob,
Each hosting company offers different sets of tools to manage multiple WordPress sites from their hosting dashboard.
Admin