Web Hosting Report: 14 Startups Generating $322.8M in MRR

UniHosted: $4.5K in Monthly Recurring Revenue

Hosting platform for UniFi networks

UniHosted is a cloud hosting business for UniFi controllers, which was launched in August 2023 by Iron Brands, Dries Steenbergh and Adriaan van Rossum.

The platform enables secure hosting of UniFi networks with just one click. The service includes automatic daily backups, monitoring, a custom firewall, and secure SSL as standard.

The brand provides flexible pay-as-you-go pricing for customers, ensuring they only pay for the devices they manage. A free hosting plan is available for a single site with up to five devices. Users can then pay from £29 (~$37) per month for anywhere from 30 to 500 devices on unlimited sites.

For large companies wishing to use the service, there is also an Enterprise tier available, and UniHosted has now grown to the position of being able to attract and work with these bigger organisations.

Just 12-months after launching, the business had grown to more than 2,700 customers hosting over 7,500 devices on the network. By September 2024, monthly recurring revenue for UniHosted had grown to $4,500, a 10% increase on the previous month.

Valheim Server Hosting: $100K in Annual Revenue

Server Hosting for Popular online game

Valheim Server Hosting is - as the name suggests - a platform for players of the online game to rent a server. After acquiring the domain name for $7,500 in 2021, Xavi Ablaza began to build out the business on the website.

Using the service, customers can set up their own dedicated secure server within minutes and then access a custom control panel to manage their gameplay and invite others to join from anywhere in the world.

The niche service also features global data centres, a multilingual interface, and 24/7 customer support.

Prices to host a Valheim server start at $13 per month on a 12-month subscription, or $16 on a monthly agreement.

Within nine months of launching the business, Xavi grew monthly recurring revenue to $10,000. He later shared that at the end of 2022, annual recurring revenue had reached $100,000. All while spending just one hour per week on the business(!).

Tiiny.Host: $303K in Annual Recurring Revenue

Hosting service that enables quick publishing

Tiiny.Host is a platform that allows users to publish content online in seconds. It was founded in 2019 by Philip Baretto.

To share work online, customers can simply add HTML, PDF, or ZIP files to an upload box, select a link name, and then hit publish to get a shareable link.

The bootstrapped business features a free option that allows one active project to receive up to 5,000 visitors per month onto a tiny host URL.

There are also three paid tiers, ranging from $9 to $38 per month. These enable 10,000 to 500,000 visitors each month, allow custom domains, editable pages, and the option to capture visitor emails. They also include additional features such as integrations, SSL inclusion, and a CDN.

Tiiny.Host averaged just $70 in monthly recurring revenue for the first year of operation. However, the business has since grown to over 2,000 monthly paying customers and more than $20,000 in MRR.

The brand - which focuses on SEO to drive traffic and increase brand awareness - is currently operating at a $303,000 annual recurring revenue run rate.

Anchor Hosting: $384K in Annual Revenue

Hassle-free WordPress Hosting service

Anchor Hosting is a WordPress hosting and maintenance platform which was founded in 2014 by Austin Grinder.

After transitioning away from his work in web development and rebranding his business, Austin wanted to create an easy-to-use hosting service for small business owners. He adds a personal touch to his offering by allowing customers to contact him directly and even shares his coworking space location.

The bootstrapped hosting business features four pricing plans, ranging from $20 to $200 per month. The higher plans are designed for larger websites with more traffic, but all plans include free site migrations, daily backups and automatic core and plugin updates.

Anchor Hosting has steadily grown its income and surpassed $200,000 in annual revenue for the first time in 2018, supporting more than 900 websites.

In fiscal year 2024, the business generated $384,000 in annual revenue, which was almost 4% up year over year. As Austin is open about sharing the company’s progress, we’ll be certain to keep this section updated.

HostiFi: $269K in Monthly Recurring Revenue

UniFi network hosting service

HostiFi is a cloud hosting platform that was founded in 2018 by Reilly Chase.

The business allows customers to launch, remotely monitor and manage UniFi, UISP and Omada network devices in the cloud. There are currently 3,000 active HostiFi clients who have over 500,000 UniFi devices connected to the servers.

Users are charged between $9 and $249 per month to use the service which features instant setup and migration assistance. All pricing tiers also include an unlimited number of sites and users, automatic backups and updates, and a community Slack.

In addition, HostiFi provides a Pro Consulting service, which gives customers access to a Ubiquiti expert to help design and optimise their existing setup. The pricing for this starts at $150 per hour, or there are two monthly plans priced at $999 and $2,499.

The business - with a team of eleven staff - grew annual revenue to $2.2 million in 2023, up from $1.3 million the previous year. Earlier in 2024 Reilly shared that the brand is now generating $269,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

Rocket.net: $4.5M in Annual Revenue

WordPress Hosting Provider

Rocket.net is a WordPress hosting platform which was launched in 2020 by Ben Gabler and Josip Radan.

The all-in-one hosting service was designed with site speed and security in mind, and the business prides itself on the level of 24/7 customer service it provides to users.

The Rocket.net hosting dashboard features an interface for customers to manage all websites from one location and also includes analytics reports.

Pricing for managed hosting starts at $30 per month for up to 10 GB of storage and up to 250,000 monthly visitors, with two further tiers providing additional storage and traffic allowances. Multiple site backups, unlimited migrations, malware protection, and SSL come as standard on all plans.

The business also offers Agency and Enterprise hosting tiers for larger websites, starting from $100 and $649 per month, respectively.

In 2023, the bootstrapped company reported annual revenue of $4.5 million, a 150% increase from the previous year. The upward trajectory has continued into 2024, with revenue on course to exceed $6 million for the year.

Convesio: $6.6M in Funding

Site Hosting and marketing automation

Convesio is a website hosting and management service which was founded in 2018 by Elizabeth Bochner, Dyutiman Chakraborty and Tom Fanelli.

The platform provides businesses with secure hosting for WordPress and WooCommerce sites, as well as marketing automation tools and a payment processing option.

Hosting plans range from $150 to $1,600 per month, depending on the CPU, RAM, and storage requirements of the customer's website. Prices for the automated marketing offering start at $49 per month, and each tier includes access to the AI writing assistant and the ability to send unlimited emails. Finally, the payment processing service can be used at the cost of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.

Convesio - which is used by hundreds of businesses worldwide - received $5 million in investment in 2022, following on from a crowdfunding round three years earlier. To date the company has generated a total of $6.6 million and has used the funding to accelerate development and increase the size of their team.

Shockbyte: $8.7M in Annual Revenue

Server hosting for online games

Shockbyte is an online gaming server hosting platform which was founded in 2013 by Mitch Smith with just $20 while he was still in high school.

The business allows players to host servers for popular games such as Minecraft, Palworld, Rust, Valheim and more than 40 others. Essentially, it enables users to play online with their friends and followers on their own servers with customised settings.

Customers using the service are provided with instant setup on a subdomain, a control panel featuring real-time stats, plugin management, server instances, and backups. Prices start from $2.99 per month for Minecraft, and they vary depending on which game is being hosted and the number of players they wish to allow.

To date, Shockbyte has been used to host over 30 million players worldwide across more than 950,000 game servers.

In their latest financial report, Shockbyte shared that annual revenue had grown by 58% year over year to $8.78 million. To put that income growth into even more context, this represented a 285% increase on the $2.28 million generated just three years prior.

Miss Group: $93M in Annual Revenue

Website hosting and management service

Miss Group is a web hosting and domain management service which was founded in 2014 by Fredrik Björklund and Mattias Kaneteg.

Along with domain registration and website hosting featuring security and SSL, the platform also provides customers with the option to use a site builder and SEO tools.

To date, Miss Group and its team of 350+ employees within offices in eight countries have supported 800,000 customers with more than 1 million websites.

The business - which has received around $25 million in funding - has completed 30 company acquisitions as it aimed to grow quickly into the brand we see today. One of the most recent was the Norwegian hosting platform Domeneshop, making Miss Group the largest hosting provider in Norway.

After seeing annual revenue reach €66 million (~$71M) in 2021, Mattias shared that Miss Group went on to hit 1 billion SEK (~$93.4M) in annual revenue in 2023. For 2024, the business is targeting revenue of €110 million (~$119M), and we’ll update this section in due course to clarify if that was achieved.

Hostinger: $119M in Annual Revenue

Website building and hosting service

Hostinger is a domain registration and website hosting platform that was founded as Hosting Media in 2004 and rebranded to Hostinger in 2011.

The business provides managed WordPress and WooCommerce services, including site migrations in as little as 20 minutes, and a recently released AI-powered website building tool that can be used to quickly build and publish websites.

The various hosting packages start from $2.49 to $7.59 per month on a four-year contract. All plans include email addresses, SSL, website backups, and site builder access. The higher tiers include additional storage, free CDN, and a dedicated IP address.

Hostinger has built a team of almost 900 employees who support over 2.4 million active customers across 150 countries in managing more than 5 million domains.

Over the last four years, the brand has reported consistent large-scale revenue growth, culminating in annual revenue of €110.2 million (~$119.6M) for 2023, a 57% increase year over year.

Pantheon: $200M in Funding

Pantheon is a web operations platform built for Drupal, Next.js, and WordPress sites. It was founded in 2010 by Matt Cheney, Josh Koenig, Zack Rosen, and David Strauss.

The business offers website hosting, site building, security, performance optimisation and analytics, all from a central dashboard.

To date, Pantheon has supported customers in hosting more than 700,000 websites and has worked with over 2,500 business partners, including Google and Home Depot.

Users can access three hosting and management plans: Basic, which costs $55 per month; Performance, which costs $200 (both reduced if paying annually); and a custom-priced Elite option. In addition, Pantheon offers a free Workspace for personal accounts and a Professional Workspace for teams, which costs $600 per month.

In 2021, the company raised $100 million in funding to accelerate its growth, bringing the total amount of investment to date to $200 million and giving the business a valuation of over $1 billion.

Whilst we haven’t been able to source any reliable current revenue figures for the brand, we know that Pantheon recently appeared on the Inc. 5000 list for the third time after growing revenue by 79% between 2020 and 2023.

Aiven: $420M in Funding

Cloud data infrastructure management

Aiven develops managed cloud service hosting for software infrastructure services and was founded in 2016 by Mika Eloranta, Heikki Nousiainen, Oskari Saarenmaa and Hannu Valtonen.

The platform aims to simplify cloud data management and enables more than 1,000 customers in over 60 countries to serve, store and stream data.

The business offers three pricing tiers, ranging from $290 to $2,800 per month. The higher plans include incremental allowances for VMs, CPUs, RAM, and storage.

In 2019, Aiven tripled its annual revenue run rate to $12 million. While the business has continued to grow income and headcount since then, it hasn’t been open about releasing revenue figures into the public domain.

We do know that in 2022, the company generated $210 million in funding, taking the total investment in the business to $410 million and valuing Aiven at $3 billion.

DigitalOcean: $693M in Annual Revenue

Simplified cloud computing platform

DigitalOcean provides cloud infrastructure solutions for developers after being founded in 2012 by Jeff Carr, Alec Hartman, Mitch Wainer and brothers Ben and Moisey Uretsky.

The brands’ cloud platform can be used to build applications, businesses and software, with a focus on ease of use within the tools and infrastructure. Essentially making it simpler for customers such as software engineers and data scientists to create and launch.

Over 640,000 customers use the DigitalOcean service, which provides a range of monthly pricing options tailored to users' needs. All tiers (including the free plan) come with access to the data centre, DNS management, and cloud firewalls.

In 2023, the business - which has received $491 million in funding to date - acquired cloud infrastructure provider Paperspace. For the same year DigitalOcean went on to generate annual revenue of $693 million, representing a 20% increase year over year.

Financial results for the first half of this year have been positive, with Q2 2024 reports showing a 13% revenue uplift and gross profit up 15% YoY. The business expects annual revenue to rise to between $770 and $775 million for the full financial year.

Q3 2024 revenue was revealed to be $198M, up 12% year over year.

Rackspace Technology: $732M in Q3, 2024 Revenue (Down 7% YoY)

Multi-industry cloud solutions

Rackspace is a cloud computing service platform which was founded in 1998.

The business designs, builds, and operates multi-cloud solutions for AI, apps, data, and security. It provides these solutions alongside expert guidance to deliver an end-to-end service to 140,000 customers.

Rackspace provides both public and private cloud-based services with flexibility of features and cost controls. Last year, 59% of the business’s revenue was generated from its public offering and 41% from enterprise private subscriptions.

In 2023, the brand - which has received $292.8 million in funding to date - reported a 5% fall in annual revenue to $2.95 billion.

The first half of 2024 has started similarly, with Q2 revenue down 8% YoY. And while their public cloud service income has remained relatively stable, there was a 17% decrease in private cloud-based revenue for the quarter.