IONOS review October 2024: Features, pricing, integrations and more

IONOS is generally well-liked with the majority of customer reviews reaching the five-star level. With all this considered, how well would IONOS work for your company? In this guide we’re going to walk you through the IONOS experience, focusing on features, the best plans, and which companies the host is best suited for.

IONOS

Introductory price:	Starting at $4 per month (with a three-year term)
Renewal price for same plan:	$6 per month
Discounted rates for longer terms?	Yes

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Pros and Cons

Pros

• Unlimited storage for multiple plans
• Free domain for first year
• Daily backups available

Cons

• Limited email options
• No free migration offered
• Shared hosting speeds are slow

Who is IONOS good for?

IONOS is suitable for small businesses working with limited budgets. This is due to the fact that the provider delivers a free domain for a year. This saves smaller companies that expense, and domain extensions, such as .us, .ca, .me, and .info are all available in addition to the more traditional .com and .net variations. The free domain is available and must be redeemed upon signing the contract but not having to pay for this period is advantageous to companies without large budgets. Additionally, the base-level plan includes accommodations for a single website, which is ideal for new companies. The site provides 10GB of storage, 10 databases, and secure sockets layer (SSL) safeguarding for up to 10,000 subdomains, which is useful for companies needing extensive security without any extra monetary investment. IONOS is also reliable; with a 99.99% uptime agreement, your site is guaranteed to be online for all but about 52 minutes per year.

Who shouldn’t use IONOS?

While IONOS is a fairly strong provider for solopreneurs and small businesses, it might not be the best solution for businesses looking for a stable pricing structure. For example, if you are using an earlier version of PHP on your sites, the hosting company will charge you for PHP Extended Support. This gets expensive very quickly, especially if you’re running a version as early as PHP 4.0, which is almost an additional $20 per month. The plans covered here are shared hosting plans, which are the cheapest form of hosting as multiple sites run through a single data center. Despite the low cost, shared hosting means shared resources, which can equate to reduced site performance compared to a dedicated hosting plan. Sharing resources also may lead to heightened security issues, especially compared to an AMD- or Intel-based dedicated host. As a result, if you need performance and stronger security for enterprise-grade sites, it might be better to choose a dedicated host, which is also offered by IONOS.

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IONOS pricing & plan overview

IONOS has a four-tiered plan structure that accommodates from a single website to unlimited. As with most web hosts, each plan has an increasing number of available websites and storage options. Each plan also comes with a 36-month deal that decreases the price by 33%, 37%, 50%, and 43%, respectively.

Best IONOS plan for small businesses: Plus

While Essential is a great option for those businesses on a limited budget, for most businesses, the Plus plan is going to have the most value. Comparing the two, you’ll notice that the Essential plan is about $2 cheaper per month but, with this plan, you’re limited to a single website. This is fine for most users, but if you’re planning to increase your number of websites within three years, Plus starts to come out ahead definitively.

With the Plus plan, you’ll be paying $6 per month for the first three years. Afterward, this goes up to $12 per month. With this plan, you’re able to create and host unlimited websites, create unlimited databases, and utilize enhanced central processing unit (CPU) and memory resources. You’re also allotted unlimited storage, which is simply unavailable with Essential where you’re only granted 10GB of storage. Site performance is better with Plus, which uses enhanced level 2 service. To enhance your performance level, you’ll have to pay for the increase.

Other services IONOS offers 

In addition to its blanket shared hosting services, IONOS also provides several hosting-related services and cloud services for small business and enterprise customers:

• Cloud services: In addition to shared and dedicated hosting, IONOS offers cloud services that have eight servers in North America and Europe. 
• Dedicated hosting: In addition to shared hosting services, IONOS provides AMD- and Intel Xeon-based dedicated servers. Each offers application programming interface (API) control and free unlimited traffic. 
• Free domains: IONOS offers a free domain for a year when signing up for every plan tier. After this, prices range between $15 and $80 per year for rarer domains, such as .io.
• Free SSL certificates: IONOS uses Wildcard SSL certificates that create secure connections. These protect your domain and up to 10,000 subdomains. 
• Free email: With each plan tier, you’re provided an email account with a 2GB inbox. This email account will include your domain name.
• Daily backup and recovery: IONOS provides daily backup and recovery for storage and databases. Additionally, each plan features data recovery services if they are needed.

The IONOS platform and customer support 

The control panel for IONOS isn’t the most user-friendly. While many hosts use a traditional cPanel-style of user interface (UI), IONOS has a more proprietary option, which will take some adjustment time for most users. For example, the section for security solutions for each site is placed in a hidden drop-down, and if you didn’t know where it was, it would take some time to find. This resolves relatively quickly once you’ve sat down with the dashboard, but the learning curve might be off-putting for some business owners without a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of a hosting platform.

Customer support for IONOS is offered 24/7 through email, chat, and phone. If you would like to talk to a representative, there are 14 different phone numbers available in different countries so that you can communicate in your preferred language. You can make an appointment up to four days in advance, and the callback typically occurs at the beginning of your scheduled time slot.

Is IONOS secure?

Despite a great uptime agreement that ensures less than an hour of yearly downtime, it’s somewhat worrying that only one of IONOS’s georedundant servers is run by the company. This server is based in Lenexa, Kansas, and provides shared hosting and cloud services for IONOS-hosted sites. While the other servers are globally located in places, such as Frankfurt, Germany, and Logroño, Spain, each is run by a third-party data center owner and is used for its cloud services, not its shared hosting plans. 

With that being said, IONOS does have some key security features for small businesses. IONOS uses security modules called ModSecurity rules to detect and prevent harmful requests to web pages. These rules reject and even ban most problematic requests. Additionally, IONOS uses a built-in antivirus scanner to prevent harmful files from damaging your site. Other underlying technologies, such as Fail2ban for Linux operating systems block brute-force attacks. 

IONOS user reviews

Reviews for IONOS are mostly positive with a rating of 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot. Overall, the customer service is exceptional with fast response times and the ability to resolve issues. Many enjoy the lower introductory price of the service as well as the stability of the platform. Negative reviews mentioned representatives being pushy with upselling and issues during the initial launching of new sites. Some users also expressed that they had to deal with occasional billing issues.

Compare IONOS alternatives

IONOS: Essential	HostGator: Hatchling Plan	InMotion: Core
Starting price per month (first 3 years)	Starting price per month (first 3 years)	Starting price per month (first 3 years)
$4 per month	$2.75 per month	$2.69 per month
Free trial available?	Free trial available?	Free trial available?
No	No	No
Storage (in GB)	Storage (in GB)	Storage (in GB)
10GB	10GB	10GB
Unlimited bandwidth?	Unlimited bandwidth?	Unlimited bandwidth?
Yes	Yes	Yes
Learn more	Learn more	Learn more
View offer at IONOS	View offer at HostGator

IONOS vs. HostGator

Both hosting providers offer 24/7 customer service via chat, phone, and email. Both offer a free domain for the first year, unlimited bandwidth, and 10GB of storage for its first tier. IONOS does upgrade the storage to unlimited at the third tier while HostGator’s top tier still only offers 50GB. When it comes to business emails, HostGator doesn’t limit the number of emails available while IONOS only provides one.

IONOS vs. InMotion

When it comes to pricing, both of these providers offer competitive rates. The renewal price of IONOS is $6 for the base tier while InMotion is $9.99. However, InMotion offers a 90-day guarantee, with IONOS’s guarantee being only 30 days. Both offer a free domain, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage at higher tiers.

Is IONOS right for you?

IONOS is a strong solution for businesses looking for a cheap and easy shared web host. Its Plus plan is an inexpensive $6 per month for a full three years and offers several key features for free. In addition to this, having a 99.99% service-level agreement (SLA) also makes it one of the more reliable web hosts on the market. IONOS also has excellent customer service that’s available 24/7. Overall, this is a good solution If you’re a small business in need of an inexpensive shared hosting provider.

Frequently asked questions