If you transmit payment details on your server online, compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) is not negotiable.
It’s up to you to ensure that your host complies with that requirement. Seeking the right PCI compliant web hosting providers, on the other hand, can be time-consuming.
Some platforms only have PCI enforcement with particular plans, so choosing the right one is critical.
Typically, it would be one of the company’s most expensive deals with increased compliance requirements, but there are still more affordable options.
For this post, we’ve handpicked three PCI compliant hosting that supports a range of budgets. If you meet all PCI specifications, you will become compliant with either of these providers.
However, we think LiquidWeb PCI compliant servers go beyond by delivering quarterly PCI scans and custom-made solutions.
For easier options, you may want to consider choosing a PCI compliant hosting provider that has always been good in the budget-based hosting environment.
We will also clarify why compliance with PCI is so necessary and why.
Choosing a PCI Compliant Web Hosting
In this post, we will present our options for the three best PCI compliant hosting providers. The industry is now very wide and competitive.
As a consequence, it is possible to become perplexed or lost. After all, how can you be sure you get the best service at the optimum price point?
Here’s where we can help. We did our homework and compiled a list of the best PCI-compliant hosting companies.
The following are the parameters we used:
- Reliability
- Uptime is an important factor.
- Professional assistance
- Billing and customer support
- Server and network efficiency
- Price with extra discounts
But how do you pick the PCI compliant wordpress hosting that meets PCI requirements?
To begin, check once if that company serves your region
Next search their different packages’ price points. You should be certain that you are having the best deal possible.
Also, the proposed budget must be kept in mind. Three of the best PCI-compliant web hosts are on the list, and now we have covered the popular features we are using in our comparison.
Let’s see the pci dss compliant hosting Providers in July 2024
Liquidweb
Liquid Web was established in 1997 in the United States. It has three primary data centers in Michigan, as well as other data centers in Arizona.
The founders of the company promote themselves as the most supportive individuals in the hosting industry. They claim to have unrivaled customer service.
The PCI dss hosting provider traditional pooled, dedicated, and VPS hosting as well as professionally run WordPress hosting.
SecureDNS covers many other services including distributed denial-of-of-service (DDoS) security, regular backups, SSL certificates, and more. But it is more costly when it comes to pricing.
Liquid Web’s standard bundle costs $19 a month. It comes with 15 GB of storage space, unlimited emails, with 2 TB of bandwidth. 100% of server uptime is promised by the company.
Credit cards, PayPal, and wire transfers are all accepted. If you buy something, you have a whole month to try it out.
Liquid Web provides complete compliance with PCI and expert advice. Their team will go a long way in order to develop a customized website solution and even have PCI scans quarterly.
Although you are still responsible for certain PCI specifications, Liquid Web will assist you in a number of ways, including completing an Attestation of Compliance.
It provides a variety of hosting plans with robust eCommerce features like:
- SSL-free certificates
- Jilt Pro is already included.
- Dropshipping is a useful function.
- Beaver Architect
- Nexcess provides exceptional performance and scalability.
Since Liquid Web’s pci compliant web hosting is tailored to your individual specifications, pricing will vary.
The entry-level WooCommerce package costs $19 per month. It’s worth checking!
Wpengine
WP Engine adheres to PCI DSS v3.2 security requirements on all of its servers. You can also reach out to its PCI expert team 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
WP Engine is a PCI dss compliant hosting company that was one of the first to provide WordPress-centric managed hosting services.
They have an impressive list of clients, among which Yelp, Asana, PBS & MyFitnessPal.
In addition, they provide high availability, scalability, and security around the clock on your website as well as on PCI-compatible servers.
It’s worth noting that the company doesn’t handle cardholder data, and its Acceptable Use Policy forbids you from doing so, either.
WP Engine provides managed WordPress hosting that is quick to load and includes the following features:
- Site migration is easy.
- SSL certificates, which are required for the secure processing of data, are available for free.
- Assistance with staging areas
- Exceptional performance
Pricing for the Startup plan begins at $25 a month. However, we suggest growth or scale plans for large eCommerce sites that can accommodate more traffic.
They also allow you to import your own SSL certificates if you prefer to do so instead of using your plan’s free one.
Hostgator
The fastest and best PCI compliant hosting on the market is HostGator WordPress Cloud. It does not come with a PCI compliance setup by default.
Unlimited file transfer protocol (FTP) accounts are included in all HostGator plans, allowing you to transfer files from a device to a network.
Each package includes unlimited bandwidth and email addresses, as well as a free domain name for the first year – after that, you’ll have to pay to renew your domain name.
It does, however, include support for PCI certification hugely. To ensure that you are completely under pci compliant servers, HostGator recommends that you update your WordPress core, theme, and plugins.
You’ll get the following benefits when you use HostGator’s WordPress Cloud hosting:
- Increased page loading speed
- Setup assistance for WooCommerce stores
- Complete control over resource allocation
HostGator delivers fantastic advice and resources, including online chat and phone support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and a searchable knowledge base of in-depth information about all topics hosting.
The knowledge base has the advantage of being available on your own time; additionally, you can not only get an answer to your initial question, but you may also fall down a rabbit hole and discover more than you bargained for thanks to the many useful tidbits posted there.
What Parameters Did We Use to Pick the Best PCI-Compliant Hosts?
Tons of hosting plans were examined and the ones offered by PCI compliance were selected.
We have also selected reputed PCI dss compliant hosting because they are more likely to boost e-commerce plans which protect financial information, such as credit card data for your customers.
We compared these PCI dss hosting providers to our database of independent suggestions from online business owners.
Let’s get started!
What Is PCI Compliance?
Compliance with the industry of payment cards refers to the technological and operational requirements that are adopted by companies to secure and protect card data provided by cardholders and transmitted by means of card processing transactions.
The PCI Security Standards are established and administered by the Council of PCI Safety Standards.
This article contains the following resources in order to include a detailed resource on PCI compliance:
- Detailed PCI SSC data protection requirements summary (along with multiple resources for further review).
- The 12 PCI DSS Compliance standards are identified and clarified.
- Benefits in complying with PCI.
- Potential non-compliant setbacks.
- A set of advice from 18 PCS DSS experts.
Compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) is essential for organizations that accept payment cards or transmit, process, or store payment card data.
PCI compliance has a strong appeal for data protection because almost any company accepts credit or debit cards as a method of payment.
The PCI DSS’s monitoring mechanisms minimize the risk of credit and debit card data loss. It is not only a necessity to avoid identity fraud but also full of best practices to identify, prevent and correct data violations.
PCI compliance often prevents a company in the case of a data breach in which cardholder data is revealed.
Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express recognize PCI DSS compliant small companies that strongly support the safety of knowledge.
If PCI DSS is not observed, it will be subject to penalties that could put an end to the ability of a business owner to perform e-commerce, accept payment cards, and enable potential online payments.
Who’s Responsible for PCI Compliance?
You, as well as the vendors, are in charge of ensuring compliance. PCI compliance is necessary if you perform some form of financial activity. Yes of course, indeed. And if you only use your credit card for one payment, you must follow the rules.
The PCI Security Standards Council is in charge of the PCI DSS’s development. To ensure that entities are PCI compatible, the PCI DSS has 12 core specifications, 78 base requirements, and 400 test procedures.
Merchants, software developers, and web hosting service providers all share responsibility for maintaining and sustaining PCI compliance.
Each has a significant role to play in PCI compliance, but it is essentially the merchant’s duty to ensure that their website and web-hosting provider conform to industry standards.
Who should use the PCI Compliance Questionnaire?
PCI DSS provides Self-Assessment Questionnaires to merchants and service providers who process fewer than 6 million transactions a year (PCI SAQ).
This is a self-validation questionnaire to see how the company complies with the regulations.
You will decide if the company is legal by implementing this procedure. If not, there are actions you should take to comply with regulatory requirements.
Small companies who don’t have the money to pay independent assessors to determine their compliance with PCI requirements can use the self-assessment questionnaire.
Working via the questionnaire, companies should be able to identify and fix compliance problems before a violation occurs.
Requirements of PCI DSS Compliance
To summarise, PCI DSS standards extend to any business that requests credit card information. The key purpose of the law is to safeguard sensitive information.
There are 12 sets of constraints in order to ensure PCI compliance, and as per the PCI Security Standards Council.
There are six basic categories and security objectives that can then be broken down into.
To assist you in securing your data, they go over the specifications and PCI compliance standards.
Who is responsible for maintaining Compliance?
Any of these specifications fall under the purview of web hosting companies, while others fall under the ambit of merchants including their web developers and designers.
In the end, it is the merchant’s responsibility to ensure that their hosting provider, website developer, including third-party software vendors are all PCI compatible.
Compliance Security Goals
The following types of requirements and specifications are needed to achieve PCI compliance, as we will discuss below.
Security Goals
PCI-compliant web hosting must use a secure data protection model that incorporates various levels of physical and virtual safety protocols, such as controlling access to servers and data centers and enforcing login and authorization protocol authentication.
When cardholder data, including validation codes and PIN numbers, is transmitted over an open or public network, it must be encrypted.
Maintaining a Vulnerability Management Program
They must take special care to guard against web hosting vulnerabilities, as it is what mainly affects e-commerce merchants, and then they can also apply it to other merchants’ websites.
- Anti-virus applications must be constantly maintained or by a merchant IT team if their servers are self-managed or if data is stored or transmitted on externally managed or managed servers by the hosting providers.
- These companies are expected to regularly track and keep their processes up to date in order to address newly discovered security threats.
Is it necessary for my organization to be PCI compliant?
The short answer is yes if you run your own on-premise or self-hosted cloud commerce solution.
Whether you own a single brick-and-mortar store or a large organization with several stores and eCommerce pages, eCommerce PCI compliance is critical.
Wherever your credit card merchant account is linked and integrated requires attention.
To assess an acceptable PCI compliance standard, all credit card purchase transactions processed by the organization are tallied through various networks (i.e. in-store retail point-of-sale terminals and online payment gateways).
Why do you require PCI compatible web hosting and how do you get it?
PCI standards strive to allow businesses to receive, store, and process credit card information in a safe manner. Since it is implicitly involved with payment data collection, your web host must be PCI compatible if you send payment data on your servers.
There are 12 basic criteria that you and your web host must fulfill, including:
- Using the most up-to-date technologies and networks
- To deal with threats, you should have a vulnerability management program in place.
- To avoid any unwanted entry, stringent access control is used.
- Getting a security policy in effect that is checked on a daily basis
eCommerce stores and every other site that receives and handles credit card payments on its server are examples of companies that need to become PCI compliant.
If you use WordPress or WooCommerce for your eCommerce needs, keep in mind that, although they adhere to the highest security requirements, they are not PCI compliant.
Is WordPress PCI compliant?
The question of whether your WordPress website is PCI compatible completely depends on the company’s infrastructure.
PCI security requirements apply equally to WordPress sites; however, the extent to which such standards apply depends on considerations such as your payment gateway provider or whether you accept cardholder data directly.
Read the detailed article on best web server for laravel
What happens if you are not PCI compliant?
As a general rule, businesses that refuse to comply with the regulations of credit card issuance are liable to severe consequences.
There are a variety of steps that may be taken, from notices and fines to the suspension of a company’s right to accept credit and debit cards.
In the event that your non-PCI compliance-compliant organization has been breached, foresee fines and consequences to follow.
What happens if you are not PCI compliant?
As a general rule, businesses that refuse to comply with the regulations of credit card issuance are liable to severe consequences.
There are a variety of steps that may be taken, from notices and fines to the suspension of a company’s right to accept credit and debit cards.
In the event that your non-PCI compliance-compliant organization has been breached, foresee fines and consequences to follow.
Final Words
If your company manages credit card data, then you must meet PCI standards. Shopping around for a suitable web host does not ensure conformity. Regardless, it is a key move if you wish to meet industry standards.
