Choosing hosting for a business website

en 2026-09-16 6 min read

For a business website, choose a host that fits how the site is built, lets you check a change before it goes live, keeps backups you can restore, and tells a person when the site is down. Hosting is the small decision next to the build, which runs from EUR 600-900 for a step 01 single-page landing to EUR 1.500-3.500 for a step 03 business website, and at JP Studio the hosting is agreed per project during scoping.

Start with what the site is built on

The stack narrows the choice before any price comparison does. A WordPress site needs a host that runs PHP and MySQL. A Next.js site with a headless CMS is built once and served from a platform made for that. A web app with logins, a dashboard and payments, which is step 04 work, needs somewhere to run server code, a managed database, and a safe place for secret keys that must never sit in the codebase.

We choose the stack from what the project needs, and the host follows. Why we build in Next.js is on Next.js development in Amsterdam, and how design and code are handled together is on design and engineering.

What matters

A safe way to change the site

Ask what happens when someone edits a page or ships a fix. The good answer: each change is built as a new version, opened on a preview address before it replaces the live site, and rolled back in one step if something is wrong. The weak answer is uploading files over the running site and hoping.

Backups that have been restored

You only learn whether a backup works when you restore it, so restore one before you need to. The database should be backed up separately from the files, and the copies should live away from the server they protect. Backups are part of Care, so this gets checked rather than assumed.

Plain answers on access

Write down who holds the hosting account, who can log in, who pays and who receives the alerts. Hosting is agreed per project here, so get those answers before the build starts. Whatever the arrangement, the code, the repository and the database are yours, so the site can be deployed elsewhere if the arrangement changes.

An EU data location

If your customers are in the Netherlands or elsewhere in the EU, run server code and the database in an EU region. If the site stores personal data such as form submissions or user accounts, the host processes it on your behalf under the GDPR, and you need a data processing agreement with them. Check that one exists before you sign up.

Monitoring that reaches a person

Something should notice when the site stops answering or a certificate is about to lapse, and tell a named person rather than an inbox nobody reads. Monitoring is also part of Care.

What matters less than the pricing page suggests

• Unlimited storage and bandwidth. A business website with a handful of pages and properly sized images uses little of either.
• Server specifications. Cores and memory matter for a web app under load. For a brochure site, image weight and the script each page loads matter more than the machine.
• A free domain in the bundle. It ties your registration to your host, so leaving the host means untangling the domain too. Register the domain separately, in your own name.
• A headline uptime figure. The host's public status history, and what they owe you when they miss, tell you more.

Hosting types side by side

Where hosting sits against the build price

What the host has to do grows with what the site does, which is why hosting is scoped with the build. The full list is on packages.

• Step 01, single-page landing, EUR 600-900, 1-2 weeks. One page, a form and analytics. Static hosting is enough.
• Step 02, mini-site, EUR 900-1.500, 2-3 weeks. Two or three pages, a contact flow and a basic CMS with its own account.
• Step 03, business website, EUR 1.500-3.500, 3-6 weeks. Four to seven pages, a CMS, service pages, and booking or contact. Content and enquiries live outside the page code and need backing up too.
• Step 04, advanced site or web app, EUR 3.500-7.500, 6-12 weeks. Login, dashboard, API, CRM, payments or a chatbot. Server code, a database and secret keys all need a proper home.
• Step 05, custom SaaS platform, from EUR 7.500. Scope, auth, billing, admin and deployment are defined after discovery, so hosting is designed with the platform.

After launch, Care costs EUR 100-300 a month for updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. A redesign or new features are quoted separately.

How the hosting decision runs in a project

1. Scoping. We look at the stack, the data the site will hold and where your visitors are, and agree whether the studio hosts the site. That goes into the fixed quote, which always follows scoping.
2. Build with previews. Changes go to a preview address before they go live, over 1-2 weeks at step 01 and up to 6-12 weeks at step 04.
3. Launch. DNS is pointed at the host, HTTPS is confirmed and backups are switched on and checked. Access to your domain is the part that waits on you, so find that login early.
4. Handover. The code, the repository and the database are yours.

When to spend less

• If your current host is quick enough and nothing about the site is changing, stay. A move with no other purpose buys a new invoice and the same website.
• A step 01 landing page does not need a server of its own. Static hosting does the job.
• Do not rent a virtual server that nobody will patch. A managed platform takes the patching off your list.
• Measure a slow site before blaming the host. Oversized images and a pile of plugins are slow on any server, and fixing them costs less than moving.

Questions buyers ask

Do you host the sites you build?

We can, and it is agreed per project. It is settled during scoping and written into the quote. Ownership does not depend on it: the code, the repository and the database are yours.

Should my email live with my web host?

It does not have to. Email is routed by its own DNS records, so mailboxes can stay with your current provider while the website runs somewhere else. Keeping them apart means moving the website does not have to touch your inbox.

Can I change host later?

Yes. Because you own the code, the repository and the database, the site can be deployed to a new host and the DNS records pointed there. The database and uploaded files are the parts to plan.

Does hosting affect SEO?

Speed and availability do. Google measures how pages load for real visitors, and a site that is down cannot be crawled. A site that is already fast gains nothing from a new host. If search is the real goal, the SEO foundation, a one-off EUR 450-750, does more for it.

Tell us what you are building and what it runs on now, and the quote will set out what hosting it needs. Get in touch.