Hosting five client WordPress sites: isolation, access and restoration

The problem: manage five clients without turning every incident into a general outage

You host the business websites of five different companies. Client A must be able to edit content without seeing client B’s files. If an update breaks site C, you want to restore C without returning the other four to yesterday’s state. Finally, when D leaves your service, their departure must be possible without handing over your main account. These operations, rather than the advertised maximum number of sites, guide this selection.

This report includes six documented configurations, not six guarantees of absolute security. It compares agency plans, subaccounts and a platform organized into hosting spaces. Prices and official documents were reviewed on November 2, 2026. We did not open any accounts, test any access or perform a restoration. A feature described by a provider remains documentary evidence of its offering, not a successful test on your five sites.

Common assumptions: small sites, working copies and existing email

Our example is deliberately bounded: five independent WordPress installations, each on its own domain, without a store, large membership area or video served from the server. We allow two gigabytes per site for files and its database, totaling ten gigabytes in production. A working copy of the same size for each project brings the allowance to twenty gigabytes; an additional five gigabytes provides an illustrative growth reserve. The reference requirement is therefore twenty-five gigabytes, not an actual measurement of your data. How copies are counted varies by provider: this example does not mean every platform bills twenty-five gigabytes.

Email stays with the providers already chosen by the clients: two five-gigabyte mailboxes per company, totaling ten mailboxes. Their actual cost remains outside the web budget; it is not assumed to be zero. The five existing domains also remain separately billed. For load, we assume roughly three thousand visits and five gigabytes of monthly transfer per site. These assumptions help frame a discussion about a plan; they do not prove its ability to handle simultaneous connections or demanding processing.

Five installations are not a WordPress multisite network

A multisite network allows several sites to be managed within one WordPress installation. Some elements are shared; it does not automatically provide five independent hosting environments. For five separate companies that may change providers independently, we use five installations here, a separate database assigned to each site and separate technical users where the service allows. This is an organizational choice for this scenario, not a general prohibition on multisite.

This distinction also changes backups and departures. Restoring an entire network environment is not the same operation as restoring a single installation. A transfer button designed for an installation does not establish that it can extract a network subsite. Do not group the five clients into a network solely to fit a small plan. If you already run a network, have its extraction assessed before applying this comparison.

Three forms of separation to examine without confusing them

The first separation concerns access: what the client sees in the panel. The second concerns data and processes: what their site’s software can reach. The third concerns resources: what a demanding process can consume. Different folders do not establish a barrier between processes; a user restricted to one screen does not prove an independent memory reserve. Documentation describing containers does not mean billing or quotas are separate either.

For this portfolio, request an explanation that applies to sites within the same account, not just accounts belonging to two different buyers. At o2switch, the lune documentation distinguishes isolation and resources by plan. At Infomaniak, administrative permissions follow the hosting space: our setup uses one hosting space per client. Kinsta describes a software container per site. Hostinger and SiteGround isolation claims are attributed to their providers; they do not become independent certifications here.

Choosing between subaccounts, an agency platform and organized hosting spaces

If you want to give clients a hosting panel while retaining central oversight, compare o2switch’s Cloud lunes and 20i’s reseller packages. The management unit becomes the client account or package. You still need to prepare a backup and a way to move the project out; renaming a folder does not replace that organization. The 20i variant examined is a public US offering in dollars, with English documentation and commercial terms to confirm for your account.

If you prefer assigning permissions to an installation in a shared console, examine Hostinger Agency, SiteGround GoGeek and Kinsta WP 5. Their differences show up primarily in roles and transfer, not simply in WordPress availability. Infomaniak managed Cloud offers another approach: a server organized into multiple hosting spaces, with global resources. None of these models removes the need for a responsible person who knows all five projects and retains emergency access.

Give clients the right access without sharing the master account

First decide what each client needs to do: publish pages, manage email, restore a site or handle files. A WordPress role often suffices for content; it does not grant access to the hosting panel. Keep separate identities for the agency, client and a temporary contributor. The billing account and global access must not become a shared shortcut across every project.

The documents reviewed require specific distinctions. On GoGeek, the default client role provides a broad set of tools; the customizable roles described by SiteGround belong to Cloud. In MyKinsta, the site developer is restricted to staging environments, while the site administrator has broader access. At Infomaniak, inviting a client to a hosting space containing all five sites would grant access to that entire set. Separation must therefore happen before invitations.

• Before launch, have a client account checked to ensure only that client’s project and authorized operations are visible; this check was not performed for this report.
• If another client appears, revoke the affected access and correct the assignment before sending further invitations.
• When a client leaves, revoke invitations and technical access that are no longer needed; retain a separate agency identity for the agreed follow-up.

Restoring a site: check the scope before confirming

The minimum requirement is to select the project and a date, then return its files and database to a consistent state. Restoration is still a write operation: it can erase recent changes on that project even if it does not target the other four. Preserve the current state before rolling back. If the cause of the incident is unknown, an old copy may also contain the same vulnerability.

Scopes differ. JetBackup distinguishes files, databases and email accounts; do not select the whole account out of habit. Infomaniak provides advanced restoration by site and database, unlike simple restoration of the entire hosting space. Hostinger Agency documents full-site restoration, but not the same granular file restoration as its other ranges. SiteGround and MyKinsta organize their tools around the selected site. The existence of a button does not remove the need to check the target.

• Record the domain, environment, database and copy date; stop if any item does not match the affected project.
• Prefer an isolated copy to assess the result, with notifications and other real effects disabled.
• After validation, check the restored site and a representative user journey on each of the other sites; do not assume there was no impact before this check.

Retention does not replace your backup policy

A daily copy and several weeks of history answer two different questions: the potential loss since the last copy and how far back you can recover. For these business websites, a recovery objective allowing at most one day of lost content may serve as a starting point for discussion. It is neither a provider commitment nor a promise to bring the site back online within a given time. Client contracts must distinguish these two timeframes.

Also keep an exportable copy outside the main account, with each client’s files and database identified. The cost of this external storage depends on your solution and is not invented in the totals. A particular reservation concerns 20i: the restoration documentation presents Timeline as a subscription, while a sales page highlights free snapshots. The automatic backup scope actually included must be confirmed; the entry price is therefore not a complete protection budget.

Prepare now for a single client’s departure

An internal ownership transfer and migration to another host are two different procedures. The former keeps the platform but changes its administrative holder; the latter requires a compatible destination, data copying and a domain switchover. In both cases, the domain, messages, plugin licenses and backup copies must be included in the handover scope. Never hand over other clients’ backups in a global archive.

Documented exit routes are not equivalent. Kinsta provides for transferring a site between companies, with the recipient’s acceptance. SiteGround describes transferring the site and its data to a new owner. 20i imposes conditions on the type of account receiving the package. At Hostinger, automated ownership transfer is currently unavailable for Agency: plan a manual migration. These limitations can matter more than a few euros of difference at signup.

The downloaded archive must also be examined before departure. On Hostinger Agency, the WordPress file backup contains wp-config.php and wp-content, without WordPress core files; the database is retrieved separately. A full download from the file manager captures the current state, not necessarily the state of the older backup. Prepare a consistent set, including the core version and files required for that copy, then have restoration verified at an isolated destination. An available ZIP file alone does not prove that the entire site can be brought back online elsewhere.

Build a portfolio budget, not five fictitious independent prices

A plan purchased for five sites is a shared expense. Dividing its price by five gives an accounting allocation, not five transferable subscriptions. If a client leaves, the portfolio bill does not necessarily decrease. Budget for the situation where only four clients remain, and state clearly whether the price charged to a client covers hosting alone or your maintenance work as well.

The profiles distinguish initial amounts, cycles and published renewals. Domains, email retained elsewhere, independent archiving and any human intervention remain separate line items. Currencies are not artificially converted. The two European SiteGround pages consulted during review now display the same GoGeek promotion. At Infomaniak, the starting price does not establish the initial total for a specific configuration. A promotion still needs checking at checkout; it does not reduce the advertised renewal.

Capacity must remain observable after launch

Our storage allowance makes these configurations plausible candidates to examine; it is not a benchmark. Sites may share quotas, a server, a restoration queue or a contract. A massive import, maintenance task or faulty module can change the load without greatly increasing visitor numbers. Ask which indicators are available to identify this situation and which measures require a higher plan.

Prepare a reassessment threshold per project: space consumption, saturation reported by the host, quota overages or repeated incidents. This does not mean enabling arbitrary limits. Start by observing panel information and accessible logs, without automatically installing another plugin. If a site becomes a store or critical service, reassess its requirements instead of treating it as small simply because it still occupies one slot.

Make a workable decision and keep an exit route

For management by client account, first examine the organization of lunes or packages. For site-centered management, compare roles, restoration and client handover in agency consoles. For Infomaniak, check that the five separate hosting spaces are indeed included in the selected quote. A plan with an unknown essential condition is not ready to purchase, even if it appears in this documentary selection.

Before paying, confirm the configuration, taxes, region and additional costs. Before migrating, keep the originals and define a validation and rollback procedure. After installation, plan permission checks and a controlled restoration on a non-critical project. The right result is not an account filled with five domains: it is a portfolio where each client has an identifiable scope that can be recovered and handed over without taking the others along.