“SiteGround services are not available in the selected country.”
Have you encountered this error while trying to sign up for SiteGround?
You’re not alone. SiteGround has recently made some big changes to the markets it serves, no longer accepting signups from a number of major countries including India, Japan, and South Korea.
We’ve got the details below, and more importantly, some of the best alternative hosting providers that are still available globally.
Why Isn’t SiteGround Available In My Country?
In October 2020, SiteGround announced a major change to their scope of operations due to “growing regulatory complexities.”
It seems that some local regulations and tax requirements were making it difficult for SiteGround to sustainably offer its service in some regions. As a result, the company decided to stop signups from all countries outside of its primary markets, beginning November 2, 2020.
SiteGround continues to accept clients from the following regions:
- North and South America
- Australia
- The European Union and United Kingdom
- China
- Singapore
- Israel
- Hong Kong
- Thailand
Unfortunately, if you’re not located in any of the above locations, you can no longer purchase hosting from SiteGround.
The Best Hosting Alternatives When SiteGround Is Not Available In Your Country
If you were trying to sign up for SiteGround, chances are you’re looking for a high-quality hosting service that prioritizes reliability and performance.
Let’s take a look at three hosting companies that fit that bill and are available outside of SiteGround’s limited service regions.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting has quickly become one of my favorite hosting providers. If you’re looking for great performance at an affordable price, you’re going to love A2 Hosting.
Claiming up to 20x faster performance than the competition, A2 Hosting is also known for stellar customer support, including free single-site migrations if needed.
In many ways, I would argue A2 Hosting is SiteGround’s fiercest competitor—and it’s available in more locations and at a lower price-point. Hard to beat.
You can check out A2 Hosting’s plans here.
Dreamhost
Dreamhost is another solid option, particularly if you’re just getting started with your website. All Dreamhost plans include free domain registration for the first year, as well as a free SSL certificate.
Like SiteGround, Dreamhost is officially recommended by WordPress.org, and the company is known for providing excellent customer support.
You can learn more about Dreamhost’s plans here.
Kinsta
If you’re looking for managed WordPress hosting for an important production site, you can’t go wrong with Kinsta.
Like SiteGround, Kinsta is built on the Google Cloud Platform, and it offers pretty much everything you’d want in a high-performance WordPress hosting solution, particularly if you have a high-traffic site or need to withstand unpredictable surges.
Kinsta also prioritizes security, monitoring your site for downtime, DDoS attacks, malware, and more. They even offer a “hack fix guarantee,” meaning that if your website is hacked, they will fix it for you immediately at no extra cost.
Kinsta offers plans based on expected monthly traffic, which you can explore here.
Final Thoughts
If you’re getting an error that “SiteGround services are not available in the selected country,” this is a result of the company’s decision to focus on a small number of key markets due to regulatory issues. However, you still have options when it comes to finding a reliable, high-performance hosting solution.
As detailed above, we recommend the following hosting services if SiteGround is unavailable in your area:
- A2 Hosting — The best performance-focused SiteGround-alternative for most users.
- Dreamhost — Great for beginners, with perks such as free domain registration.
- Kinsta — Powerful WordPress hosting for advanced websites with higher levels of traffic.
What do you think about SiteGround’s decision to limit the countries they serve? Any questions about the alternatives we’ve compiled here? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the commentsComments are a feature of WordPress that allow users to engage in discussions about the content of a website. ... More below!
Author: Brad Merrill
Brad Merrill is the CEO of Merrill Media and Editor in Chief of GigaPress.
