A WordPress VIP Guide (WPVIP): What It's About, Pros, Cons & Who It's For

Around 39% of the Internet's entirety is powered by WordPress, on one level or another. As such, the platform has an unmatched reach among CMS, which has helped it grow exponentially in its years of working. While most websites can thrive under the standard WordPress plans, WordPress VIP presents itself as a fantastic option for those businesses that require more power.

Perhaps the most significant upside to WordPress is that it's flexible enough to support small websites and their continuous growth. You can mold the site to your particular needs and have it grow alongside your business or whatever reason you're using it. However, once a site has reached a considerable complexity level, it becomes more exposed to malicious attacks or traffic peaks high enough to cause issues. That's the kind of site that can significantly benefit from WordPress VIP.

Whether you're running a website that's getting millions of regular visits, or you're merely curious about WordPress VIP, we've created a handy guide to this service. We'll cover what it is, what's included, the pricing, who can best benefit from it, and mention some of its most famous current users. Let's get to it!

So, What Is WordPress VIP?

WordPress VIP is a premium managed WordPress hosting service. Costlier than your usual WordPress plan, it comes with a wide variety of extras, and it's thought of as a way for website owners to leave the technical side of management to the pros and focus on their business instead. As such, WP VIP covers:

• Domain
• Cloud hosting
• System updates
• Core software updates
• Instant bug fixing
• Huge scalability
• Higher security standards than traditional hosting plans
• 24/7 support from the WP team

WordPress VIP Benefits

WP VIP comes with the same base WordPress features, with many extra advanced options, including:

• Integration with many of the best analytics platforms, Google AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and eCommerce platforms, including seamless integration with popular WooCommerce
• In-house hosting
• Localization aid
• Multilingual support
• Automated backups every hour & core software updates
• A/B testing
• Performance monitoring
• Dedicated support
• Unlimited CDN, storage & bandwidth
• Higher speed and top-notch performance
• Automatic scaling to handle substantial traffic peaks
• Manual code review, including third-party plugins and custom codes
• Custom attention, including guided onboarding with support at every stage + training from the WP team

A fully managed WordPress hosting platform allows owners of larger-than-life websites to handle them while skipping many of the million-visit sites' risks.

Who Can Get the Most Out of WP VIP?

WordPress VIP is a robust hosting plan, and it was designed with large websites and corporations in mind. It's for large businesses that receive tens of millions of page views, more prone to receive malicious attacks or other security problems. The service can manage up to five websites per plan. What owners get is the peace of mind of not handling the day-to-day of such a large platform (including hosting and domain), focusing on the business and content instead.

To give you an idea, here are some of the brands already using WP VIP:

• USA Today
• Facebook
• Variety
• Spotify
• Fortune
• TED
• Slack
• CNN
• Microsoft

What's the Difference Between Traditional WordPress and WordPress VIP?

A few key differences between a regular WordPress plan and WordPress VIP:

• WordPress is self-hosted, which means you have to search for a host manually. Meanwhile, WP VIP includes hosting in its plan via the cloud.
• WP VIP focuses on the tech part. In regular WP plans, the website owner or administrator must decide about technical aspects, usually through in-house developers or an outside agency.
• The WordPress developing team goes through each line of code, which means it takes longer for updates. However, that also means it's more secure.

Larger websites with higher traffic and notable brand names require the sturdiest websites available on the Internet. The dedicated WordPress VIP team makes this service seamless when it comes to performance, as you'll always have a team of experts checking code line by line and ensuring things are running smoothly. Below, you'll find a more thorough rundown of VIP v self-hosted (standard) WordPress.

The Role of the WP VIP Team

You get a far more complete and secure website experience with a dedicated team of WordPress VIP experts from the service. Here's the rundown of how they'll improve your site:

• Assessment. The WP VIP work begins with a full evaluation of the current website, its traffic peaks and valleys, its structure, and which areas can improve.
• Planning. With all the up-to-date site information at their fingertips, the WP VIP reps will work with you to create a new strategy. They'll make recommendations and speak to you about resources needed, time frames, and in-depth strategizing on carrying on to the next step.
• Development. Once you've set goals with your WP VIP representative, the team will guide you through the best practices for your specific needs. They'll also analyze existing content and UI, helping you choose the most suitable themes and designs for your sites(s). This is all done through the lens of your company's requirements, budget, and goals.
• Implementation, migration, and upload. Once everything is planned out, the developers set up your needs to a new platform. They'll check that everything is working correctly and then recheck once the site is up, fixing any bugs or issues that may present themselves at launch.
• Constant reassessment. The team is looking out for your site daily, seeing that it's updated, backed up, and that the cloud hosting is functioning correctly. They're also seeing that specific website needs are working well. The staff is also available in case something extra is needed.

How Much Does WordPress VIP Cost?

WP takes a lot of factors into account when pricing their VIP service, to the point of not offering pre-packaged pricing options. Instead, they take the time to build custom packages depending on each business's needs and objectives. In turn, this makes their pricing a little mysterious to outsiders.

On their website, you'll find that packages can start at $2,000 a month. Trustworthy sources claim that plans will usually go between $5,000 and $25,000 per month depending on how many websites need management, and there's a $5,000 setup fee per site.

Generally speaking, a good thing to consider with such a large and popular site is: how much would it cost for my site to go down? Balance it out between how much traffic you're getting and the probability of having malicious attacks. When we're talking about the sheer size and the ROI that goes with it, investing in a more expensive premium plan is anything but far-fetched.

What WordPress VIP Does Not Do

The WordPress VIP services' essence is providing an infrastructure from which to build a website and an all-around digital experience. As such, they do not offer custom development and design, two of the critical parts of a successful overall website.

That's where Bright Vessel comes in. We have our team of WordPress and WooCommerce experts who know these platforms and their plugins inside and out, providing a day-to-day custom experience for our clients. We're a WordPress VIP Partner dedicated to navigating the intricacies of your specific needs within the service. Our goal is to help our clients build, manage and promote their online presence, educating them on how to be successful as an Internet company. Contact us to find out more about our design and development plans.