Our hosting service explained
Every website needs hosting; it’s a bit like a parking space for your car.
However, finding the right hosting can be a minefield if you are new to it. Lots of hosting companies either blind you with jargon or give you the bare minimum and hope you don’t notice. We’re doing neither.
Every Align.Studio website comes with professional-grade hosting that’s fast, secure, and actually looked after. No surprise downtime, no “sorry, that’s not included” moments. Just solid, reliable hosting that keeps your site running smoothly whilst you get on with running your business.
What you get
Starter Site & Business Site Hosting
Your site sits on UK-based servers with everything you need to stay fast and secure:
Speed & Performance
- 2 PHP workers – These clever background helpers handle tasks like sending contact form emails without slowing down your site. While visitors browse, these workers quietly process jobs in the background, keeping everything running smoothly.
- Global Content Delivery Network (CDN) – Your website content is stored across 10 locations worldwide. When someone visits your site, they automatically get it from the server closest to them. Someone in Manchester gets served from the UK, someone in Sydney from Australia. The result? Your site loads lightning-fast, wherever your visitors are.
- 10GB monthly bandwidth – More than enough for most small business websites
Security
- Shield security – Professional-grade protection that filters out nasty stuff before it gets anywhere near your site. Blocks common threats, dodgy bots, and suspicious traffic automatically. Think of it as a very good bouncer for your website.
- SSL certificate – The padlock in the browser bar that says you’re secure and legitimate.
Peace of Mind
- Weekly automatic backups – Every week, we create a complete backup of your site and store it separately. If anything goes wrong (it rarely does), we can restore everything quickly.
- On-demand backups – Need a backup before making changes? We can create one whenever needed.
- 7 days of daily backups – Plus we keep weekly backups for 30 days, sometimes longer
Online shop hosting
E-commerce sites need more hosting ‘muscle’ (a bigger car park space). Your shop gets everything in the Starter/Business hosting, but beefed up:
Enhanced speed and performance
- 3 PHP Workers – Extra processing power because shops have more going on (customer accounts, orders, payment processing)
- Global CDN with 119 Locations – Your shop content is stored in 119 locations worldwide. Customers in Tokyo, Toronto, or Taunton all get rapid loading times.
- 30GB monthly bandwidth – Room to grow as your shop gets busier
Advanced security
- Shield Security Advanced – This is the serious stuff. AI-powered protection that learns and adapts to new threats in real time. It includes:
- Advanced bot detection (stops the sneaky ones)
- IP reputation scoring (blocks known troublemakers)
- Zero-day attack protection (defends against brand-new threats)
- Comprehensive firewall rules
- This is enterprise-level security that expensive managed WordPress hosts charge a fortune for. You get it included, with no plugins or third-party licences needed.
Maximum protection
- Daily automatic backups – Because shops change daily (orders, inventory, customer data), we back everything up every single day
- Extended backup history – 7 days of daily backups, plus weekly backups going back 30+ days
Need to Upgrade?
Started with a Starter or Business Site, but now selling products? No problem. We can upgrade your hosting to shop-level for an extra £150 per year. You get the beefier servers, advanced security, and daily backups without rebuilding anything.
The technical stuff, translated
What’s a CDN?
Imagine your website is a book. Instead of keeping one copy in London and making everyone travel there to read it, we print copies and put them in libraries across the world.
When someone in Japan wants to read it, they get it from Tokyo. When someone in New York wants it, they get it from New York. Same book, much faster delivery. That’s a CDN.
What are PHP Workers?
They’re background helpers. When someone fills out your contact form, instead of making them wait while the email sends, the website says “cheers, I’ll sort that” and adds it to a to-do list.
The PHP workers handle that to-do list separately, so your visitor doesn’t sit there watching a loading spinner. The site stays fast and responsive.
What’s Shield Security?
Your website’s security guard. The basic version (Starter/Business sites) handles the common threats and suspicious visitors. The advanced version (Online Shop) is like having a whole security team with AI training – it learns, adapts, and stops threats before they become problems.
Where’s it all hosted?
Your website lives on UK-based servers. Fast for UK visitors, reliable infrastructure, and everything kept closer to home.
What about downtime?
We’re working on our formal Service Level Agreement (SLA), but our hosting is built on rock-solid infrastructure with redundancy and monitoring. Downtime is extremely rare, and when something does happen (storms, server issues, the internet gremlins), we’re on it quickly.
Your hosting isn’t an afterthought with Align.Studio. It’s professional-grade infrastructure that keeps your site fast, secure, and online – without you needing to understand any of the technical stuff.
That’s exactly how it should be.
Got questions about hosting?
Get in touch and we’ll explain anything you need to know in plain English.
Looking for something more bespoke?
Align.Studio is perfect for small businesses that need a professional, affordable website. But if you’re looking for a completely custom solution, advanced functionality, or a full branding and marketing strategy, then our parent company, Sourcefour, is the answer.
Sourcefour offers bespoke web design and digital marketing services for businesses with ambitious goals.