What Is WordPress VIP? (Features, Pricing, & Alternatives)

When it comes to a WordPress website, hosting matters. The bigger your website grows, the more likely you'll move to WordPress VIP.

But what is WordPress VIP? What kind of service does it offer, and what type of websites should use this hosting service?

Use the following jump links to navigate this article, or keep scrolling:

• What is WordPress VIP?
• WordPress VIP Features
• Who Should Use WordPress VIP?
• WordPress VIP Pricing
• WordPress VIP Alternatives
• Should you buy WordPress VIP?

What is WordPress VIP?

WordPress VIP is a managed WordPress hosting service offered by Automattic. Unlike WordPress.com shared hosting, WordPress VIP is built with enterprise and high-volume traffic websites in mind. It presents itself as one of the fastest, most secure managed hosting providers.

The WordPress VIP employs strict coding standards and claims to have the best in-class support. WordPress VIP can generate a return on investment (ROI) of 415% with its solutions ​​for content management, commerce, and analytics.

WordPress VIP Features

WordPress VIP caters to websites and companies that want to revolutionize and scale their marketing. Here’s a detailed look at features and functionality you can expect if you decide to invest in WordPress VIP’s hosting plans.

1. Fully Managed Hosting

For starters, WordPress VIP is a fully managed service for WordPress development. Everything from the setup to the daily management of your servers and your website is taken care of.

Its plans include website optimization tools like a built-in CDN with data centers around the world, code minification and concatenation, image optimization, and performance monitoring. There’s also a strict review process for any third-party WordPress plugins and custom code, creating improved security measures for your site. And, WordPress VIP updates itself automatically, which includes hourly backups, built-in automatic scaling, and general updates for the core software.

Every plan comes with an in-depth strategy for and assessment of your website followed by theme, plugin, and custom code evaluation and recommendation. After that, the WordPress VIP team trains you and your team on every aspect of their platform so you can make the most out of the platform when it comes to managing and publishing your content.

2. Content Management and Analytics

Speaking of content management, the team behind WordPress VIP aims to empower you to produce more content to scale your business. The agile content platform focuses heavily on the Gutenberg editor due to its ease of use and flexibility.

Besides that, its plans include in-depth analytics about your content to help you monitor how your content is performing. You can segment your audience with flexible filters and customizable logic.

You can track your conversions and see the content type responsible for improving customer experiences. This will encourage visitors to sign up for your business email list or purchase through your website via your e-commerce shop.

3. Security and Performance Features

WordPress VIP prioritizes security and performance. It comes with a built-in CDN with more than 20 data centers worldwide that ensure your visitors benefit from the best time-to-first byte result, latency, and protection against DDoS attacks.

Besides that, you get an SSL certificate, anti-spam features, built-in asset optimization, and round-the-clock monitoring and scanning to prevent malware. This also includes automatic scanning of everything from third-party plugins to custom code for preventing security breaches.

4. 24/7 Customer Support

WordPress VIP has a 99.9% uptime because of its excellent round-the-clock customer service. Every plan comes with access to top-notch engineers around the world who are dedicated to making sure your WordPress support needs are taken care of.

If you have any issues with your website or want some help from an expert on implementing a new feature or maximizing your website's ROI, you are all set with WordPress VIP.

Who Should Use WordPress VIP?

You know what WordPress VIP is. But who should use its services?

WordPress VIP was designed as an enterprise solution. So. if you have a large-scale, mission-critical website, app, or project, it will greatly benefit from WordPress VIP hosting plans. You can also try WordPress VIP to create full digital experiences.

WordPress VIP hosting plans are also a perfect fit for high-traffic websites that require more security than smaller websites. And you can completely offload website management to outside experts if required. In other words, WordPress VIP caters to websites and apps that generate tens of millions of monthly visitors and views. So, if you're a smaller business that's still growing, you might not need the level of access that WordPress VIP comes with.

Who uses WordPress VIP?

If you’re considering signing up for WordPress VIP hosting and are curious to see who is using WordPress VIP, rest assured you’ll be in good company.

A few notable companies and top brands that use this service include Slack, Facebook, SalesForce, AlJazeera, USA Today Sports, New York Post, and more. You'll notice that all of these are massive companies that get millions of visitors in traffic every day. WordPress VIP is a service for big businesses.

WordPress VIP Pricing

You know what WordPress VIP is and who it’s aimed at. Let’s discuss WordPress VIP’s price.

Unfortunately, you can not get a breakdown of different plans. WordPress VIP’s website states that plans start at $2000 per month. But, you must fill out a form and request a custom quote. This is because the service level largely depends on how big your business is and how much of a lift your website will require.

That said, some preliminary research shows that pricing can go as high as $25,000 per month for up to five websites. Besides that, you’ll have to pay a minimum $5,000 setup fee per site.

WordPress VIP Alternatives

WordPress VIP has many advantages, but it’s not for everyone considering the pricing.

Luckily, if you’ve outgrown your shared hosting plan and are looking into managed hosting for your WordPress site, you have several alternatives to WordPress VIP that offer managed hosting for enterprise-level websites.

For all the enterprise-level plans mentioned below, you’ll need to contact their sales department or request a quote to get the pricing tailored to your needs.

1. WP Engine

WP Engine is one of the oldest and most popular managed WordPress hosting providers. Its plans offer a range of fully managed, scalable services.

The enterprise hosting plan includes:

• High availability service level agreement (SLA) with 99.99% uptime guarantee

• Proactive security monitoring with managed Web Application Firewall
• DDoS mitigation
• Dynamic headless WordPress
• Advanced code monitoring.

WP Engine also offers global CDN, managed onboarding, and dedicated support response.

2. Nexcess

Nexcess is another hosting provider that offers enterprise-level plans. Each plan offers secure, high-performance hosting with 99.99% uptime and 24/7/365 enterprise support.

Their enterprise hosting plans include:

• Dedicated and customizable infrastructures
• Application-optimized server clusters
• PCI-compliant infrastructure for secure processing
• Proactive monitoring by the Enterprise Support Group
• 100% free migrations by a team of dedicated experts
• Daily site backups archived for 30 days

What sets this service apart is that it owns its data centers and offers 24/7 US-based support through phone, live chat, and email.

3. Kinsta

Kinsta relies on Google Cloud and Cloudflare CDN to ensure websites hosted on its platform get the best security and performance features.

Its main features include:

• Custom containerized hosting
• Cloud infrastructure with 99.95% availability
• 29 globally distributed data centers
• DDoS protection
• Six types of automatic backups
• 24/7/365 expert support

Kinsta offers proactive monitoring and support for custom services. You benefit from a team of WordPress experts ready to help you when you need them.

4. Pantheon

Pantheon markets itself as the WebOps platform for WordPress and Drupal websites. Websites hosted on Pantheon benefit from its global CDN with data centers all over the world and scalable plans.

Other key features include:

• Enterprise-level security with fully managed HTTPS certificates, DDOS protection, daily backups, and automated updates
• Git-based workflows to help your developers launch websites faster
• 99.99% uptime guarantee

You’ll also get 24x7x365 access to Pantheon’s support team through chat, email, phone, and video conferencing.

Should You Buy WordPress VIP?

When it comes to managed hosting, you can find several hosting companies that offer this type of service. But not all managed hosting providers are equal.

If you’re looking for an affordable managed hosting service for WordPress, companies such as WPEngine, LiquidWebm or Kinsta are a great fit.

But if you have a website with a high volume of traffic and you want to make sure that your hosting plan provides iron-clad security and top-notch service, WordPress VIP may be worth looking into.