iPage: Cheap and Dirty

In a way, we love how straightforward iPage is.

I mean $1.99 a month for hosting?

That's almost free.

I mean that's pretty affordable.

You can't expect the world from a host this cheap and if you do, c'mon.

Founded in 1998, iPage is a web hosting company that was acquired by Endurance International Group (EIG) in 2009. The company is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. (The boring facts you may want to know).

Now the exciting stuff – is it worth it?

How Good is iPage Hosting?

iPage is not particularly fast or reliable, its features can be confusing, and its customer service isn't world-class.

But that said, they are incredibly cheap. At $1.99/month for their most basic plan (for the first 12 months), it is hard to complain too much about any deficiencies in service. We would almost always recommend paying a bit more for better a better product, but if your budget is super tight, then iPage may just be the host you need. Just be prepared to manage your expectations.

Our Expert iPage Hosting Review

Chances are you were turned on to iPage because of their insanely cheap introductory pricing of $1.99/month for shared hosting.

Wow – that's pretty bonkers.

For less than one tall latte a month, you're getting a server halfway across the country that is going to house your website for you 24/7, manned by expert technicians.

Seriously, this is some cheap hosting.

iPage Web Hosting Features Table

Go Plan Starting Price	$1.99/month
Feature 1	Unlimited storage
Feature 2	Unlimited storage
Feature 3	FREE SSL certificate
Feature 4	FREE domain for a year
Feature 5	FREE standard email address
Feature 6	FREE website builder
Feature 7	24/7 support
Feature 8	Unlimited disk space
Feature 9	Scalable bandwidth
Feature 10	Unlimited domain names
Feature 11	Unlimited MySQL databases
Feature 12	Free SSL certificate
Feature 13	Free domain for 1 year*

Certainly, super low pricing is as good a reason as any to purchase a hosting plan.

It's up to you as a consumer to determine the value of the product. And it's up to us to help you weigh the pros and cons! In short, we think iPage leaves a lot to be desired in terms of speed, reliability, and support. But with a bunch of unlimited features and web-building tools that are perfect for beginners, that cheap introductory pricing may just make this package exactly what you're looking for.

Best Features of iPage Hosting

There are definite upsides to hosting with iPage beyond the super cheap introductory pricing, but let's start there.

1) iPage Pricing is Stupid Cheap (with a 3-year commitment)

While most standards shared hosting plans fall in the $4-12/month range, signing up with iPage costs just $1.99 per month for the first 3 years of hosting. This puts them in the same price point as WebHostingPad ($1.99/month, even after the first 12 months), though we are happy to report that iPage's services are more reliable.

This intro offer lures in tons of customers, but these customers may not be so stoked once those first 36 months are up. The Essential Plan is their only shared hosting plan, and it rockets up to $7.99/month in the 4th year, which puts them squarely on in the average range shared hosting spectrum.

However, if you're testing short-term projects, iPage may actually be a good fit. By the time the first period is up, you'll have a good idea of whether you're happy enough to continue on with their services.

Plus, iPage actually lets you pay monthly, whereas too many hosts advertise their month-to-month pricing but ask for a year's, two years', or three years payment upfront. Compared to paying a year upfront for 1and1, or three years upfront for DreamHost, the month-to-month billing of iPage is hugely refreshing for the commitment-phobes out there.

2) Unlimited Domains under One Account

iPage allows you to have unlimited domains registered under a single account. On top of that, they give you one free domain when you sign up as a new user. From there, you’re free to add as many domains under one roof as you want. To take this feature even further, you can have as many subdomains under each domain as you want.

There are many people who are in the business of flipping domains. To do that, domains must be purchased and parked. iPage is aware of this business model and allows you to park as many domains as you see fit.

And at $1.99 per month, the more domains you host, the sweeter that deal becomes. Your cost per domain could become pretty much negligible.

3) iPage Security Options are Solid

Every iPage hosting plan comes equipped with SiteLock security software. SiteLock does everything you need out of a basic security plugin, including firewalls, malware scanning and removal, and DDoS protection, and will even work to get you removed from blacklists. Plus, you'll get free daily backups that are free to restore. This is a very nice bonus that too many companies charge for. With another EIG-owned company, HostGator, backups are only made weekly and they charge you $15 to restore.

4) Third-Party Apps Supported + Freebies

iPage integrates with a ton of familiar third-party apps in a seamless way, making them an excellent choice for beginners. You can easily include apps like Google Analytics, Paypal, and WordPress and the installation process is straightforward. This probably isn't something that will sway experienced developers and webmasters who make a living setting up these things, but we applaud iPage for making the process non-intimidating for the uninitiated.

Plus, signing up with iPage includes a bunch of advertising credits for Google, Yahoo, and Bing; a nice perk, to be sure.

5) Beginner-Friendly Drag-And-Drop Site Building Tools

iPage hosting plans include Weebly website builder, which is a super easy and intuitive drag-and-drop method for making a website layout. While you don't need to know CSS to download a free WordPress theme, many novice webmasters would rather have the ability to manually make live changes to their website's layout. Including Weebly in their platform makes iPage a great choice for webmasters who aren't super tech savvy but do want to exercise a certain amount of control over the design of their site.

We interrupt this message with a data dump of all features.

Downsides of iPage Hosting

Most of these downsides are difficult to complain about if you're considering only the introductory pricing. But if you plan on staying with iPage for more than a year, pay careful attention to these issues. They will persist even after your hosting plan has risen by 600%.

1) Very Slow Page Load Times

iPage scores in the bottom third of all web hosts we've reviewed for page load times, with average scores between 1,100 and 1,600ms (compared to the industry average of 700ms). And this is no small deal. Staggering numbers of visitors will bounce from your page if it fails to load quickly, which is a complete killer if you need them to spend money on your site.

This should be given careful consideration if you're considering hosting your site with iPage. If you're really into that introductory pricing, we'd recommend 1and1 Hosting instead, which has an even cheaper ($.99/month) intro package and page load times closer to average. But if you really prioritize speed, we'd recommend looking into DreamHost (whose monthly pricing is similar to iPage's renewal rates) or A2 Hosting (the fastest on the market, with competitive pricing).

2) Below Average Uptime

In addition to slow loading speeds, iPage is among the less reliable options available in terms of uptime. While the industry standard is 99.99% uptime (translating to 8.76 hours of downtime per year), iPage is down nearly three times as often as most other hosts on the market. This is terrible news for eCommerce sites, or really any site that converts visitors into cash.

Downtime like this is a red flag for any host that claims to offer unlimited domains and disk space. If their servers can't even stay up reliably, then there is no way that their hardware is strong enough for you to ever be able to take advantage of “unlimited” space. In theory, you may never cap out, but only because the delivery would be so slow you'd never even have the chance to hit a limit.

3) No Privately Registered Domains

We were surprised to find that you were unable to privately register domains with iPage hosting. What doubled our surprise was the fact that so many other hosting companies give you this ability. Without the ability to privately register your domains, you cannot avoid a listing in the WHOIS database. This makes your entire operation much more susceptible to spammers or other unwanted entities who can easily and readily obtain your contact details from the database.

4) iPage Customer Service Experiences Tons of Interruptions

While we are happy to report that iPage customer service is quite friendly and helpful in our interactions with them, be prepared to be put on hold. In both online chat and on the phone, connection delays and interruptions are frequent, and sometimes simple questions can take up to 20 minutes to receive a satisfactory answer.

iPage hosts over a million websites and customer reviews of them are plentiful. As with many companies acquired by EIG, there tends to be a marked surge in complaints relating to customer service after the acquisition. Proceed with that knowledge as you will.

5) Uses vDesk instead of cPanel

While cPanel is by no means perfect, it is the industry standard for a reason. With a plethora of resources online about how to make the most of it and seamless transfers between hosts who use it, it's an easy choice for web hosting. Unfortunately, iPage uses vDesk as their backend dashboard instead. vDeck is clunkier and less intuitive, and also has fewer resources readily available online to help you troubleshoot. Given the pricey renewal rates iPage charges, it is a bit irksome that cPanel doesn't come standard. Even ultra-cheap WebHostingPad offers cPanel.

6) They Really only do Shared Hosting

Look, they do offer some other plans, like VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting – but really their whole site's focus is to get you into that sweet cheap $3.75/mo plan.

iPage WordPress Hosting Pricing Table

Plan	WP Starter	WP Essential
Price	$3.75/mo	$6.95/mo
No. of Websites	1	Unlimited
Free SSL Certificate	Included	Included
Domain Registration	Free 1 year	Free 1 year
Storage Space	Unlimited	Unlimited
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited
Feature 1	Pre-installed themes & plugins	Pre-installed themes & plugins
Feature 2	24/7 WordPress support	24/7 WordPress support
Feature 3	N/A	Automatic malware removal
Feature 4	N/A	SiteLock professional security

This a small attempt at WordPress hosting.

As you can see above, they kiiiindddaa try to offer WordPress hosting.

But their heart isn't into it.

Bottom Line:

iPage markets for beginners, and they really do a great job making sure that novice webmasters have all of the tools they need to get a working website up and running.

And with such low introductory pricing, it is no wonder that so many people are eager to hop on board with their services. But in the long run, the steep renewal rates are not worth the level of services offered. There are hosts with better customer service, speeds, uptime, and features for a fraction of iPage's standard monthly price.

Sure, they may not be quite as cheap upon signing up, but we strongly recommend paying a bit more to avoid long-term frustrations.

Our recommendation? You can still get bottom-dollar pricing for the first 3 years with SiteGround – and get exceptionally better features.

iPage Hosting Questions & Answers

What is iPage hosting?

iPage Hosting is a web hosting service provider that provides users with the tools they need to create an online presence for their company. It has many robust and up-to-date features to help build websites, allowing business leaders to better market and grow their companies in today’s digital world.

What are iPage Hosting’s key features?

iPage hosting has many key features, including

• A free”.com” domain for your company’s website
• 24/7 customer service and technical support
• Unlimited traffic to your website, emails, and DBs
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Free daily backups
• WordPress Integration

How many people are using iPage hosting?

As of now, iPage hosting is hosting over one million websites for people and companies worldwide.

What special features do I get when making an account with iPage hosting?

Making an account with iPage hosting will get web developers, marketers, or business leaders many special benefits, perks, and privileges. Plans with iPage hosting come with a full set of special features that are designed to not only help build websites but to nurture a company’s growth in the digital business landscape. In other words, accounts and plans with iPage hosting will both build and market a company’s website in a variety of ways and for different types of online businesses, such as boosting search engine credits and rankings that will improve daily drives of traffic, and helping e-commerce businesses grow by building free online stores for them.

An account or plan with iPage hosting includes core features such as:

• Unlimited disk space
• Scalable bandwidth
• An unlimited number of domain names allowed
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Free domain for over a year (up to $14.99 in value)

Other sets of special features that come with an account on iPage hosting include:

• Designing and building tools
• Up to 6 pages in the Weebly Website Builder website development program
• Optimized site builder that works for mobile devices
• One-click installation for WordPress
• Hundreds of themes and templates to choose from
• Hosting utilities and settings
• FileManager
• FTP Manager
• Secure FTP
• Custom error pages
• Marketing the website
• $100 Google Adwords offer (only for the U.S.)
• $100 in search credit for Bing
• Free listing on YellowPages.com
• One toll-free phone number (only for the U.S.)
• Access to hundreds of online marketing guides
• Online selling
• Works with e-commerce websites
• Free online store for retailers
• Easy one-click installation
• PayPal integration
• AgoraCart shopping cart
• Email management: sending and receiving
• The customizable email address that comes with your web domain
• Check email online or through mobile devices with Webmail
• Email forwarding
• World-class and up-to-date technology
• Enhanced security suite with a value of up to $100
• vDeck control panel
• 24/7 network monitoring
• Visitor statistics
• Site traffic reporting
• Customer service and technical support
• Ticketing center and online help center
• Step-by-step tutorials
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• 24/7 phone and chat support

How fast and easy is it to build a website on iPage hosting?

It is very fast and easy to build a website on iPage hosting. Web developers, marketers, and business leaders can quickly build websites using easy-to-use, drag-and-drop web development and design programs like Weebly Website Builder. They can also attract more visitors and build more traffic to their website with a full and comprehensive marketing suite, and the fully-loaded hosting even comes with one free domain name registration to make the whole process of choosing and building a domain much less complicated and stressful.

How much does it cost to sign up for a plan or account with iPage hosting?

Signing up for an account and plan with iPage hosting is surprisingly affordable as far as website hosting plans and providers go. Normally, iPage hosting comes with a regular monthly subscription fee of $11.95 per month but as of right now, iPage hosting is offering an online discount of up to $1.99 per month.

How can the customer service and technical support teams at iPage hosting help me with building my website or figuring out their service?

iPage hosting is backed up by a special and award-winning team of skilled web development and web hosting service experts who can assist company web developers, marketers, and business leaders meet any challenge when it comes to building, developing, and designing their websites and marketing and growing their products, brands, or services online. iPage hosting’s customer service and technical support teams can assist users with just about anything from account and domain management to website design, from figuring out how to best utilize available SEO marketing tools to how to market through email, and so much more. They can be reached at 877-472-4399.

I am a small business owner. Can iPage hosting help me grow my small business?

iPage hosting can help any kind of business grow, whether big or small. But small business owners and managers get special benefits since small businesses need the most help with growing their business. iPage hosting understands that for small business owners, websites are often the first (and most pivotal) means of connecting with potential customers and that building a strong online presence is how they can go from small to big, which is why iPage hosting provides up-to-date and world-class content creation and other web development and online marketing tools for small business owners. Through these content creation tools, iPage hosting will help small business owners create content that is clear, effective, and aligned with their company’s vision, voice, goals, and mission so that they can more effectively build a strong and compelling online business that will attract potential customers, make them more connected, and ultimately help them grow and market their business online.

What will happen if I decide to cancel my account or plan with iPage hosting?

If you do decide to cancel your account or subscription plan with iPage hosting, then it is important to note that the introductory prices that are listed for these accounts and subscription plans are only for the first term of service and will therefore automatically renew at whatever the regular rate is. If a person or company has registered a free domain through iPage hosting, and they decide they want to cancel their account, then they will have to pay a non-refundable $15 domain fee if they wish to still keep their domain.

Does iPage host offer both Windows- and Linux-based web hosting services?

No, iPage hosting only offers Linux-based web hosting services.

Does iPage hosting offer managed or dedicated web hosting servers

iPage hosting provides both fully managed and dedicated web server hosting services.

I am a student, or I run a school or non-profit organization. Does iPage host offer special discounts or other services and subscription plans for me?

No, the discounts, promotions, and other subscription plan features and details are general and universal. They will be the same for students, schools, and non-profit organizations as they are for experienced business leaders or more traditional commercial businesses and services.

How many email addresses can iPage hosting support?

Under the general TOS, iPage hosting allows unlimited email addresses and accounts as well as unlimited storage space on their fully managed and dedicated web hosting servers, which means that you can host and manage multiple websites for multiple companies on a single server, or with multiple domains (since the domains are also unlimited) without ever having to worry about running out of storage space or email addresses and accounts that you can build, develop, and manage through iPage hosting.

Does iPage hosting offer monthly services or just a minimum contract?

iPage hosting offers monthly subscription plans without any type of contract, including minimum contracts. However, it is important to note that iPage hosting will offer better prices for longer service terms.

Does iPage host offer Virtual Private Server, or VPS, services?

Yes, iPage hosting offers Virtual Private Server or VPS services with a wide variety of options that are built and designed to satisfy any customer’s needs, no matter how unique or complex.

What languages are offered by iPage hosting’s customer service and technical support, and which programming languages do their services support?

Although it is a web hosting service provider serving websites from all over the world, iPage hosting only offers the English language when it comes to customer service and technical support. As for programming languages, iPage hosting’s platform and services support both PHP and Perl.

Where is iPage hosting headquartered and where are their data centers located?

Although it is a global web hosting platform, iPage hosting is based in the United States with its headquarters located in Burlington, Massachusetts. Also, their data centers, which are all cutting edge, are all located and run in Boston, Massachusetts, which is not too far from the town of Burlington.

Does iPage hosting have any reseller options that are available to them?

Depending on what clients are specifically looking for, iPage hosting does offer a wide variety of reseller options for web hosting programs that are available to all customers, regardless of their specific subscription plans or the type and size of their businesses.

Will iPage hosting’s customer service and technical support teams be able to help me with transferring an existing website or domain name to their services?

While iPage hosting’s customer service and technical support teams are able to assist customers in fully moving any files for self-migration, they, however, will not be able to fully assist them for the whole process since iPage hosting does not currently have any available and specialized website and domain name migration services. However, iPage hosting’s customer service and technical support teams will be able to offer support, a forum, and sufficient knowledgebase for further assistance during the migration process itself.

What programs does iPage hosting support?

iPage hosting’s domains and servers support WordPress and Joomla, although, for Joomla, files will have to be personally and manually migrated (fortunately, assistance can be quickly and easily found through the customer service and technical support teams, forums, and available online tutorials). iPage hosting does not support Magento, but customers can still install Magento as the prerequisites for Magento installation are available on their platform. iPage hosting is also a suitable host for e-commerce websites since they offer many features specific to e-commerce websites such as SSL, shopping carts, and payment processing through secure sites like PayPal.

What kind of payment options does iPage offer and what types of payment will they accept?

iPage hosting accepts major credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. They also accept payments through PayPal.

Is iPage hosting secure? How secure is iPage hosting?

Yes, iPage hosting is very secure and safe to use. iPage hosting offers an “enhanced security suite” feature for all of their plans, products, and services. No matter what their type of account or subscription plan is, customers will never have to worry about their domains being compromised, websites being hacked, or any other cyber-security threats and breaches through iPage hosting.

Will iPage hosting pro-rate for downtime and do they have an uptime guarantee?

iPage hosting does offer money-back guarantees based on customer satisfaction but they do not explicitly limit this to uptime.

How does iPage hosting compare to other web hosting service platforms and providers?

When compared with their web hosting platform provider competitors—SiteGround, BlueHost, Arvixe, Inmotion hosting, DreamHost, and A2 Hosting—iPage hosting compares very well as it is one of the top-rated and best-reviewed website hosting platform providers among customers.

Is it possible to host a website that is image-heavy on iPage hosting?

Yes, it is possible to host a very visual or image-heavy website through iPage hosting, thanks to its unlimited bandwidth and disk space policy.

Last Updated on April 18, 2019

How to Sign Up: iPage Onboarding Walkthrough

If this is your first time signing up for web hosting, it can be quite intimidating. Thankfully we've put together this guide with screenshots of the iPage onboarding and signup process.

One of the things iPage has focused on recently is making their signup experience painless and pleasant. Let's take a look if they do it well.

Step 1 – Choose your Free iPage Domain

Step 2 – Domain is Available – Move On to Next Step

Step 3 – Choose Hosting Length – 3 Years for the Best Deal

Step 4 – There are Some Annoying Add-Ons – Deselect what you don't Need

Step 5 – Cheapest View with No Add-Ons

Step 6 – Daily Site Backup and Restore – Actually Recommend This

Step 7 – With Website Builder – Probably Not Needed – Use Elementor Instead

Step 8 – Almost Fully Loaded – Lots of Upsells!

Step 9 – Fully Loaded is 4x the Cost You Expected – This is $7.80/month Now!

Step 10 – Once You're Done, Pay Up and Get Started!