WooCommerce hosting requirements: what your online shop really needs

Knowing the WooCommerce hosting requirements before you launch, or before you move your shop, saves you from slow product pages, abandoned carts and checkout errors at the worst possible moment. WooCommerce is a free plugin, but it turns WordPress into an application that writes to the database on almost every visit: it creates sessions, updates stock, calculates tax and shipping, and talks to payment gateways. That workload is very different from a brochure site or a blog.

This guide covers the official minimum requirements, the resources a growing shop actually uses, the caching rules that apply to stores, and a checklist you can use to audit any hosting plan, including ours.

Official WooCommerce server requirements

WooCommerce follows the WordPress requirements and adds a few store-specific recommendations. The current baseline, based on the WordPress requirements and the WooCommerce server requirements, looks like this:

You can check most of these values in WordPress under WooCommerce → Status. The System Status report shows your PHP version, database version, memory limit and any missing extensions highlighted in red.

Why WooCommerce needs more than a normal website

A blog can serve almost every visitor from a cached HTML copy of the page. A shop cannot, because parts of the experience are personal to each visitor.

• Cart, checkout and My Account pages must be generated fresh for every visitor, so PHP and the database do real work on every request.
• Cart fragments and sessions are created as soon as someone adds a product to their basket, and stored in the database.
• Stock and order writes happen during checkout. Slow storage turns into slow order confirmation.
• Third-party calls to payment, shipping, tax and email services add network time that your server must wait for.
• Admin tasks such as product imports, order exports and analytics reports are heavy and often run while customers are shopping.

The practical result: on a store, uncached performance matters. That is decided by CPU power, storage latency, PHP version and database health, not just by a caching plugin.

CPU, storage and memory: how much does a shop need?

CPU

CPU time is spent running PHP for uncached pages. A shop with a few orders per hour runs well on a fraction of a virtual core (vCore) that is genuinely reserved for your account. As traffic and order volume grow, more guaranteed CPU lets more checkouts run at the same time without queuing. When comparing hosting, look for a stated CPU allocation rather than vague wording such as "unlimited resources".

Storage type and size

Storage speed affects every database query. NVMe SSD drives connect directly over PCI Express and handle many more simultaneous read and write operations than older SATA SSDs or spinning hard disks. We explain the difference in our guide to NVMe vs SSD hosting.

For size, most of the space goes on product images. A typical shop with a few hundred products and optimised WebP images fits comfortably in 5–10 GB. Large catalogues, product videos or digital downloads need more, or should be served from external storage.

Memory

Set WordPress to use at least 256 MB for admin tasks. Add these lines to wp-config.php above the line that says "That's all, stop editing":

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M' );

WordPress can only use what the hosting account allows, so if WooCommerce still reports a lower value, ask your host to raise the PHP memory_limit.

Caching rules for WooCommerce

Caching is the single biggest speed gain for a shop, but only if it is configured with WooCommerce in mind. A cache that stores the checkout page can show one customer's basket to another, so getting the exclusions right is essential.

1. Full-page cache for catalogue pages. Home, category, product and content pages can be cached for visitors who have nothing in their basket.
2. Exclude dynamic pages. Cart, checkout and My Account must never be cached. LiteSpeed Cache (LSCache) and most good cache plugins detect WooCommerce and exclude them automatically.
3. Vary by cookie. Once a visitor adds a product, the woocommerce_items_in_cart cookie tells the cache to serve them personalised pages.
4. Object cache. An object cache keeps repeated database query results in memory. It helps busy shops and large admin dashboards.
5. Browser cache and compression. Long cache lifetimes for images, CSS and JavaScript, plus Brotli or Gzip compression, cut repeat-visit load times.

Server-level caching, such as LiteSpeed's built-in cache, is generally faster than caching done by a PHP plugin alone, because the web server returns the cached page before WordPress even loads.

Keep the WooCommerce database healthy

Shops collect data quickly: expired sessions, old transients, order notes, logs and post revisions. A bloated database makes every uncached page slower.

• Use High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS). HPOS stores orders in dedicated tables instead of the general posts table. New shops use it by default; older shops can switch under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Features after checking plugin compatibility.
• Clear expired sessions and transients from WooCommerce → Status → Tools.
• Limit post revisions with define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 10 ); in wp-config.php.
• Remove abandoned plugins completely, including their database tables.
• Use a real cron job. Disable the default visitor-triggered cron and schedule it as a server cron job instead (Getradi customers can ask our support team to set this up):

// wp-config.php
define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );

# Server cron job (every 5 minutes)
*/5 * * * * php /home/USERNAME/public_html/wp-cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1

Security requirements for an online shop

A shop stores customer names, addresses and order histories, so it has legal duties under UK GDPR and a commercial reason to stay online. Your hosting and your setup should cover:

• SSL on every page, not only checkout. Free, auto-renewing certificates are standard on good hosting.
• A web application firewall (WAF) that blocks common attacks such as SQL injection and brute-force logins before they reach WordPress.
• Malware scanning at server level, so infected files are found even if WordPress itself is compromised.
• Payment card data handled by your payment provider. Use hosted or embedded checkout fields from Stripe, PayPal or similar so card numbers never touch your server. This keeps your PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) scope small.
• Strong admin access: unique passwords, two-factor authentication and limited administrator accounts.
• Prompt updates for WordPress, WooCommerce, themes and extensions, tested on a copy of the site when changes are large.
• Your own off-site copy of files and database before every major update, stored somewhere other than the server.

Speed up WooCommerce on your current hosting

Before upgrading, apply the fixes that cost nothing. Many slow shops become fast once these are in place:

1. Update PHP to 8.3 or newer from your hosting's PHP settings (on Getradi, ask our support team), after testing on a staging copy.
2. Turn on page caching with the correct WooCommerce exclusions.
3. Convert images to WebP and serve them at the size they are displayed.
4. Disable cart fragments on pages that do not show the mini-cart, if your theme allows it.
5. Audit plugins: each extension that hooks into checkout adds work to every order.
6. Measure with PageSpeed Insights and track Core Web Vitals, focusing on product and category pages, where most visitors land.

For a full list of WordPress-level improvements, read our guide on how to speed up WordPress.

Checklist: does your hosting meet WooCommerce requirements?

Use this list to compare plans, or to audit your current host:

How Getradi WooCommerce Hosting meets these requirements

Our WooCommerce hosting plans cover the essentials from the checklist above. Every plan includes NVMe SSD storage (5 GB, 10 GB or 15 GB), the OpenLiteSpeed web server with HTTP/3, LiteSpeed Cache tuned for cart and checkout exclusions, a free SSL certificate, a server firewall and brute-force login protection, and WordPress and WooCommerce pre-installed.

Every plan also includes free migration of your existing shop by our team, scheduled at a quiet time to avoid lost orders. Plans start at €15.90/month billed yearly (+VAT), are backed by a 99.9% uptime SLA and include a 15-day money-back guarantee, so you can test your shop under real traffic before committing.

Frequently asked questions