IONOS Review

flag 1st year free domain
  • 30-day money back guarantee

  • Dedicated 24/7 customer support

  • Built-in SEO tools

  • No coding required

Pros & Cons

  • Over 400 templates
  • 24/7 customer support via multiple channels
  • Web personalization
  • Dragging elements outside of predefined positions
  • Email marketing tool limited to 300 messages

Plans & Pricing

The company has a variety of pricing plans to give their customer the choice to choose exactly what they need.

Below is an overview of the website builder prices.

Starter

This plan is $1/month for the first six months with a one-year term, and then increases to $12/month. It’s focused on beginners who don’t have web development experience. It comes with a simple canvas to build on with pre-set styles, the ability to customize fonts, color palette editing, a free domain, and an email inbox.

Plus

The Plus plan costs $1/month for six months with a one-year term then increases to $18/month. It gives you more control over the editing experience. It comes with over 400 templates, social media tools, scheduling software, customer review widgets, code editing a mobile app, and advanced page editing capabilities.

Pro

Pro is $17/month for 6 months then increases to $30/month. It gives customers access to personalization tools that can be activated based on rules such as location, device, or time of day. You can also access SEO tutorials, multilingual websites, sell through marketplaces, and start using the basic email marketing functions.

Starter
$12/mo
Plus
$18/mo
Pro
$30/mo

Overview

IONOS by 1&1 is a pioneer in the web hosting space. It was founded in 1988 as a simple hosting company but has since expanded its focus to include domain registration, email marketing, and a website builder. Today, it’s one of the largest companies of its type in the world with over eight million freelance, small business, and medium business customers.

Rating

  • "Price"
    9 /10
  • "Features"
    9 /10
  • "Ease of Use"
    8 /10
  • "Help and Support"
    8 /10

Features & Functionality

The IONOS by 1&1 website builder has a large collection of features for beginners and experts alike. It has an image editor to help you present your products in the best light, 17,000+ stock images, responsive sites, a drag-and-drop editor, multiple design elements, and so much more.

Email Marketing

Get access to an email campaign builder to send out messages to your contacts. It comes with multiple templates and they’re mobile-optimized right out the gate. It provides insightful reports to help you optimize your campaigns and you can even A/B test messages until you find the right ones.

Mobile App

A mobile app allows you to make simple changes to your website on the fly and monitor key statistics so you’ll always be in the loop. You can even add products and set them live while on the go.

Website Personalization

It has a library of personalization templates you can use to build your own campaigns. You can set rules for your campaign, target based on time, location, the device being used, and even the number of visits someone has made to your website.

Invoices & Taxes

If you’re handy with HTML you can make changes to the invoices so they show more specific information related to the order. Taxes are automatically added to orders based on the location or manual settings you provide.

Design & Templates

The IONOS by 1&1 website builder has one of the largest libraries of templates. Over 400 of them are available and they span various categories like health & beauty, professional services, blogs, retail & commerce, arts, transportation, and more.

Most of the templates themselves are well-designed and will help you create a professional-looking website in short order. Some of them do look a bit dated and could use a refresh. Of course, they’re all mobile responsive. The good thing is that they’re fully customizable. You can change the colors, add new elements, move sections around, and even change the template if you’re not happy with the final product.

Ease of Use

When you get into the actual editor, you may feel overwhelmed at first. That’s because there are a lot of options to customize and enhance your website. After the initial shock, you’ll find that it’s easy to use because the interface is well-thought-out.

The first step is to choose a template then you can start adding pages, choosing your settings, and everything in between. These things are simple to do and the only place you may get tripped up is the way it handles dragging and dropping elements.

Your content is arranged in sections. Any element you have on the page has to go inside one of these sections and it snaps into place. That means you can’t shift something a few pixels to the left, right, up, or down. You can only put them in the section and move them to predefined places. This means your website will look good in most cases but it does limit your design flexibility.

Customer Support

It offers support via multiple channels and is available around the clock. When you contact the support team, they’re usually knowledgeable and can help you solve most problems associated with your account.

  • 24/7 Help & Support
    24/7 support is provided to all customers but you do need a support pin before you can access it.
  • Phone Support
    Phone support is provided around the clock for all customers.
  • Live Online Chat
    Live chat is available for customers between 8 AM and 8 PM.
  • Email
    Email support is available around the clock and it usually takes less than a 24 hours to get a response.
  • Video Tutorials
    There are multiple video tutorials on the official YouTube channel.
  • FAQ
    It provides a FAQ section that answers common questions related to the specific product you’re looking at. There is also a knowledgebase to handle implementation questions and technical issues.
  • Blog
    The company has a blog that it updates frequently with company news, product tutorials, and general online business tips.

Final Word

Since 1988, IONOS by 1&1 has made major strides in the website building and hosting space. Today, it has a powerful tool that has a nice balance between ease of use and customizability. It comes with email marketing, web personalization, integrations with third-party marketplaces, and a simple drag and drop editor. There are no obvious limits on bandwidth and storage which means the solution scales with you.

One drawback is that the editing capabilities don’t allow you to move elements down to the pixel. This is due to the tradeoff between catering to experts and beginners. If that’s not a major concern for you then the affordable pricing and round-the-clock support make this platform worth checking out.

Disclosure
This website is an informative comparison site that aims to offer its users find helpful information regarding the products and offers that will be suitable for their needs. We are able to maintain a free, high-quality service by receiving advertising fees from the brands and service providers we review on this website (though we may also review brands we are not engaged with). These advertising fees, combined with our criteria and methodology, such as the conversion rates, our team of reviewer's finding and subjective experience and product popularity, impact the placement and position of the brands within the comparison table. In the event rating or scoring are assigned by us, they are based on the position in the comparison table, or according to other formula in the event specifically detailed by us. See our How we Rate page and Terms of Use for information. The reviews, rating and scoring are provided “as-is” without guaranties or warranties regarding the information contained in our website, which shall not be considered as endorsement. We make the best efforts to keep the information up-to-date, however, an offer’s terms might change at any time. We do not compare or include all service providers, brands and offers available in the market.
Daniel Ndukwu>
Daniel Ndukwu
author

Daniel is a small business owner at large helping his peers navigate the challenges they experience on a day to day basis. His philosophy is simple, if it isn’t broken you can still make it better.

We make the best effort to present up-to-date information; however, the terms of each offer can be revised according to the service provider’s discretion. The above shall not be considered as an expert or professional advice for any matter.

User Reviews

Icon score

Overall ionos Rating

star star star star star
5
(1 Review)
Sort by:
D
star star star star star

The easiest way to get a website without any previous knowledge

Verified
A "Top 5 Verified Review" means we've verified that the person writing the review purchased and used the product.

If you are not good with technology go for this website builder, it is impossible to do something wrong.

Leave a Reply

Contact Us

Our goal is to provide answers to all of your questions so you can make a confident purchasing decision. We welcome your feedback, so please email us at service@top5networks.com with suggestions and questions. We’d love to hear from you!

Your information will be handled as detailed in our Privacy Policy