Choose WordPress storage from the space your site actually uses, the content you expect to add and the room needed to maintain it. A page count alone will not tell you whether a 5GB or 10GB plan fits. Product photographs, downloads, stored backups and email can make two apparently similar business websites very different.
If you are choosing a managed WordPress host, Krystal’s managed WordPress plans are worth comparing once you have a usage figure. Its advertised Personal and Business 1 tiers currently provide 5GB and 10GB respectively. Those are useful comparison points, but the right choice also depends on the support and recovery arrangements your business needs. Our shared versus managed WordPress hosting guide explains that wider decision.
Find your current website size first
In WordPress, go to Tools → Site Health → Info → Directories and Sizes. Let the figures finish loading. This section reports the uploads, themes and plugins directories, database and total installation size. Note the total and the date; keep the component figures to help explain what is taking up the space. Do not add the total to its components.
Next, look at disk usage in your hosting control panel or ask your provider for an account breakdown. WordPress describes its installation. The hosting account may also contain mailboxes, other websites or files outside that installation. If the two totals differ, establish what each measurement includes before comparing either with a new plan.
You can keep a useful record in three lines:
- WordPress installation: total size, largest component and date measured.
- Hosting account: total usage and any additional websites, mail or archives included.
- Proposed plan: what counts towards its allowance, and whether that allowance is per site or shared across the account.
If the site is being built from scratch, ask the designer for an estimate based on the intended content and a working build when available. “Ten pages” is too little information if one of those pages contains a growing catalogue of downloadable brochures.
Check what the hosting allowance actually covers
A headline storage figure is only comparable when its scope is clear. Use the same questions for each shortlisted plan:
- Files and database: do both use the advertised allowance, and is either subject to another limit?
- Email: are mailboxes included, separate or bought elsewhere?
- Staging: does a private test copy of the site use the same storage allowance?
- Backups: where are the host’s copies stored, and what happens to backups made by your own plugin?
- Multiple sites: is space pooled, or allocated to each installation?
- Temporary work: how much room is needed for migration, updates or restoring the site?
Krystal’s managed WordPress guidance says plugin backups should be stored off-plan and that email is a paid add-on. Do not assume an existing cPanel account containing years of mail and backup archives can be moved into the same number of gigabytes on that service. Separate the website’s requirements from the other services you need to keep.
Ask about file-count limits too. Some hosting plans restrict the number of files and directories, often described as an inode allowance. Many small files can approach that limit while leaving disk space unused. Have the provider interpret your current account’s figure rather than treating a gigabyte allowance as the only constraint.
Allow for the content you will really add
For a service website, start with the planned case studies, staff photographs and downloadable documents. For a shop, count the products you expect to add and how many photographs each needs. Use a recent representative batch of content to estimate growth; a guess based on the homepage will miss much of a catalogue.
WordPress can create several image sizes from an upload. The small image shown in a product grid is therefore not a complete measure of what is stored. An original photograph and its generated versions may all occupy space. When estimating a new product range, measure the change in the uploads directory after a sample batch has been processed.
Keep the master photographs somewhere suitable for your business, and upload versions prepared for the website. Our WooCommerce product image guide explains how to keep useful detail without sending unnecessarily large images to customers. Storage planning and page-image delivery overlap, but a large media library does not mean every visitor downloads the entire library.
Video deserves its own decision. If regular video publishing is part of the plan, compare a suitable video-hosting service with keeping those files on the web server. Consider player behaviour, access controls, cost and delivery as well as storage. Moving files elsewhere creates another service to manage; it should solve a real requirement.
A worked storage estimate
Imagine a small shop preparing to move its WordPress website. These figures are hypothetical, with all quantities expressed in the same GB units:
- Current files and database, measured together: 4.2GB.
- Expected catalogue and document growth before the next review: 2.0GB.
- Additional working space confirmed with the provider: 1.0GB.
- Estimated requirement for that period: 7.2GB.
A 5GB allowance would not accommodate that estimate. A 10GB allowance would leave 2.8GB beyond it, provided the provider counts the same things and there are no separate limits that the site exceeds. If a staging copy also counts and has not been included, the estimate is incomplete.
The 1GB working allowance is an assumption for this example, not a rule for every WordPress site. Ask what the intended migration, backup and update processes need. Similarly, choose a review period that fits the business: a shop adding hundreds of products should revisit usage sooner than a brochure site making occasional text changes.
This calculation tells you whether the space fits. It does not prove the plan can handle busy checkout periods. That is a separate question covered in our guide to hosting traffic limits and campaign preparation.
Decide whether to tidy up or buy more capacity
If the total is much larger than expected, find the cause before upgrading. A forgotten migration archive needs a different response from a product library that is growing exactly as planned.
Ask the person maintaining the site to identify large folders and explain what is safe to remove. Retain a recoverable backup elsewhere before cleanup. Check where media is used before deleting it, including page-builder layouts, custom fields and directly linked downloads. Database records need application-specific judgement too; deleting unfamiliar tables can remove working features or business records.
For a compact brochure site with a named maintainer, a modest allowance with a clear upgrade route may be enough. For an expanding shop, buy room for the planned catalogue and the processes that keep it recoverable. For a document-heavy business, review how old downloads are retained and replaced before choosing a larger plan indefinitely.
Upgrading is sensible when the stored material is needed and growth is predictable. Cleaning up is sensible when obsolete copies are consuming space. Neither decision should depend on an unsupported claim that more storage will automatically make the website faster.
Leave with a usable hosting brief
Before ordering, record the measured usage, growth estimate, quota scope, working-space requirement and next review point. Ask what happens near the limit: whether warnings are sent, which functions may be affected, how extra capacity is added and what it costs. Keep the answer with the plan details.
If you are moving an existing site, use our WordPress hosting move checklist to plan the website and email together. Do not cancel the old account merely because the new website loads.
For a Formby, Freshfield or L37 business planning a new website or a move, send Formby Web Design your website address and project outline. Usage figures and a description of the content you expect to add make a much more useful starting point than a hosting plan name alone.
Sources checked 18 October 2026: WordPress Site Health documentation, WordPress image-size generation, cPanel account statistics, Krystal managed WordPress plan details and Krystal’s managed versus shared hosting guidance.
