TL;DR — If you don’t like scrolling and reading much, the following is a short summary list of eleven of the best Canadian web hosting providers to consider in 2020. If you are not in a rush, check out the more detailed listings below.
| Company | Location | Basic Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| 4GoodHosting | Vancouver, BC | $49.77 yearly |
| PlanetHoster | Laval, QC | $87.12 yearly |
| HosterBox | Ottawa, ON | $76.44 yearly |
| Web Hosting Canada | Montreal, QC | $62.32 yearly |
| HostPapa | Oakville, ON | $71.40 yearly |
| CrocWeb | Cornwall, ON | $59.40 yearly |
| CanSpace | Toronto, ON | $62.87 yearly |
| Canadian Web Hosting | Vancouver, BC | $59.40 yearly |
| 247-HOST | LaSalle, QC | $59.88 yearly |
| FullHost | Victoria, BC | $75.81 yearly |
| Cirrus Hosting | Toronto, ON | $60.00 yearly |
Whether you are Canadian or not, there are several Canada-based web hosting companies that provide reliable services and outstanding support, which you can take advantage of for your current or upcoming online project.
A Canadian provider can be the perfect alternative if you do not want to host your website(s) in the USA, especially that Canada has relatively better privacy protection laws than the USA.
So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at each one of these companies and the basic features they offer in the following overview. You’ll also find links to noncommercial, third-party sites where you can find customer reviews of each service.
4GoodHosting
- Official website: 4GoodHosting
- Company location: Vancouver, British Columbia.
- Data center location: Vancouver and Toronto.
- Hosting services: Shared (Linux, Windows, SSD), VPS and reseller.
- Basic pricing: $49.77 yearly for the Personal plan.
- Free SSL? No.
- Free Domain? Only with advanced plans.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: Serchen
PlanetHoster
- Official website: PlanetHoster
- Company location: Laval, Quebec.
- Data center location: Montreal, Canada and Paris, France.
- Hosting services: Shared hosting and dedicated cloud servers.
- Basic pricing: $87.12 for one year.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? Yes, free for as long as you keep your plan active.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (14 days) — excluding domain registration fee.
- Support: Live chat (Messenger), email and phone.
- Reviews: TrustPilot, Serchen, Facebook
HosterBox
- Official website: HosterBox
- Company location: Ottawa, Ontario.
- Data center location: Verdun, QC.
- Hosting services: Shared, reseller, e-commerce, VPS and dedicated servers.
- Basic pricing: $76.44 per year for the Start plan.
- Free SSL? Yes.
- Free Domain? Yes.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: Serchen, SiteJabber
Web Hosting Canada (WHC)
- Official website: Web Hosting Canada
- Company location: Montreal, Quebec.
- Data center location: Montreal and Vancouver.
- Hosting services: Shared, managed WordPress, cloud VPS, reseller and dedicated servers.
- Basic pricing: $62.32 per year for the Starter plan.
- Free SSL? Not with Starter plan. Pro plan comes with a free SSL certificate (AutoSSL).
- Free Domain? Not with Starter plan. Pro plan includes free domain registration for one year (if paid yearly).
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: Facebook
HostPapa
- Official website: HostPapa
- Company location: Oakville, Ontario (and other worldwide offices).
- Data center location: Toronto.
- Hosting services: Shared, WordPress, eCommerce, VPS and reseller.
- Basic pricing: $71.40 yearly for the Starter plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? Yes, only for the first year and when signing up for a yearly plan.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: TrustPilot
CrocWeb
- Official website: CrocWeb
- Company location: Cornwall, Ontario.
- Data center location: Montreal, Quebec.
- Hosting services: Shared, enterprise and reseller.
- Basic pricing: $59.40 per year.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? No.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (60 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
CanSpace
- Official website: CanSpace
- Company location: Toronto, Ontario.
- Data center location: Toronto and Beauharnois.
- Hosting services: Shared, VPS and dedicated servers.
- Basic pricing: $62.87 per year for the Starter plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? Yes, if paid yearly.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Email and phone.
- Reviews: Serchen, SiteJabber, Facebook
Canadian Web Hosting
- Official website: Canadian Web Hosting
- Company location: Vancouver, British Columbia.
- Data center location: Toronto and Vancouver.
- Hosting services: Shared, cloud, managed WordPress, dedicated and reseller.
- Basic pricing: $59.40 per year for the Lite plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (AutoSSL, or Let’s Encrypt upon request).
- Free Domain? No.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (60 days).
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: Facebook
247-HOST
- Official website: 247-HOST
- Company location: LaSalle, Quebec.
- Data center location: Montreal, plus other locations in the USA, Europe and Asia.
- Hosting services: Shared, business SSD, VPS (Linux and Windows) and dedicated servers.
- Basic pricing: $59.88 annually for the Silver plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? No.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (45 days).
- Support: Live chat (active hours only), email and phone.
- Reviews: TrustPilot, SiteJabber, Serchen
FullHost
- Official website: FullHost
- Company location: Victoria, British Columbia.
- Data center location: Toronto and Vancouver.
- Hosting services: Shared, enterprise, managed WordPress, VPS and reseller.
- Basic pricing: $75.81 annually for the FullStart plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? No.
- Money-back guarantee? Yes (30 days).
- Support: Email or phone (sales only).
- Reviews: Facebook
Cirrus Hosting
- Official website: Cirrus Hosting
- Company location: Toronto, Ontario.
- Data center location: Toronto.
- Hosting services: Shared (Linux and Windows), WordPress, cloud VPS and dedicated servers.
- Basic pricing: $60 annually for the basic plan.
- Free SSL? Yes (Let’s Encrypt).
- Free Domain? Yes, only with 1+ year subscriptions.
- Money-back guarantee? Limited 30-day guarantee.
- Support: Live chat, email and phone.
- Reviews: Facebook
How Can Canadian Hosting Affect Your SEO?
The location of your website’s hosting server can have direct and indirect effects on its rankings in Google and other search engines.
If your business only targets Canadians, it is best to have a .ca domain name and have the website hosted by a Canadian provider.
Search engines automatically favor the “.ca” domain extension (.ca is a ccTLD) in Canadian SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), which means it is more likely to rank higher than other domain extensions (TLDs). And having your hosting server located in Canada means faster load times for users in Canada, which also has an impact on search rankings.
But keep in mind that these are only two of many factors that Google and other search engines take into account when ranking websites in their SERPs, so while it helps, don’t expect any overnight SEO magic to happen!
Canadian Hosting for non-Canadian Websites
If your main target audience is US users, you can also consider using a Canada-based host. In fact, a lot of websites hosted by Canadian providers target Americans and users worldwide.
Since most Canadian data centers are geographically close to the US, data transfer speeds for users in the USA will be almost the same as US-based data centers. That means there will be no significant difference in the website’s load times, and actually some Canadian data centers may even be faster for some locations within the USA.
Another thing, some Canadian hosts offer globally distributed, cloud-based CDN (Content Delivery Network) services aimed at optimizing content delivery speeds for users across the world.
So even if your website’s visitors are from many different countries, going with a Canadian host instead of a US one is an option worth looking into. One of the considerable added advantages is that you can protect your business from aggressive “lawful” privacy intrusion practices seen by some US governmental agencies.
If you are interested, you can read more about Canada’s privacy laws here and here.
