Flywheel vs WP Engine (2026): Flywheel Hosting Review and Verdict
Flywheel’s pricing page on annual billing, October 2026.
Our verdict: For designers, freelancers and small agencies, Flywheel is the better buy in 2026. It costs less than WP Engine at every matching size ($300 a year for one site vs $420 a year at WP Engine’s regular rate), it still offers a 60-day refund on smaller plans, and its dashboard, free demo sites and billing transfer are built for client work. Pick WP Engine if you need three environments per site, paid add-ons like automatic plugin updates, or a 99.99% uptime SLA on its isolated Core plans. On a tight budget, skip both.
One thing to know first: Flywheel is not a separate company. WP Engine announced it was buying Flywheel in June 2019, and Flywheel’s own site now runs on WP Engine’s platform. You are choosing between two products from the same owner.
The 2020 version of this page picked WP Engine “by a long shot”. Prices, plan names, refund terms and the uptime promise have all changed since then, so this is a full rewrite. This comparison is based on each vendor’s published pricing, help docs and legal pages as checked on October 4, 2026, plus a few public speed measurements labeled below. We did not buy a plan or open an account at either host, so nothing here describes long-term use.
Quick facts
| Flywheel | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | WP Engine (since 2019) | WP Engine |
| Cheapest plan | Starter: $30/month, or $300/year | Essential, 1 site: $35/month, or $336 for the first year |
| Price at renewal | Same as sign-up; no intro discount is shown | $420/year regular rate after a first-year 20% coupon |
| Entry plan limits | 1 site, 25,000 visits, 10GB storage, 50GB bandwidth | 1 site, 25,000 visits, 10GB storage, 75GB bandwidth |
| Visit overage | $2 per 1,000 visits (help doc); the pricing FAQ still says $1 | $2 per 1,000 visits |
| Storage overage | $1 per GB | Buy extra storage or upgrade |
| Money-back guarantee | 60 days on Starter and most Freelance plans; not Agency or Custom | None listed on its plans page or in its terms |
| Staging | One staging site per site | Production, staging and development environments per site |
| Backups | Nightly, kept 30 days, stored on Google Cloud | Daily, kept 30 days in the portal (30 to 60 days per plans page) |
| CDN | Fastly, with full-page caching | Cloudflare-powered global CDN |
| Uptime SLA | None published | 99.95% (legal SLA); 99.99% on Core and Enterprise only |
| Support | 24/7 chat on every plan | 24/7 chat; priority support is optional on Core |
| Best for | Designers, freelancers, small agencies, single business sites | Growing agencies, developers, high-traffic and business-critical sites |
Prices in US dollars, before tax, as of October 2026.
Is Flywheel still a separate host in 2026?
Yes, you can still buy Flywheel hosting on its own site, with its own plans, dashboard and support team. But it is now clearly a WP Engine product:
- Flywheel’s own help docs say WP Engine “announced its acquisition of Flywheel in June 2019”. Every Flywheel page now carries a WP Engine copyright footer.
- getflywheel.com itself returned an “x-powered-by: WP Engine” header when we checked it on October 4, 2026.
- Flywheel Growth Suite, its client billing and reporting tool for agencies, is now opened from the WP Engine User Portal, according to WP Engine’s support docs.
- Local, the free desktop app once called Local by Flywheel, is now branded “Local by WP Engine” (version 10.1.2, August 24, 2026). It still pushes and pulls sites to both hosts. We did not install it.
There are signs the two platforms are slowly merging. In 2026, some Flywheel customers in Australia said on Reddit that WP Engine had asked them to move to WP Engine hosting. We found no announcement about this on either company’s site, so treat it as a report, not a policy. Of the agency websites in Flywheel’s case studies that we checked, only Red Branch Media’s still returned Flywheel server headers; SeaMonster Studios’ returned WP Engine headers and two others returned Kinsta headers. Those are the agencies’ own sites, not necessarily where their clients live.
The legal fight between WP Engine and Automattic applies to both brands. WP Engine says a court granted it a preliminary injunction on December 10, 2024, and that a September 24, 2026 ruling lets most of its claims go ahead. The case is still open.
Plans and prices compared
WP Engine’s plan builder on annual billing, October 2026. These are first-year prices with a 20% new-customer coupon applied automatically.
Flywheel sells three fixed plans plus a custom plan. Annual billing gives two months free. WP Engine sells one shared plan, Essential, in four sizes, plus Core (isolated resources, from $400 a month) and custom Enterprise plans.
The WP Engine annual prices on its plan builder include a coupon called WPE20YEARONE. The page’s fine print says first-year pricing is for new customers on Essential only and that “renewal pricing subject to change”. The plan builder’s own data lists the regular annual price as 12 monthly payments, which is what we use for year two.
| Size | Flywheel monthly | Flywheel annual | WP Engine monthly | WP Engine annual, year one | WP Engine annual, regular |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 site, 25,000 visits, 10GB | Starter: $30 | $300 | $35 | $336 | $420 |
| 3 sites, 75,000 visits, 15GB | No plan (Starter + 2 extra sites: $70, still 25,000 visits) | $700 | $65 | $624 | $780 |
| 10 sites, 100,000 visits, 20GB | Freelance: $115 | $1,150 | $130 | $1,248 | $1,560 |
| 30 sites, 400,000 visits, 50GB | Agency: $290 | $2,900 | $330 | $3,168 | $3,960 |
Both hosts charge $20 a month for each extra site. Flywheel also sells extra sites at $200 a year.
What the numbers mean:
- One site: Flywheel is $36 cheaper in year one and $120 a year cheaper after that.
- Three sites: WP Engine has the only real plan for this size, with three times the visits of Flywheel’s Starter.
- Ten or thirty sites: Flywheel costs roughly a quarter less per year than WP Engine’s regular rate, with the same visit and storage limits.
Neither host includes email accounts or domain registration. Flywheel’s pricing FAQ says it does not offer email and suggests a separate email provider.
Add-ons that change the bill
| Add-on | Flywheel | WP Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic plugin updates | Managed Plugin Updates: $8/month per site | Smart Plugin Manager: $120/year per license |
| Performance reports | Performance Insights: $25/month, plus $2 per extra site | Application performance monitoring is not available on Essential |
| Firewall and edge security | Not listed | Global Edge Security: $420/year |
| Front-end speed tools | Not listed | NitroPack: $240/year per license |
| Uptime monitoring | Not listed | Site Monitoring: $60/year per license |
| WooCommerce tools | Not listed | eCommerce Performance Pack: $1,188/year per site |
Prices from each vendor’s pricing page and plan builder, October 2026.
Visit, storage and bandwidth limits
The “Compare plans” table on Flywheel’s pricing page, October 2026. Multisite is not included on Starter.
At the entry level the two hosts allow the same 25,000 visits and 10GB of storage. Both count a visit the same way: one unique IP address in a 24-hour period, with known bots filtered out.
Bandwidth is where they differ. Flywheel’s plans include 50GB, 200GB and 500GB of bandwidth. WP Engine’s comparison table lists 75GB for Essential and shows no bigger figure for the larger sizes, so as listed, a 30-site plan gets the same 75GB as a one-site plan.
The “Compare all features” table in WP Engine’s plan builder, October 2026. Essential is listed at 75GB of bandwidth.
Overage charges
Neither host shuts a site off for a traffic spike. Both bill overages monthly, even on annual plans.
- Visits: WP Engine’s overage page says $2 per 1,000 extra visits. Flywheel’s help doc on overage pricing (updated June 30, 2025) also says $2 per 1,000. Flywheel’s pricing page FAQ still says $1 per 1,000, so plan on $2 and ask sales if it matters.
- Storage: Flywheel charges $1 per GB over your limit. WP Engine asks you to buy more storage or upgrade.
- Bandwidth: WP Engine says shared plans are not charged bandwidth overages; it will contact you instead. Flywheel says you “may get charged” if you are consistently over.
For comparison, Kinsta charges $0.50 per 1,000 extra visits on its plans, a quarter of the rate at either of these hosts. Our Kinsta review has the details.
Refunds, renewals and cancelling
The overage and refund answers in Flywheel’s pricing FAQ, October 2026. Note the $1 visit overage here; Flywheel’s newer help doc says $2.
This is the biggest change since 2020, and it now favors Flywheel.
Flywheel offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on new Starter plans and on Freelance plans without custom onboarding. Agency and Custom plans are excluded, and it does not cover upgrades or renewals. Its annual price is simply 10 months of the monthly price, so there is no renewal jump.
WP Engine used to advertise a 60-day money-back guarantee. In October 2026 its plans page does not mention one. Its terms of service (updated January 1, 2026) say fees “are not refundable except as expressly stated herein”. The same terms say plans renew automatically unless you give notice at least 30 days before the term ends, and that ending a plan early makes the remaining fees due. On an annual plan, you are committed for the year, and year two costs 25% more than year one.
Features compared
| Feature | Flywheel | WP Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Staging | One-click staging site; push themes and plugins, with or without the database | Production, staging and development environments for every site |
| Free sites for client work | 14-day free demo sites, password protected until paid | Free sandbox sites and transferable sites |
| Billing transfer to clients | Yes, and you stay on as a collaborator | Transferable sites |
| Backups | Nightly, 30 days, on-demand snapshots, one-click restore | Daily plus on-demand checkpoints, full or partial ZIP downloads |
| Caching | FlyCache, with automatic exclusions for common plugins | EverCache |
| CDN | Fastly, caches full HTML pages | Global CDN powered by Cloudflare |
| Security | Malware scanning, free malware cleanup, plugin security alerts | Security patching, plugin risk scans, layer 3 and 4 DDoS protection; managed firewall is a paid add-on |
| Premium themes | 10 StudioPress themes and the Genesis Framework | 10 premium themes and Genesis Blocks |
| Developer access | All-in-one SFTP login, SSH Gateway | SFTP, SSH Gateway, Git push |
| Multisite | Freelance and up | Supported |
| Data centers | North America, Australia, UK, EU (Belgium) | Not listed on its plans page |
Both hosts include free SSL certificates and automated WordPress and PHP updates. Both bundle StudioPress themes, since WP Engine also owns StudioPress. Our Genesis theme review covers whether those themes are still worth using.
The practical differences come down to workflow. WP Engine’s three environments per site suit teams who build in development, test in staging, then push live. Flywheel’s single staging site is simpler and enough for most small sites. If you only need a test copy now and then, a free plugin can also do the job; see our roundup of the best WordPress staging plugins.
Dashboards
Vendor image: the Flywheel dashboard as shown on Flywheel’s pricing page, October 2026.
Both hosts use their own dashboards, not cPanel. Flywheel’s dashboard is built around a site list with tabs for overview, plugins, performance, stats, backups, staging and advanced settings, according to its dashboard tour help doc. Flywheel markets it as a simpler alternative to cPanel, and its site list, tags and collaborator avatars are clearly aimed at people juggling client sites.
WP Engine’s User Portal shows usage against your plan limits, the three environments for each site, backups and add-ons in one place. It has more options, which also makes it busier. We could not log in to either dashboard, so this section is based on the vendors’ own pages and help docs.
Speed: what we could measure from public pages
Without accounts we cannot benchmark either host’s servers. What we can do is measure public pages. On October 4, 2026, from one location in the US (Redmond, Washington), we timed each host’s own home page and home pages of customers named on the hosts’ case-study pages that still returned that host’s server headers.
| Site (home page) | Host header seen | Median time to first byte (10 requests) | Lighthouse desktop (median of 3) | Lighthouse mobile (median of 3) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| getflywheel.com | WP Engine | 397 ms | 85 | 40 |
| Red Branch Media | Flywheel | 176 ms | 99 | 99 |
| wpengine.com | WP Engine Headless Platform | 366 ms | 81 | 33 |
| Fat Beehive | WP Engine | 380 ms | 87 | 70 |
| Aspire Digital Solutions | WP Engine | 268 ms | 47 | 54 |
Read this for what it is: five home pages, on one day, from one place, using curl and Lighthouse 13.5. It is not a hosting benchmark, and it cannot tell you which host is faster. Median time to first byte stayed between about 180 and 400 ms on all five. The best scores came from Red Branch Media, the one site still on Flywheel’s servers, at 99 on both desktop and mobile. The WP Engine-hosted pages scored 33 to 70 on mobile. That gap comes from how each page is built, not from the host: wpengine.com and getflywheel.com are heavy marketing pages, while Red Branch’s home page is light. Flywheel’s and WP Engine’s speed claims are their own marketing.
Support
Flywheel offers 24/7 live chat on every plan. Flywheel says 90% of support chats are solved in a single session. Agency plans add a dedicated account manager and a migration dashboard, and Custom plans add quarterly business reviews.
WP Engine also offers 24/7 support through chat once you log in. Core plans can add priority support and a 30-day onboarding manager as paid options, and Enterprise lists a one-minute target response time.
Both hosts migrate sites. Flywheel moves sites for free in one to three days, or aims to finish within eight US business hours for $49 (with a refund if it misses). WP Engine gives Essential customers a free automated migration plugin; hands-on migration help is part of Core.
Uptime and the SLA fine print
WP Engine’s plan comparison, October 2026. Essential runs on shared resources and does not include the 99.99% SLA.
WP Engine’s service level agreement (last updated May 12, 2021) promises 99.95% availability, not counting scheduled maintenance. If it misses, you get a credit of 5% of that month’s fee for each full hour of extra downtime, and you must ask within 30 days. The “Enhanced SLA” raises the target to 99.99%, and the plans page lists it only for Core and Enterprise.
Flywheel publishes no SLA that we could find. Its home page FAQ simply says “99.9% uptime” as a selling point, with no credits attached. The same FAQ still says plans start at $13 and that you get “dedicated resources”, which does not match the current pricing page, so treat that text as out of date.
We did not monitor either host’s uptime.
Which should you pick?
Designers, freelancers and small agencies: Flywheel. It is cheaper at every matching size, has a 60-day refund on Starter and most Freelance plans, free demo sites, billing transfer and the simplest dashboard of the two. The catch is the long-term picture. WP Engine’s recent launches, such as Cloudflare bot protection and its AI tools, are on its own platform, and Flywheel may be folded in over time.
Agencies with 3 to 30 client sites and a dev workflow: WP Engine. The 3-site size has no Flywheel match, every site gets three environments, and paid add-ons like Smart Plugin Manager and site monitoring cover maintenance work. Budget for year two at the regular price.
Small business with one site: Flywheel, or look at Kinsta. Flywheel’s Starter is $300 a year with no renewal jump. Kinsta costs a little more at $350 a year but allows 35,000 visits and charges much lower overages. See our Kinsta review and our Kinsta vs WP Engine comparison.
High-traffic or business-critical sites: WP Engine Core. It is the only option here with isolated resources and a 99.99% SLA, starting at $400 a month. WP Engine labels Essential as shared resources, and Flywheel’s pricing page does not say how its plans share servers.
Tight budget: neither. Hostinger starts at $2.99 a month on a 48-month term (renewing at $10.99), and Cloudways starts at $11 a month with hourly billing and no long contract. Our Hostinger review and Cloudways review cover the trade-offs. For more premium options, see our guide to the best managed WordPress hosting.
Flywheel pros and cons
Pros
- Cheaper than WP Engine at every matching size, with no renewal jump
- 60-day money-back guarantee on Starter and most Freelance plans
- Free 14-day demo sites and one-click billing transfer for client work
- Fastly CDN with full-page caching on every plan
- More bandwidth than WP Engine Essential on the bigger plans
Cons
- Owned by WP Engine, with signs of slow consolidation
- No published uptime SLA
- Only one staging site per site; Multisite starts on Freelance
- Pricing page and help doc disagree on the visit overage ($1 vs $2)
- No plan between one site and ten
WP Engine pros and cons
Pros
- Production, staging and development environments for every site
- A 3-site size that fits small agencies
- Paid add-ons for plugin updates, monitoring, edge security and WooCommerce
- Isolated Core plans with a 99.99% SLA for critical sites
- A published SLA with downtime credits
Cons
- First-year coupon, then 25% more at renewal
- No money-back guarantee listed, and auto-renewal with a 30-day notice rule
- Essential lists only 75GB of bandwidth at every size
- Many useful features cost extra
FAQ
Is Flywheel the same as WP Engine?
Flywheel is owned by WP Engine, which announced the purchase in June 2019. Flywheel still has its own plans, pricing, dashboard and support, but its website runs on WP Engine’s platform and its Growth Suite is now opened from the WP Engine portal. Both include the same StudioPress themes.
How much does Flywheel hosting cost?
As of October 2026, Starter is $30 a month or $300 a year (1 site, 25,000 visits). Freelance is $115 a month or $1,150 a year (10 sites, 100,000 visits). Agency is $290 a month or $2,900 a year (30 sites, 400,000 visits). Extra sites cost $20 a month. Prices exclude tax.
Is Flywheel cheaper than WP Engine?
Yes, at every matching size. One site costs $300 a year at Flywheel vs $336 in year one and $420 after that at WP Engine. Ten sites cost $1,150 a year at Flywheel vs $1,560 a year at WP Engine’s regular rate.
Does Flywheel have a money-back guarantee?
Yes. Flywheel offers 60 days on new Starter plans and on Freelance plans without custom onboarding. Agency and Custom plans are excluded, as are upgrades and renewals. WP Engine does not list a money-back guarantee on its plans page or in its terms.
Is Local by Flywheel still free?
Yes. The app is now called Local by WP Engine and is a free download. Version 10.1.2 was released on August 24, 2026. It can push and pull sites to both Flywheel and WP Engine through Local Connect.
Which is better for a high-traffic site?
WP Engine, but only on its Core plans, which start at $400 a month with isolated resources and a 99.99% SLA. Flywheel’s Agency plan allows 400,000 visits, and WP Engine’s Essential plan the same, but Essential is labeled as shared resources and neither comes with a 99.99% SLA.
Final verdict
In 2020 WP Engine was the clear winner. In 2026 the picture has flipped for most small buyers. Flywheel is cheaper, keeps its price at renewal, still offers a 60-day refund on smaller plans, and remains the friendlier tool for designers and freelancers. WP Engine is the stronger platform for agencies with a development workflow and for sites that need isolated resources and a real SLA, but you pay more after year one and the cancellation terms are strict.
If neither fits, compare how WP Engine stacks up against SiteGround, or read our Kinsta vs WP Engine review for a premium alternative that keeps the same price at renewal.