Nexcess by Liquid Web review in 2023

Summary

Nexcess is a fascinating company. Once its own business, it is now a subsidiary that provides services not offered by its parent company, Liquid Web. 

Liquid Web provides physical and virtual servers, and Nexcess primarily offers traditional shared hosting focusing on simplicity and speedy infrastructure.

Nexcess offers various services, such as configurable cloud hosting and enterprise hosting, but their primary service is managed WordPress, Magento, and WooCommerce hosting.

For

Against

Introduction

Nexcess is not your average hosting company, and it does not make wild promises about providing the least expensive or fastest hosting in town, nor does it employ flashy advertisements.

Instead, it operates discreetly and specializes in managed hosting services for the most popular content management systems, such as WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento. Nexcess is a member of the Liquid Web (a high-quality hosting company) family, so its effective and dependable services are not surprising.

Despite its limited visibility, it has been in business for 22 years, a remarkable success in a ruthless market like web hosting. And the tens of thousands of Nexcess reviews are written by its users are highly encouraging.

Plans and pricing

Prior to the merger, Nexcess was not the most cost-effective option for hosting a small WordPress site. However, this has improved much since then. It’s now only $13.30 a month to get started, making it a viable option for different budget types.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Spark – $13.30/mo

• 1 website
• 15 GB storage
• 2 TB bandwidth

Maker – $55.30/mo

• 5 websites
• 40 GB storage
• 3 TB bandwidth

Designer – $76.30/mo

• 10 websites
• 60 GB storage
• 4 TB bandwidth

Builder – $104.30/mo

• 25 websites
• 100 GB storage
• 5 TB bandwidth

Producer – $209.30/mo

• 50 websites
• 300 GB storage
• 5 TB bandwidth

Executive – $384.30/mo

• 100 websites
• 500 GB storage
• 10 TB bandwidth

Enterprise – $699.30/mo

• 250 websites
• 800 GB storage
• 10 TB bandwidth

So, if you do the calculation, the $190 annual fee does not equal the $13.30 monthly fee. The promotional pricing is a discount for your first three months of Nexcess hosting. After the promo period, the price does increase slightly, bringing the total cost of running with Nexcess for the first year to $190.

Of course, this is only the beginning of what Nexcess offers; there is much more. The picture shows that their packages are very flexible and can support up to 250 websites per hosting plan.

It’s also worth noting that the Nexcess entry-level plan comes with a generous amount of bandwidth and that 2 TB will be more than enough for virtually any new WordPress site.

Nexcess has considerably more to offer in terms of WordPress-specific functionality, security, and reliability.

To begin with, Nexcess does not restrict your usage to any of these sophisticated functionality based on the tier of your hosting service; they are all accessible on all levels.

A free SSL certificate is provided, as are daily backups of your site, allowing you to restore a previously functional version in the event of a significant attack on your site’s security or data.

Additionally, iThemes Security Pro is provided at no additional cost. iThemes Security is a powerful WordPress security plugin, and the Pro edition is worth more than $80 annually. Additionally, Nexcess will monitor your website for malware to ensure that nothing shady is occurring beneath your nose.

Managed WooCommerce Hosting

Starter – $13.30/mo

• 1 store
• 30 GB storage
• 500 orders per hour

Creator – $55.30/mo

• 3 stores
• 60 GB storage
• 1,000 orders per hour

Merchant – $104.30/mo

• 5 stores
• 100 GB storage
• 2,500 orders per hour

Standard – $209.30/mo

• 10 stores
• 300 GB storage
• 3,000 orders per hour

Growth – $384.30/mo

• 20 stores
• 500 GB storage
• 5,000 orders per hour
• Glew.io analytics

Enterprise – $699.30/mo

• 30 stores
• 800 GB storage
• 10,000 orders per hour
• Glew.io analytics

When building a WooCommerce website, go for one of the Managed WooCommerce Hosting options rather than a Managed WordPress Hosting plan and put WooCommerce on it.

This is because when you buy a Managed WooCommerce Hosting package from Nexcess, you also get:

• Detailed WooCommerce Tutorials created by WooCommerce professionals.
• The hosting environment is tailored for e-commerce and WooCommerce websites explicitly, and you get access to high-value WooCommerce plugins worth up to $5,769 annually, including premium plugins for:
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: This plugin encourages website users to complete the purchase of the product they placed in their shopping cart while on your site but did not complete.
• Stripe Payment Gateway: This plugin enables you to receive online purchases using the Stripe Payment Gateway.
• Affiliate marketing: This plugin enables you to sell your products and services via affiliates by generating unique connections to your site for each affiliate. Then, your affiliates may utilize their affiliate links to market your items to their customers and audience, boosting your sales earnings.
• PDF Invoicing and Shipping Document Creation.
• Dropshipping automation: This plugin may be used to automate a dropshipping company as it enables you to instantly import items from online marketplaces such as AliExpress, etc., with a single click, as well as monitor pricing and inventory levels.
• Multi-Vendor Marketplace: This plugin enables you to establish your multi-vendor marketplace, similar to Amazon or eBay, where millions of sellers/vendors may offer their items!
• Importing items from any XML or CSV file into WooCommerce

Other high-value plugins are available depending on your plan and the ones stated above.

Cloud Hosting

XS – $49/mo

• 20 concurrent users
• 50 GB storage
• 10 domains
• 1 TB bandwidth

S – $99/mo

• 40 concurrent users
• 75 GB storage
• 15 domains
• 2 TB bandwidth

M – $179/mo

• 60 concurrent users
• 125 GB storage
• 20 domains
• 3 TB bandwidth

L – $299/mo

• 80 concurrent users
• 400 GB storage
• 30 domains
• 5 TB bandwidth
• 20 GB of memory

XL – $549/mo

• 100 concurrent users
• 600 GB storage
• 40 domains
• 8 TB bandwidth
• 26 GB of memory

XXL – $849/mo

• 120 concurrent users
• 800 GB storage
• 50 domains
• 10 TB bandwidth
• 32 GB of memory

Scalable hosting resources are one of the most significant advantages of cloud hosting.

Consider the following to comprehend how scalable hosting differentiates from upgrading your hosting plan:

At some point, the Black Friday event or another massive sale season will be approaching.

In preparation for the forthcoming event, you anticipate a considerable increase in website visitors.

Let’s imagine that your website traffic will double during the sale time. If your website were housed on a typical server with limited hosting capabilities, it would not be able to manage any traffic spikes during the sale time, and it would crash as a consequence.

As soon as you realize that the server crash has cost you significant revenue, you will call your hosting provider and request that they permanently change your hosting package to a more expensive one.

In addition, even if you don’t use the increased resources when the sale is over, you’ll be required to pay in advance for this new, pricey hosting package.

And when the offer has ended, you cannot return to your previous hosting package.

In this case, cloud-based, scalable hosting comes in handy.

You may scale cloud hosting resources during the sale time instead of completely switching to more expensive hardware, such as doubling the RAM.

Once the sale is completed, you can reduce the number of cloud hosting resources available. By doing so, you will only be required to pay for the extra resources your website consumed during periods of significant traffic.

Core features

Nexcess provides fully managed hosting, taking this aspect of their business seriously. You receive the fully automated plugin and core upgrades to WordPress that are normal for managed services, which is fantastic. You also receive a great deal of professional help anytime you require it.

All WordPress plans contain a unique and handy plugin efficiency monitor that evaluates changes in site speed following the installation of new plugins or upgrading a site’s theme. You may then view the impact of all adjustments in the Nexcess Performance Monitor, which is integrated into the WordPress Dashboard.

Many hosting providers won’t provide backups if you don’t pay for them. Others perform weekly or even monthly backups. If you often publish new information on your website, none of the aforementioned options are suitable.

Nexcess creates daily backups that are stored for 30 days. This is a significant deal, ensuring you will never sacrifice over 24 hours’ worth of content or updates.

If your website experiences a sudden surge in traffic, more resources will be granted to your site for free for the next 24 hours. This is excellent for dealing with phenomena such as “the Reddit effect,” i.e., a sudden surge of traffic. Your website will not be stopped or shut down if it receives a bit of additional traffic.

If the steady traffic flow continues and it’s not a DDoS hit, you’ll likely need to increase your plan to accommodate the additional site visitors. However, if you’re generating income from your now-famous website, that’s not bad!

Interface

Nexcess is comparable to most other hosting providers you will encounter in its onboarding process.

However, it is also clear that Nexcess is more suited for advanced users comfortable with admin dashboards and navigating a few settings pages before their website is entirely operational.

Nexcess’ primary dashboard focuses more on your account’s current status than the hosting environment. Here you will see your upcoming invoice, any open support requests you have requested, and references to the knowledge base and blog posts.

Then, select Plans to customize your hosting configuration from the left-sidebar menu. Here, you’ll find all the plans you’ve got on your account.

Simply click on the name of your current plan in the main listing to make changes to your sites and your account settings.

Support options and quality

All Nexcess plans include free, round-the-clock customer service. Live chat, email/ticket, and phone assistance are available, with specialized phone lines for the Americas, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

However, not all channels are open around-the-clock, so you may need to count on helpdesk help during off-hours. For instance, we attempted to launch a live chat around 10:00 p.m. EST on a Sunday, but there were no live chat agents online, leaving us with only the option of ticket assistance.

When it comes to customer service, the results are… varied. The support crew is nice and helpful; however, many customers have complained about slow response times, and the lack of live chat assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can be annoying if you have an emergency.

Overall, the assistance should be adequate for most customers, but those who desire rapid response and white-glove service may want to consider Skystra or Kinsta.

The competition

When it comes to Managed WordPress hosting, Nexcess is an excellent deal since you receive fantastic speed and valuable managed WordPress capabilities at a far lower price than similar providers.

In addition, you have access to helpful features that not all of these other providers supply, such as visual testing for plugin upgrades. There’s no cap on the number of visits; you’re simply charged based on your bandwidth use.

However, I would add two drawbacks to these other hosts – the dashboard is not as pleasant to use, and the customer service is less responsive.

Skystra is an excellent alternative since it prioritizes incredible performance, reliability, and assistance for WordPress and WooCommerce websites. Prices for hosting 1 WordPress website begin at $7 per month, and all hosting plans include free SSL, free CDN, free emails, and sophisticated features such as premium caching to increase website speed by up to 125%.

The primary distinction between Skystra and Nexcess by Liquid is their superior customer service and performance. Learn more about Skystra by reading our review.

HostGator is another excellent option for those on a tight budget, with shared hosting options beginning at $2.75 per month and a website builder accessible for $3.84 per month. All HostGator plans include free SSL, a free domain in the first year, and live help around-the-clock. Check out our HostGator review to learn more.

Final verdict

Nexcess offers premium features, a robust server infrastructure, and excellent customer service for a premium price. There’s a lot to enjoy, and it makes creating a WordPress-based online company easily, provided you know what you’re doing and don’t mind the performance drawbacks of shared hosting.

Although Nexcess pricing is not the cheapest, you receive fully managed services, excellent performance, and several tools for a straightforward hosting experience.

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