Liquid Web Review 2020: Is It Worth It?

Liquid Web is a US hosting provider that was founded in 1997. The company manages over 1 million sites and over 500 hosting professionals on-site. Liquid Web is known for its fast and reliable customer support.

The company is one of the leading providers of Managed Hosting and provides Dedicated, Cloud, and Enterprise hosting solutions. Among its clients, Liquid Web boasts top brands like ESPN, Red Bull, Audi, Motorola, and FedEx.

In total, the company has 5 global data centers located in Michigan, Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas, and Amsterdam.

Pros

• 99.99% uptime guarantee

• Unlimited plugins support

• Fast load and response times

• Prorated VPS plans.

• Fast customer support

Cons

• No money-back guarantee

• No Shared web hosting

• Higher subscription costs

Load Times – How Fast Is Liquid Web?

When it comes to performance, Liquid Web does not disappoint. Page Load time is the most significant indicator of your website's performance. It can make or break your online venture. Quite incredibly, studies show that a simple 1-second delay in load time can cause a 7% decline in conversions.

Also, given that slow site speeds can significantly impact your SEO rankings, page load times might as well be your most important consideration.

Is Liquid Web fast? You betcha! The service offers lightning-fast page load and response times.

Here is a snapshot of the page response times.

As you can see, Liquid Web delivers great speeds across the world. The response times were much faster in North America, with the US and Canada averaging less than 50ms.

According to their Service Level Agreement (SLA), if they are unable to meet the 100% threshold, you'll be given credit worth 10 times the actual amount of time you were affected. All this is fantastic.

But as usual, I had to test the service to see how it really held up. So I hooked our test site to Liquid Web and observed it for 6 months (June – Dec 2019).

Here is a summary of the results:

Liquid Web Uptime in 2019

• July – 100%

• August – 100%

• September – 100%

• October – 100%

• November – 100%

• December – 100%

Not many hosting providers can achieve this. Apart from the 100% uptime guarantee, the provider also offers a 30-minute hardware replacement guarantee.

Robust Site Security

Cyber threats are not going just to fizzle away. It's up to you to make the right choices about your website's security. Fortunately, Liquid Web makes it all easy. The provider offers robust security features, and they are continually updating their systems to keep up with the latest trends.

The company also owns and operates all its core data centers and implements strict on-site security. Additionally, Liquid Web's network infrastructure is designed to ensure maximum redundancy and the safety of your data.

In regards to encryption, the provider offers free SSL encryption, which protects data traffic to and from your site. Additionally, Liquid Web safeguards your site from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which can severely affect your site's functionality.

Ecommerce Features

Liquid Web comes with plenty of eCommerce features, including shopping carts, page builder plugins, and product catalogs. The provider also offers abandoned carts technology allowing you to capture this potentially lost revenue.

If you have shippable products, Liquid Web also helps you connect to ShipBob, ShipStation, or TradeGecko.

Ease of Use

A web host has to be fast and reliable, but also it has to be easy to use. Liquid Web excels in this regard, and I was delighted with their hands-free hosting experience.

Onboarding is also easy and quick. I was able to signup and accessed my site with 15 minutes, which is impressive, especially since it can take a day with some of their competitors.

Once I logged in, I noticed that Liquid Web had installed all the necessary add-ons, including SSH certificate, permalinks, and plugins like WP Forms, LazyLoad, and Autoptimize.

Liquid Web also provides WordPress site migration assistance, ensuring your transition is as smooth as possible.

Control Panel

Liquid Web offers both cPanel and Plesk control panels. Additionally, they offer a custom control panel for Managed WordPress hosting as well as DirectAdmin and Interworx.

cPanel is quite easy to use due to its familiarity and remains popular in hosting cycles. Plesk isn't bad either. Its interface is easy to navigate, and unlike cPanel, it is available on both Windows and Linux.

Great Customer Support

Liquid Web proudly claims to have reliable support. They are so sure of their service that they are willing to offer compensation for if you wait more than 59 Minutes for an initial response.

I decided to give their live chat support a try and man, was I surprised. Not only did they take less than a minute to connect me to a support agent, but also Mandy answered all my questions quickly.

Besides the Live Chat support, Liquid Web also fast support available via phone and email ticketing. On giving Liquid Web call, I was transferred to a support agent within a minute. Their email support was a bit slower, but I only had to wait for 20 minutes to get a response.

Extra Liquid Web Features

Premium Business Email

Liquid Web provides business-grade emails that help you increase productivity. With their Premium Business Email hosting, you get anti-spam, anti-virus, and custom email filtering. You also don't need to worry about setting up and maintenance because they take care of that too.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Liquid Web offers a fully managed VPN, which allows you to extend not only your geographical connectivity but also secures your communications.

A VPN or Virtual Private Network is designed to keep you safe on the world wide web. It allows you to share data without fear of theft or prying eyes. With a VPN you can confine man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks into the past and secure your site.

Liquid Web also allows you to integrate your own VPN service. And with a provider like NordVPN you can ensure your site is protected. NordVPN guards against ads, phishing, andDDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks.

Liquid Web Pricing and Payment Methods

Liquid Web is not the most affordable option around. But maybe sometimes you have to pay more for value.

No Shared Web Hosting

Liquid Web does not have shared web hosting plans. This is a huge letdown, especially for beginners or users with new sites. Still, the company has a scalable VPS option that offers great value for money and is worth checking out.

Liquid Web Hosting Packages

Liquid Web focuses on managed hosting and provides a wide range of products to choose from. These include Managed WordPress Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and Enterprise Hosting.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Liquid Web's Managed WordPress hosting is designed to get the best out WordPress. It offers plenty of optimizations and is tuned for both speed and performance.

Features of this plan include automatic backups, unlimited email accounts, iThemes Security Pro, and Beaver Builder Lite.

Starts at $19 per month and available pricing plans include:

• Spark: Supports up to 1 site, 15 GB storage, and 2 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $19/mo and $190/yr.

• Maker: Supports up to 5 sites, 40 GB storage, and 3 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $79/mo and $790/yr.

• Builder: Supports up to 25 sites, 100 GB storage, and 5 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $149/mo and $1,490/yr.

• Producer: Supports up to 50 sites, 300 GB storage, and 5 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $229/mo and $2,290/yr.

• Executive: Supports up to 100 sites, 500 GB storage, and 10 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $549/mo and $5,490/yr.

• Enterprise: Supports up to 250 sites, 800 GB storage, and 10 TB bandwidth. Pricing at $999/mo and $9,990/yr.

Managed WooCommerce Hosting

Liquid Web Managed WooCommerce offers thousands of themes, IconicWP, and improved mobile optimization. Plans include:

Starter

The Starter package comes with limited features. It includes 30 GB storage, 3 TB bandwidth, and support for 1 site. Prices start at $19/mo or $190/yr.

Creator

The Creator Plan improves on the Starter package with support for up to 3 sites. It offers 60 GB storage, 5 TB bandwidth, and max 1,000 orders per hour. Additional features include Beaver Builder and Iconic WP. Prices start at $79/mo or $790/yr.

Standard

The Standard plan offers 300 GB storage and 5 TB bandwidth. It supports 10 Stores and a maximum of 3,000 orders per hour. Extra features include Dropshipping via ShopMaster, Marketplace via DokanPro, and Jilt Pro for abandoned carts. Prices start at $299/mo or $2,990/yr.

Growth

This plan supports up to 20 Stores and offers 500 GB Storage, 10 TB Bandwidth, and a maximum of 5,000 orders per hour. Prices start at $549/mo or $5,490/yr.

Enterprise

The ultimate WooCommerce plan from Liquid Web, Enterprise offers 800 GB Storage and 10 TB Bandwidth as well as support for 30 stores and 10,000 orders per hour. Prices start at $999/mo or $9990/yr.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting provides you with your own virtual private server. It is secure and more control than WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. Every Liquid Web VPS hosting package includes unlimited sites, dedicated IP address, CloudFlare CDN, local backups, DDoS protection, and root access.

VPS Hosting starts as low as $29/mo with an annual plan and subscription plans include:

Linux Packages

• 2 GB Plan: 2 vCPU, 40 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $29 per month.

• 4 GB Plan: 4 vCPU, 100 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $49 per month.

• 8 GB Plan: 8 vCPU, 150 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $69 per month.

• 16 GB Plan: 8 vCPU, 200 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $129 per month.

Windows Packages

• 4 GB Plan: 4 vCPU, 100 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $74 per month.

• 8 GB Plan: 8 vCPU, 150 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $94 per month.

• 16 GB Plan: 8 vCPU, 200 GB SSD Disk Space, and 10 TB Bandwidth. Prices start at $169 per month.

Linux packages are much cheaper and feature InterWorx, Plesk Web Pro, or cPanel Pro control panels. With a Windows plan, you'll only get the Plesk control panel.

As mentioned, you can lower the cost of Liquid Web's VPS hosting with an annual subscription. You can get even cheaper prices with a 2-year plan, but you'll need to contact customer support for such a subscription.

Private VPS Parent Hosting

In addition to providing VPS hsoting, Liquid Web also offers Private VPS Parent. This type of hosting provides you with your very own private data center that you can control. It gives you the freedom to create your own private cloud environment and unlimited number of virtual instances.

Liquid Web’s Private VPN Parent packages include:

• Single Processor Private VPS Parent: Uses Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 and offers 6 Cores @ 3.8 GHZ, 32 GB RAM and two 480 GB SSD RAID 1. Starting at $329/mo.

• Dual Process Private VPS Parent (32 GB Memory): Comes with Intel Dual Xeon E5-2620 v4 and provides 16 Cores @ 2.1 GHZ, 32 GB RAM, and four 960 GB SSD RAID 10. Starting at $359/mo.

• Dual Processor Private VPS Parent (64GB Memory): Uses Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 and offers 16 Cores @ 2.1 GHZ, 64 GB RAM, and four 960 GB SSD RAID 10. Starting at $499/mo.

But that’s not all you get with Liquid Web’s Private VPS Parent hosting. The provider also allows you to customize your own package with numerous options available. You can choose between SSD and SATa, and WIndows and Linux.

However, unlike Enterprise hosting, this plan limits you to 28 CPU cores and 128 GB memory.

Enterprise Hosting

Enterprise hosting is another great product from Liquid Web that offers you a custom solution for your business. It relies on either dedicated or cloud infrastructure and is fully managed, which frees up your staff and improves productivity.

Their unique enterprise solutions include:

High Performance: Provides multi-server hosting infrastructure which is optimized to prevent downtime and improve loading times.

High Availability: Designed for mission-critical applications, this enterprise hosting solution provides you with highly resilient and redundant infrastructure.

Liquid Web Refund Policy

Liquid Web does not offer a money-back guarantee. According to their policy, the provider's refunds only cover shared hosting. This seems a bit dated since the company no longer offers shared hosting.

When I checked their terms of service, Liquid Web appeared to take a more transparent stand on refunds.

"Except as otherwise provided herein or in the applicable Service Level Agreement, customers shall not be entitled to any refund for any Services purchased hereunder. Setup Fees are not refundable."

Payment Methods

Liquid Web offers several options for making a payment on your account. These include:

Credit Card

Liquid Web accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover credit cards. You can also use Visa and MasterCard debit cards as well as prepaid credit cards from Visa, MasterCard, and AmericanExpress.

PayPal

The provider also accepts PayPal, which I find to be more convenient than credit cards. When making a PayPal purchase, you should reference your account number, hostname, or domain name.

Check & Wire Transfers

Additionally, Liquid Web accepts checks and wire transfers, but you'll need to conduct customer support for billing information.

Do We Recommend Liquid Web?

Liquid Web is one of the leading hosting services today. It provides excellent managed hosting, and I was impressed by its features.

Should you get it? It all depends on your site and business. While I do recommend the hosting site, their lack of cheaper shared hosting plans makes it less ideal for beginners and small businesses.

That said, the quality of their service is undeniable. Liquid Web page load times are fantastic, and their speeds are among the best I've tested. All their packages include SSL certificates, automated backups, site optimizations, and load balancing.

Overall, it's an excellent web host. However, if you are looking for a beginner hosting solution, I suggest checking out Bluehost.