GuideWhich web hosting plan do you need? A plain guide

Last updated: 25 October 2026

Hosting plans all look alike until you read the small print: websites, storage, bandwidth, backups, CPU, memory. This guide explains what each one means for your site and how to choose a hosting plan: how to work out roughly what you need, and which MariHost plan fits. It takes about ten minutes to read, and you don't need any technical knowledge.

What a plan limits

Every hosting plan shares a real server with other customers, so each plan has a fair share of it. Here's what each line on a plan means. We use our own four plans as the example, but the same ideas apply to any host.

Websites

The number of separate sites you can run on the plan. A site on its own domain counts as one, and so does a site on a subdomain, such as shop.yourbusiness.com. Extra domains that point at the same site don't count. On MariHost, staging copies don't count either: you can make a private copy of any site to try changes, without using up a website.

Starter has 1 website, Business 5, Pro 10 and Agency 30.

Storage

The space for your websites' files and databases. WordPress itself takes about 110 MB. Your theme and plugins add some more, but most of the space goes on what you upload, mainly photos and PDFs. A small business site often fits in 1 to 2 GB. A shop with hundreds of product photos, or a blog with years of posts, needs more.

Two things quietly eat storage: backup plugins that keep their copies on the same server, and very large photos straight from a phone or camera. Resizing photos before you upload them helps both your storage and your page speed.

Starter has 10 GB of NVMe storage, Business 25 GB, Pro 40 GB and Agency 100 GB, shared by all the websites on the plan.

Bandwidth

The data your websites send to visitors each month. Every time someone opens a page, their browser downloads the page and its images, styles and scripts.

A rough way to estimate it: a typical web page weighs about 2 MB. HTTP Archive, which measures millions of sites, found a median of 1.8 to 2.9 MB in 2025, depending on the page and the device. So 100 GB of bandwidth is roughly 50,000 page views a month. Returning visitors' browsers keep many files, and a CDN serves files from its own servers, so your real use can be lower.

Treat this as a guide, not a promise: a page full of large photos or videos can weigh much more.

If a plan reaches its cap, its sites keep working but load more slowly until the cap resets at the start of the next month. You can move up a plan at any time. For busy sites, or visitors far from Asia, a CDN such as Cloudflare or MariCDN in front of the site takes much of the load off your plan.

CPU and memory

CPU is the processing power that builds your pages, and memory is where that work happens. Simple sites with page caching use very little, because most visitors get a ready-made copy of the page. Shops, membership sites and busy forums use more, because many pages are built fresh for each visitor.

On MariHost, each website gets its own limit: up to 1 vCPU and 1 GB of memory on Starter, 2 vCPU and 2 GB on Business, 2 vCPU and 3 GB on Pro, and 2 vCPU and 2 GB for each of Agency's 30 sites. One busy site can't use up another's share. If a site needs more than its plan allows, it slows down rather than slowing down other customers, and we'll suggest a bigger plan.

Backups

How many days of daily backups are kept, so you can go back to an earlier copy if something goes wrong. Every MariHost plan keeps 7 days, and you can restore a site yourself from the control panel. For anything you couldn't do without, keep a copy of your own too.

Databases and email

WordPress keeps your posts, pages and settings in a database, so you need one database for each site, and one more for its staging copy. Every MariHost plan has two databases for each website it holds.

Email: each plan includes one mailbox for each website (1, 5, 10 or 30), each holding up to 1 GB of the plan's storage. If you send newsletters, use a mailing service for them: hosting mailboxes are for everyday business email.

Why "unlimited" still has limits

Some hosts advertise unlimited storage or bandwidth. Nothing on a shared server is truly unlimited, so those plans set their limits elsewhere: a fair-use clause, a cap on the number of files, or a CPU limit that slows a busy site down. The limit is still there. It's just harder to find.

We'd rather show every limit on the plan card, so you can choose with the real numbers in front of you.

Choose a hosting plan that fits

A quick guide:

• Starter: one website. A blog, a portfolio, or a small business site with a few pages and a contact form.
• Business: a few websites, or one busy business site. A business site plus a shop or a second brand, or one site with steady traffic. A small WooCommerce shop is happier here than on Starter, because shops use more CPU and memory.
• Pro: up to 10 sites, with room for more traffic. Several businesses or brands, or a few busy sites.
• Agency: up to 30 client sites under one login. For designers and agencies looking after their clients' websites. See Agency Hosting.

Not sure? Start smaller. Moving up takes a few clicks, and you only pay the difference.

Monthly or yearly

Every plan can be paid monthly or yearly. A year costs the same as 10 months, so yearly gives you 2 months free. Monthly suits you if you're trying things out. Yearly suits a site you know you'll keep.

Either way, your plan renews at its normal price, the one on our plans page. We don't use introductory prices that jump at renewal: a promotion, such as our 11.11 sale, only takes money off the first invoice, and says so.

You can also try any plan free for 3 days before you pay.

Changing plans later

• Moving up: any time, from your client area. The bigger plan applies straight away, and you pay the difference for the rest of your billing period.
• Moving down: straight away, from your client area, with no refund for the rest of your billing period; you pay the lower price from your next renewal. Check that your sites fit the smaller plan first.
• Switching between monthly and yearly: from your next renewal.

What's next

• Compare every feature side by side: Compare the plans
• Starting from scratch? Start a WordPress website
• Already have a site elsewhere? Move your site to MariHost: we do it for free.
• Wondering about speed from Malaysia? Singapore or Malaysia server