WPMU DEV hosting costs less than Kinsta for one site: Bronze is $240 a year against $350 for Kinsta Single 35k, with no membership needed.
WPMU DEV fits agencies that will use its plugin membership across many small sites.
Kinsta fits businesses that want one hosting bill, an uptime SLA of up to 99.99%, and built-in performance monitoring.
The catch sits in the fine print. WPMU DEV’s first membership year is heavily discounted, and the price jumps at renewal.
The WPMU DEV review and the Kinsta review cover each company in full. This page focuses on what you pay and what you get.
WPMU DEV vs Kinsta: the short verdict
WPMU DEV wins on entry price, backup retention, and included email, while Kinsta wins on price predictability, uptime terms, and monitoring.
WPMU DEV: a good fit for agencies and freelancers who already use premium plugins for security, backups, image optimization, and forms. The bundle replaces several separate subscriptions.
Kinsta: better for businesses that want one bill for hosting, a documented visit allowance, and extras like a built-in performance monitoring tool.
If you just want one site hosted, skip the membership. Both companies sell hosting you can buy without a bundle.
WPMU DEV and Kinsta at a glance
| Decision point | WPMU DEV | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Entry hosting, billed yearly | Quantum: $96 a year; Bronze: $240 a year | Single 35k: $350 a year ($35/mo billed monthly) |
| Traffic limit | No hard visit limit (server resources cap you) | 35,000 visits a month on Single 35k |
| Backup retention | 30 days | 14 days on Single 35k |
| Data centers | 30 | 30 |
| Uptime commitment | 99.9% | Up to 99.99% SLA |
| 10 basic accounts | Not listed | |
| Plugin membership | Optional, $15 first year, renews at $180 a year (Basic) | None |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days, after any free period |
| Current plans and prices | See WPMU DEV plans | See Kinsta plans |
What WPMU DEV and Kinsta actually sell you
WPMU DEV sells a plugin membership and per-site hosting as two separate bills, while Kinsta sells managed WordPress hosting only.
The WPMU DEV membership gives you plugin licenses, CDN and backup storage, and white-label client billing. Hosting is a second bill, priced per site.
Kinsta plans are priced by estimated monthly visits or bandwidth, and they include staging, a CDN, and an application performance monitoring (APM) tool.
A managed WordPress host takes care of server updates, security, and backups for you. The difference is that WPMU DEV also sells the plugins that sit on top.
Renewal pricing: WPMU DEV’s membership jump vs Kinsta’s hosting-only bill
A WPMU DEV Premium membership costs $100 in year one and $1,200 a year after that, while Kinsta has no membership to renew.
WPMU DEV’s pricing page lists each tier as 12 months at an introductory price, then renewing at a monthly rate billed annually.
The page labels the offer “Saving 92%”, so the first-year price may change.
| Membership | First 12 months | Renews at | Site licenses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $15 | $180 a year | 1 |
| Standard | $25 | $300 a year | 3 |
| Plus | $50 | $600 a year | 10 |
| Premium | $100 | $1,200 a year | Unlimited |
Prices change often, so check WPMU DEV’s current prices and Kinsta’s current prices before you buy.
Budget for the renewal price, not the first-year price.
Every tier includes all the pro plugins, 24/7 support, white-label billing, reseller tools, and CDN access. Backup storage ranges from 5 GB to 50 GB by tier.
Plugin categories include image optimization, performance, SEO, security, backups, forms, and site analytics.
Hosting credits at WPMU DEV and Kinsta
WPMU DEV advertises $144 or $200 in hosting credit depending on the page, while Kinsta offers credits only to eligible agencies.
Every WPMU DEV membership tier shows a $144 hosting credit on the pricing page. WPMU DEV’s Premium page mentions $200 a year in hosting credits instead.
The two pages don’t match, so ask WPMU DEV how much credit you’ll get and how long it lasts before you count it in your budget.
Kinsta offers up to $10,000 in hosting credits, but only to eligible agencies on its Agency plans.
We left both credits out of the cost examples below.
WPMU DEV hosting vs Kinsta hosting prices
WPMU DEV Quantum ($96 a year) and Bronze ($240) both cost less than Kinsta Single 35k ($350), even without a membership discount.
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Resources | Traffic limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPMU DEV Quantum | $8 | $96 | 512 MB RAM, 1 vCPU, 10 GB storage (4 GB usable) | No hard visit limit |
| WPMU DEV Bronze | $24 | $240 | 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB storage (15 GB usable) | No hard visit limit |
| Kinsta Single 35k | $35 | $350 | 10 GB storage | 35,000 visits a month |
WPMU DEV’s figures come from its hosting page. Kinsta’s come from its pricing page. WPMU DEV reserves part of each plan’s storage for the system.
Prices confirmed on September 25, 2026.
WPMU DEV’s Premium members get 50% off every hosting plan, so Bronze drops to $120 a year and Quantum to $48.
Quantum doesn’t support object caching, according to WPMU DEV’s hosting documentation. Object caching speeds up busy stores and membership sites, so choose Bronze or higher for those.
What one site costs per year at WPMU DEV and Kinsta
One site costs $240 a year on WPMU DEV Bronze without a membership, against $350 on Kinsta Single 35k, using year-two prices.
| Setup | Year 2 cost |
|---|---|
| WPMU DEV Bronze, no membership | $240 |
| WPMU DEV Bronze plus Basic membership | $420 ($180 + $240) |
| Kinsta Single 35k, billed yearly | $350 |
For one site, the membership only makes sense if you’d otherwise buy its plugins separately. Without that, WPMU DEV hosting alone or Kinsta alone costs less.
What 20 client sites cost per year at WPMU DEV and Kinsta
For 20 client sites, WPMU DEV Premium with Quantum hosting ($2,160) costs less than Kinsta, but Premium with Bronze hosting ($3,600) costs more.
Here’s a year-two estimate using yearly billing.
| Setup | Year 2 cost |
|---|---|
| Kinsta Lead (20 sites), billed yearly | $2,990 |
| Kinsta Agency 20, billed yearly | $3,400 (about $284 a month; $340 a month billed monthly) |
| WPMU DEV Premium + 20 Bronze sites at the member price | $3,600 ($1,200 + 20 × $120) |
| WPMU DEV Premium + 20 Quantum sites at the member price | $2,160 ($1,200 + 20 × $48) |
Kinsta’s Lead plan covers 20 sites and 1.5 million visits with 60 GB of storage.
Agency 20 adds 30-day backups and agency extras like an unbranded WordPress admin, with 500,000 visits and 50 GB.
WPMU DEV Bronze gives each client its own server resources. Quantum is cheaper, but its 512 MB of RAM and missing object cache suit only small brochure sites.
Kinsta charges $30 a month for each extra site beyond a plan’s limit.
WPMU DEV also sells Unlimited Hosting for Premium members only, starting at $15 a month for 50 or more sites on one server.
All those sites share one pool of resources, so a busy client can slow down the others.
Running costs over several years is the fairest comparison. The three-year cost of managed WordPress shows which line items to include.
How WPMU DEV and Kinsta limit your traffic
Kinsta caps plans by visits or bandwidth, while WPMU DEV caps them by server resources. That changes what happens when you get busy.
WPMU DEV says it sets no hard limits on visits, bandwidth, or traffic.
When your site uses up its memory and CPU, it slows down and may have brief outages, according to its hosting documentation.
Kinsta counts visits or bandwidth each month. Go over, and you pay an overage fee of $0.50 per 1,000 extra visits.
Kinsta keeps the site online and alerts you at 80% and 100% of your allowance.
In practice, a traffic spike on WPMU DEV costs you speed, while on Kinsta it costs you money.
The Kinsta vs WP Engine comparison explains Kinsta’s two billing options in more detail.
WPMU DEV and Kinsta backups, staging, and data centers
WPMU DEV keeps backups for 30 days, twice as long as Kinsta’s 14 days on Single 35k, and both offer 30 data center locations.
WPMU DEV backs up every day, before WordPress updates, and before a staging site is pushed live, per its backup documentation. An hourly backup add-on is available.
Kinsta sells more frequent backups as add-ons, every six hours for $20 or hourly for $100, per site each month.
Both include staging, a copy of your site where you can test changes safely.
WPMU DEV lists cities across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, India, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.
Kinsta lets you pick from 30 data centers for each site, per its data center documentation.
Email, monitoring, and agency extras at WPMU DEV and Kinsta
WPMU DEV includes 10 basic email accounts with its hosting, while Kinsta includes a built-in APM tool but no email hosting.
Kinsta’s pricing page doesn’t list email, so you’d pay for it elsewhere.
Kinsta’s APM tool shows which plugins or queries slow your site down. Redis object caching costs $100 per site a month at Kinsta.
For agencies, WPMU DEV includes white-label client billing and reseller tools on every membership.
Kinsta’s Agency plans include an unbranded WordPress admin, a listing in its agency directory, and up to $10,000 in hosting credits for eligible agencies.
WPMU DEV vs Kinsta uptime, support, and refunds
Kinsta lists up to a 99.99% uptime SLA against a 99.9% guarantee at WPMU DEV, and both offer 24/7 support and 30-day refunds.
In plain terms, 99.9% allows about 8.8 hours of downtime a year. 99.99% allows about 53 minutes.
Kinsta lists human support in eight languages. WPMU DEV lists 24/7 live chat and private tickets.
Kinsta’s money-back guarantee starts after any free period. New customers get a free first month only on select plans, such as Single 35k.
WPMU DEV vs Kinsta winners by category
WPMU DEV wins four of nine categories and Kinsta wins four, with a tie on data centers.
| Category | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest single site | WPMU DEV | Bronze at $240 a year vs $350, no membership needed |
| Agency with many small sites | WPMU DEV | Premium plus 20 Quantum sites at $2,160 vs $2,990 on Kinsta Lead |
| Price predictability | Kinsta | No membership renewal jump |
| Staying up during spikes | Kinsta | Bills overage and keeps sites online instead of running out of server resources |
| Backup retention | WPMU DEV | 30 days vs 14 |
| Uptime commitment | Kinsta | Up to 99.99% vs 99.9% |
| Performance monitoring | Kinsta | Built-in APM |
| Email included | WPMU DEV | 10 basic accounts |
| Data centers | Tie | 30 locations each |
Our pick: WPMU DEV for agencies that will use its plugins across many client sites. Kinsta for a business that wants one predictable hosting bill and stronger uptime terms.
Should you choose WPMU DEV or Kinsta?
WPMU DEV suits agencies and freelancers who use its plugins on many small sites, while Kinsta suits businesses and stores that want predictable hosting costs.
If you’re a freelancer building sites for clients, WPMU DEV’s Premium membership can replace separate plugin subscriptions and halves its hosting prices.
Just budget $1,200 a year for the renewal.
Running one business site? Kinsta, or WPMU DEV hosting without the membership. You don’t need a plugin bundle to host one site well.
An online store does better on Kinsta or on WPMU DEV Bronze and up, since Quantum lacks object caching.
Agencies that bill clients directly will like WPMU DEV’s white-label billing. Agencies that want a named account manager may prefer Kinsta’s Agency plans.
For more hosts built around client work, the best hosting for agencies compares other options. Wider questions sit in the managed WordPress section.
Ready to check prices? Visit WPMU DEV or visit Kinsta to see today’s plans before you buy.
Frequently asked questions
Is WPMU DEV cheaper than Kinsta?
Yes, for hosting alone. WPMU DEV Bronze is $240 a year and Kinsta Single 35k is $350, but adding a WPMU DEV membership can erase that gap.
Which bundles premium plugins, WPMU DEV or Kinsta?
WPMU DEV does, through its membership, with hosting billed separately per site. Kinsta sells hosting only, with an APM tool, staging, and a CDN, but no plugin bundle.
Which has more predictable pricing after year one, WPMU DEV or Kinsta?
Kinsta does, since it sells no membership. WPMU DEV memberships rise from $15 to $100 in year one to $180 to $1,200 a year afterwards.
Do WPMU DEV and Kinsta limit visits?
Kinsta does, at $0.50 per 1,000 extra visits. WPMU DEV has no hard visit cap, though sites slow when memory or CPU runs out.
Which has better backups, WPMU DEV or Kinsta?
WPMU DEV keeps backups longer at entry level: 30 days, compared with 14 days on Kinsta Single 35k.
Which has the stronger uptime guarantee, WPMU DEV or Kinsta?
Kinsta has the stronger promise, up to 99.99%, while WPMU DEV promises 99.9%.
How we compared WPMU DEV and Kinsta
This comparison is built from official sources. For WPMU DEV, we used its membership pricing page, hosting page, Premium page, Unlimited Hosting page, and hosting documentation for backups and locations.
For Kinsta, we used its pricing page, overage documentation, and data center documentation. All details were checked on September 25, 2026.
Our Methodology and Editorial Guidelines explain how we research hosts and correct errors.
