Webcentral Review: Should You Host with Webcentral?

Webcentral

Best Australian WordPress host for growing brands

5 / 5

Webcentral is an Australian web host and domain registrar that has been operating in the industry since the late 1990s. It offers a broad range of hosting products, including shared hosting, Linux and Windows VPS, managed WordPress hosting, managed Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) and reseller hosting. Webcentral’s key features include fast NVMe storage, LiteSpeed servers, Cloudflare Enterprise, free SSL, free backups, and access to server infrastructure within and beyond Australia.

Today, we’re diving into the types of hosting Webcentral offers, its pricing and plans, data center locations, and server performance. We’ll also examine its control panels, website building features, domain services, WordPress suitability, security, developer tools, and customer support. Next, we’ll look at its migration offers, refund policies and deals. Finally, we’ll look at some close Webcentral alternatives to see how it compares with other leading web hosts.

Maximum websites allowed

1

Disk storage

15GB NVMe

Starting price /month

A$5.45

What are the pros and cons of Webcentral?

• 24/7 phone, live chat and ticket support
• Free domain for the first year, free SSL and free migrations

Get Webcentral @ 64% OFF (from A$5.45 /mo)

Is Webcentral Recommended?

Yes, Webcentral is recommended, especially for Australian businesses looking for fast, reliable hosting with a local touch. There’s quite a lot to like about Webcentral. For starters, it’s refreshing to find an Australian web host that’s been around for nearly 30 years and still feels like it’s making an effort to keep up with the times. Webcentral has a huge range of hosting products covering just about every need, from getting your first little website online to running demanding business applications. We also enjoyed Webcentral’s distinctly Aussie flavour. Its website feels friendly and approachable, and there’s something reassuring about knowing there are actual support teams based in Melbourne and Brisbane that are just a phone call away.

They also impressed us with their performance stats. Our Sydney speed test result came back at a blistering 1 ms, which is about as good as it gets! We were also genuinely impressed by how much effort Webcentral has put into its newer Managed WordPress range. Rather than just slapping a ‘WordPress’ label onto fairly ordinary hosting, they’ve bundled in some seriously good performance tools, including Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, Redis caching and WP Rocket. These are the kinds of extras we’d normally expect to pay more for, so it’s great to see them included.

Our biggest gripe is that Webcentral can be a little confusing to shop with. There’s a dizzying number of hosting products, some with different control panels and overlapping features, and it isn’t always obvious which one is best for you. We were also disappointed that its AI Website Builder isn’t included with hosting plans, especially when competitors are increasingly throwing in AI tools for free. 

Overall, Webcentral feels like an established Australian host that’s doing a lot of things right while making a genuine effort to modernise its offerings and expand its global reach. Webcentral’s combo of fast local servers, helpful support and excellent WordPress features makes it an easy recommendation for Australian businesses, WordPress users and growing brands.

Who Is Webcentral?

Webcentral is an Australian web hosting, domain registration and online services provider with roots dating back to 1996. One of its predecessors was Netregistry, an Australian domain registration and web hosting company founded in 1997 that was brought under the Webcentral brand in 2021. 

Today, Webcentral offers shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, domain registration, business email and website building services. Over its 30-year history, Webcentral says it has supported 300,000+ Australian businesses and managed 500,000+ domains across Australia and New Zealand.

Where is Webcentral located?

Webcentral’s headquarters are located in Melbourne, Australia. They have 2 additional offices located in Sydney and Brisbane and they maintain their distinctly Australian-flavour on their website. Webcentral also operates hosting infrastructure in overseas locations including Europe, Asia and North America.

What are the pros and cons of Webcentral?

8 pros of Webcentral are listed below

3 cons of Webcentral are listed below

How much does Webcentral cost?

Webcentral costs between A$1/month to A$1303.75/month, depending on the type of hosting, plan tier, and server location chosen. Webcentral’s cheapest advertised prices are introductory offers and increase upon renewal.

Webcentral’s plans are paid on a monthly, annual or 3-year billing cycle. This means that clients are either billed monthly on an auto-renewing basis, or pay a lump sum upfront for an annual or 3-year term. Details on how much Webcentral’s different types of hosting costs are listed below.

Shared hosting – Starts from A$5.45/month

Webcentral’s shared hosting plans cost between A$5.45 to A$14.95 per month.

VPS hosting – Starts from A$17.99/month

Webcentral’s VPS hosting plans cost A$17.99/month to A$1303.75/month, depending on the plan tier, whether it is managed or unmanaged, and which operating system is supported (Linux or Windows). 

Their unmanaged VPS plans start from A$17.99/mo.

Their managed VPS plans start from A$40.83/mo and include cPanel.

Their unmanaged and managed Windows plans both start from A$17.99/mo.

WordPress hosting – Starts from A$1 for the first month

Webcentral’s WordPress hosting costs A$1 for the first month and renews at rates starting from A$19.95/mo.

Customers who purchase WordPress hosting on a 1-year billing cycle receive six months free under the current promotion.

Virtual Dedicated hosting – Starts from A$291.25/month

Webcentral’s VDS hosting plans cost A$291.25/month to A$1303.75/month, depending on plan tier.

Reseller Hosting – Starts from A$35/month

Webcentral’s reseller hosting plans cost A$35.00/month to A$424.17/month, depending on plan tier. Their most popular reseller plans are featured in the screenshot below.

Is it better to buy Webcentral’s monthly or annual plans?

Whether it is better to buy Webcentral’s monthly or annual plans depends on the hosting type you are interested in. Web hosts often offer lower monthly rates for longer subscriptions, but Webcentral’s cheapest introductory prices do not always correspond to the longest billing terms. For example, its lowest advertised introductory prices for WordPress and VPS hosting apply to monthly plans, while its other hosting types offer the lowest advertised rates on annual plans. It is therefore important to check the billing term attached to each advertised price and compare the total upfront payment and renewal costs before buying. Cost savings is also not the only factor when choosing between monthly or annual plans. Monthly plans are preferable for users prioritizing flexibility or smaller upfront payments.

Does Webcentral have any hidden costs?

No, Webcentral does not have any hidden costs, but be aware that the cost of your subscription increases upon renewal, after the introductory term elapses. This is common practice among web hosts so check renewal rates and introductory terms carefully to better understand the long-term cost of your hosting plan. 

Certain Webcentral plans also give you the option to purchase extra features. For example, Webcentral’s unmanaged VPS plans give you the option to purchase cPanel licences and LiteSpeed. These add-ons are clearly priced during the checkout process.

Where are Webcentral’s data centers?

Webcentral’s data centers are located in 8 locations across Australia and overseas, with its main data center located in Sydney, Australia. Other Webcentral data center locations include Singapore, Mumbai, London, Frankfurt, Dallas, Toronto and Mexico. The data center locations available to you depend on the type of hosting plan you purchase from Webcentral. For example, its reseller hosting plans only use the Sydney data center.

What is Webcentral’s performance like?

Webcentral’s performance is impressive, particularly for websites targeting Australian visitors. We ran a website hosted on Webcentral through our Bitcatcha Server Speed Checker and recorded an average global server response time of 207.8 ms. This earned Webcentral a solid A ranking in our speed test.  

The fastest server response time came from Sydney at an exceptional 1 ms, accurately reflecting that the test site was hosted from their Sydney data center. Other fast server response times came from Japan at 103 ms and the US West Coast at 149 ms. The slowest response time came from São Paulo at 327 ms. These results suggest that Webcentral’s Australian data center is an exceptional choice for those targeting Australian audiences. Their wide range of data center locations also allows users to host their websites closer to their target audience, helping to reduce latency and improve loading speeds.

Webcentral uses a range of performance technologies to supercharge website speeds. All plans leverage ultra-fast NVMe SSD storage and high-throughput 1 Gbit/s server connections. NVMe SSDs offer state-of-the-art read and write speeds, helping websites retrieve files and database information more quickly. Even their most basic shared hosting plans use Litespeed web servers to handle large numbers of website requests efficiently and Anycast DNS to help reduce delays by routing DNS requests through geographically distributed servers.

Webcentral’s Managed WordPress hosting plans go even further with Redis object caching, WP Rocket and Cloudflare Enterprise CDN. Redis helps speed up database requests by storing frequently accessed information in memory, while WP Rocket improves WordPress performance through page caching and other optimisations. Cloudflare Enterprise CDN (Content Delivery Network) provides over 275 global edge locations that cache website content closer to visitors.

What is Webcentral’s uptime like?

Uptime refers to the percentage of time a web hosting server remains operational and accessible to visitors. Webcentral’s uptime is excellent and backed by an industry-standard 99.9% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA). Customers are able to claim service credits if Webcentral fails to meet this uptime target, although scheduled server maintenance and issues outside Webcentral’s control are excluded. 

Webcentral also has a public status page where customers are able to check ongoing service disruptions, scheduled maintenance and past incidents that might affect uptime.

What control panel does Webcentral use?

The control panel Webcentral uses depends on the type of hosting you purchase. Their standard shared hosting and Managed WordPress plans use the Webcentral Hosting Panel, powered by Enhance. Their cPanel plans and managed server Linux plans use the cPanel control panel. Their managed Windows plan uses Plesk. Additional control panels can be installed on their unmanaged server hosting plans, such as Webmin, CyberPanel and aaPanel.

We found the Webcentral customer panel very easy to use. The dashboard uses a pleasing minimalist white, grey,and blue colour scheme and organises common actions so that they are easy to find.

Does Webcentral include free cPanel?

Yes, Webcentral includes free cPanel on eligible plans. Their cPanel shared hosting plans include the cPanel Control Panel, and their managed VPS Linux and VDS hosting plans include a cPanel Solo licence. Their reseller plans also provide between 25 to 150 cPanel Accounts depending on the plan tier.

Does Webcentral offer an AI website builder?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) website builders are tools that use artificial intelligence to generate professional-looking websites based on user prompts instead of code. Webcentral does offer an AI Website Builder but it is sold as a separate website-building product rather than included for free with Webcentral’s hosting plans. They currently offer 4 AI Website Builder plans, starting from A$7.95 per month. 

Webcentral’s AI Website Builder works by asking users a few questions about their business, industry and location. It then automatically generates a website with relevant layouts, content and features. Users customise the website further using the drag-and-drop editor and benefit from built-in SEO tools, mobile-responsive designs, a dashboard for tracking website visitors and free SSL. Users looking for other hands-off ways to build a website also have the option of Webcentral’s Website Design service.

What is Webcentral’s Website Design service?

Webcentral’s Website Design service is a web design solution where Webcentral’s developers build and manage a website on your behalf. Unlike AI website builders, this is a hands-off service that follows a more traditional web design agency model. Customers simply complete an onboarding form and meet with a dedicated build manager to discuss their website requirements. Webcentral’s team then designs and builds a website tailored to their brand. Websites typically take 30 to 45 days to complete, making this a slower but more personalised option than using an AI website builder.

How much is a domain name with Webcentral?

A domain name with Webcentral costs between A$15.95 and A$83.95 to register, depending on the domain extension. A list of registration prices for selected TLDs for the first year is listed below.

Purchasing a domain name with Webcentral comes with free tools for basic management such as DNS edits, email forwarding, and redirects. They also offer an Advanced Domain Manager free for the first year, which unlocks unlimited email forwarders, Anycast DNS, support for up to 2,000 records, and unlimited HTTP redirects. Costs of Advanced Domain Manager after renewal start from A$1.33 a month.

Does Webcentral provide a free domain?

Yes, Webcentral provides a free domain for the first year on their shared hosting plans. Eligible domain extensions for this free offer include .com.au, .au, .com, .net, .net.au, .org, .org.au, .info, .pro, .online, .store, .digital and .site.

Does Webcentral Provide Email Hosting?

Yes, Webcentral provides email hosting on their shared hosting plans. This allows users to create email addresses using their own domain name (e.g. [email protected]) at no additional cost. Webcentral also sells their own premium email hosting products with generous mailbox storage, as well as Microsoft 365 packages.

Is Webcentral good for WordPress?

Yes, Webcentral is good for WordPress, and its Managed WordPress plans are among its newest and most compelling hosting ranges. These plans are particularly attractive for the amount of WordPress optimization included at no extra cost. Webcentral combines LiteSpeed servers and NVMe SSD storage with premium performance tools such as Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, Redis caching and the WP Rocket plugin. These technologies work together to speed up WordPress websites by reducing server load, caching frequently accessed content and delivering website files from locations closer to visitors.

Another major advantage is how much WordPress technical maintenance Webcentral takes off your hands. Its managed service handles WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, while built-in security features such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF), real-time malware protection and automated backups help keep your WordPress site secure. Users also get useful development tools such as staging environments, SSH/SFTP access and unlimited PHP workers. They also offer unlimited free WordPress migrations and higher plans support up to 10 WordPress websites.

Is Webcentral good for WooCommerce?

Yes, Webcentral is good for WooCommerce because its Managed WordPress hosting plans are geared to provide the performance and security needed to run an online store. WooCommerce websites are generally more resource-intensive than regular WordPress sites because they need to handle product searches, shopping carts, customer accounts and checkout transactions.

Webcentral’s Managed WordPress plans use Redis object caching to speed up database queries, which is particularly useful for WooCommerce stores with large product catalogues. NVMe SSD, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN and WP Rocket also help improve page loading speeds. Its Web Application Firewall (WAF), auto-renewing SSL and real-time malware protection help protect customer information and online transactions.

How is Webcentral customer support?

Webcentral’s customer support is fantastic and available 24/7 through Live chat, online tickets and phone. It was great to learn that their phone support is available around the clock, since many web hosts limit phone support to specific working hours. Webcentral appears to have its main Australian customer support teams based in Melbourne and Brisbane, with additional support provided by a global team. Their Live Chat connects you automatically to their Orbi AI bot rather than a human, but we found it generally very helpful for answering quick queries, although it did contradict itself once or twice when describing plan offerings. 

Webcentral currently holds a 4.8/5 Trustpilot score from 1,400+ reviews and many reviewers praising helpful and responsive support staff. They also have a comprehensive knowledge database of self-help articles covering the hosting essentials.

Do I get free website migrations? How do I migrate my website?

Yes. Webcentral provides free website migrations with its hosting plans. Website migration refers to the process of transferring a website’s files, databases and other data from one web hosting provider to another. Migrate your website by following four steps after purchasing a Webcentral hosting plan. First, log into the Webcentral Hosting Panel and find the area within for support tickets. Second, select the Migrations department. Third, provide the necessary details about the website you wish to transfer, including the access information for your old hosting provider. Fourth, wait for Webcentral’s dedicated migrations team to transfer your website files, email accounts and databases across. Webcentral states that migrations are completed within 24 hours with zero downtime, and its team also installs an SSL certificate for the migrated website.

Does Webcentral offer a money-back guarantee?

Yes, Webcentral offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on eligible hosting products. This means that customers are able to request a full refund during the first 30 days if they do not wish to continue with the full term of the service. Webcentral calls this a “no quibble” money back guarantee but specifies each customer can exercise this option only once within their first term. Domain registrations, renewals, transfers and certain third-party products (like Microsoft 365 Business Licenses) are not eligible for the refund.

How do I cancel a Webcentral subscription?

You cancel a Webcentral subscription either by submitting the cancellation form or phoning customer service. Submit the cancellation form by following 4 steps. First, log in to your Webcentral Hosting Panel. Second, select your service and the billing tab for your service. Third, click on ‘Cancellation Options’. Fourth, fill in the form and submit it. You will receive a ticket acknowledging your submission and Webcentral’s team will process the cancellation. The second way to cancel a Webcentral subscription is by phoning their customer service and providing your account support code.

How do I get a refund from Webcentral?

You get a refund from Webcentral by simply reaching out to Webcentral’s team via Live Chat and requesting a refund within your first 30 days. The refund request is submitted and your service is cancelled immediately. The refund is reflected in your billing area once processed.

What Webcentral deals are there?

Webcentral deals refer to the limited-time discounts and seasonal promotions available on its hosting and domain plans. At the time of writing, Webcentral is offering introductory hosting discounts up to 99% off their hosting plans. They are currently running two major promotions on their Managed WordPress hosting range. The first is that all Managed Hosting plans are currently A$1 for the first month. The second is that opting for an annual plan gives you 6 months free. Major sale periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are usually the best times to check for web hosting discounts and deals.

What are the alternatives to Webcentral?

Alternatives to Webcentral refer to other web hosting brands on the market that offer similar hosting services to Webcentral offerings. 5 Webcentral alternatives are listed below.

Webcentral

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