Inspry, a custom WordPress and WooCommerce development agency, searched for a reliable hosting solution to handle extreme traffic spikes during a client’s product launches and TV campaigns. After rigorous testing, Inspry chose Pressable, as the tests revealed it was the only hosting provider capable of scaling under heavy load out of the box while also providing cost savings and operational efficiency.
Inspry’s challenges
Inspry’s e-commerce client, Gama Sonic, is a top manufacturer of solar-powered lighting solutions that relies on its WooCommerce site for online sales. Their site struggled during high-profile marketing events. During these events, their previous hosting provider failed to support traffic surges—up to 3,500 concurrent users—causing site crashes, lost sales, and a poor user experience. Despite Inspry’s extensive optimization efforts, including database and PHP improvements, caching enhancements, and custom coding, the hosting environment failed to deliver reliable scalability.
The need for a new hosting provider became critical—one that could support thousands of concurrent users without requiring constant manual intervention or costly server upgrades.
Evaluating hosting solutions
Inspry conducted an in-depth evaluation of multiple hosting providers, including Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine, Convesio, Rocket.net, SiteGround, and Nexcess.
Their criteria focused on:
- The ability to handle thousands of concurrent users engaging in resource-heavy, non-cached actions like cart additions and checkouts
- Real-world load testing using Loadster.app
- Day-to-day speed benchmarking with GTmetrix
- Cost-effectiveness, particularly during peak traffic events
Loadster scaling test process
- Initial test: Conducted on each host with 300–500 bots to evaluate site stability.
- Main test: Scaled up to 2,500–5,000 bots based on initial test performance:
- 2,000–3,750 bots simulating cart abandonment
- 500–1,250 bots completing transactions
- Load test duration: 10-minute tests, structured as follows:
- Aggressive ramp-up: 5 minutes
- Peak load: 3 minutes
- Gradual ramp-down: 2 minutes
- Bot interactions: Simulated real user behavior, including:
- Navigating static and dynamic site pages
- Adding products to carts
- Filtering products
- Browsing blog posts and other site content
Pressable entered the evaluation process based on positive industry feedback, especially for WooCommerce sites facing viral traffic spikes. After rigorous testing, Pressable stood out as the only provider capable of handling more than 5,000 concurrent users out of the box without any performance degradation. Additionally, it delivered significant cost savings compared to competitors requiring costly server upgrades to achieve similar scalability.
Hosting performance comparison: 5,000 concurrent bots
| Hosting provider | Monthly cost (USD) (Approximate at time of testing) | Max concurrent users before timeouts | % of 5,000 bots supported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pressable | $25 | 5,000 | 100% |
| Rocket.net Enterprise | $649 | 2,600 | 52% |
| Cloudways Autonomous Server | $35 | 2,500 | 50% |
| Kinsta Single 35k | $35 | 800 | 16% |
| SiteGround Cloud Super Power | $400 | 700 | 14% |
| Cloudways Flexible Vultr HF Server | $400 | 500 | 10% |
| Convesio.com | $300 | 250 | 5% |
| Nexcess Enterprise WooCommerce | $492 | 250 | 5% |
| WPEngine Essentials | $25 | 100 | 2% |
Key takeaways
- Pressable was the only provider to handle 100% of concurrent traffic (5,000 bots) without timeouts using out-of-the-box settings.
- Rocket.net and Cloudways Autonomous Server performed relatively well, supporting more than 50% of traffic before experiencing issues.
- Most mid-tier and high-cost hosting options (e.g., SiteGround, Kinsta, Cloudways Flexible) supported between 10% and 16% of traffic before timeouts.
- Lower-performing hosts like WP Engine Essentials, Convesio, and Nexcess struggled, supporting 5% or less of total concurrent bots.
These results reflect testing on a single site with a specific configuration and should be interpreted accordingly. All tests utilized publicly available hosting plans chosen for their capacity to support up to 5,000 concurrent visitors. Selections were made independently of worker limits, except in cases where instant one-click scaling or upgrades were available to replicate real-world scaling needs. Hosting support was only contacted when necessary for setup, and each provider’s recommended caching plugin and configuration were applied. The goal was to measure out-of-the-box scaling performance, though results may vary with further optimizations or custom configurations.
The solution: The Pressable experience
It was clear that Pressable was the best option for Inspry and its clients.
The migration to Pressable was easy and smooth, thanks to Pressable’s migration plugin. Once live, Gama Sonic’s WooCommerce store achieved:
- Superior performance and stability: The site maintained 100% uptime during high-traffic events, eliminating downtime-related revenue loss.
- Simplified site management: Features like built-in staging, robust caching without third-party plugins, and an intuitive control panel reduced Inspry’s administrative overhead.
- Automated load balancing: Pressable’s infrastructure ensured redundancy and reliability without requiring manual scaling or server configuration changes.
- Operational efficiency: With fewer hosting-related support issues, Inspry’s team could focus on strategic development rather than troubleshooting server performance.
Inspry was so impressed by Pressable that it migrated not just Gama Sonic’s site but hundreds of client sites as well. This ensured every client benefited from the unmatched service, speed, and reliability that only Pressable offers.
Results: Business impact
The switch to Pressable delivered transformative benefits:
- Scalability: WooCommerce stores handled extreme traffic without
any downtime.
- Enhanced reliability: A stable shopping experience during peak events boosted customer trust and sales.
- Efficiency and ease of use: Developer-friendly tools like Git integration, staging environments, and automatic caching streamlined workflows.
- Cost savings: Pressable’s pricing model saved thousands of dollars in hosting costs while outperforming competitors.
- Client satisfaction: Hosting-related support tickets dropped dramatically, reinforcing client confidence in Inspry’s solutions.
Looking ahead
Pressable is now an essential part of Inspry’s hosting strategy, allowing the agency to deliver high-performance WooCommerce solutions without scalability concerns. With Pressable’s unmatched scalability and reliability, Inspry is expanding its WooCommerce offerings, ensuring every client—whether an enterprise brand or a fast-growing retailer—can handle high-traffic events seamlessly.
By leveraging Pressable, agencies can future-proof their WooCommerce projects, optimize operational efficiency, and provide clients with a hosting solution that delivers when it matters most.
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