Editor's opinion
Lorienz Galarpe
I am a website designer and developer for over 7 years now, and I worked with several hosting companies in the past for each website project I handle.
First impression
iPage is a budget web hosting company with close to 25 years in the business, and more than a million websites on its platform.
iPage is owned and run by Newfold Digital (formerly known as Endurance International Group), the company who also owns big-name hosting competitors like Bluehost and HostGator. |
iPage has seriously cheap shared hosting, and if you just want to learn the basics, master WordPress, maybe create a simple family site, it might just be enough. But beware: it's also slow, awkward to use, with no VPS or dedicated upgrade path if your site grows, and if you've any even faintly serious web ambitions you'll be far better off elsewhere.
WebsiteBuilder is included free with all of their hosting plans, and could be the easiest way to get your site online, with no technical experience required!
Perfect for beginners, content elements (like text, photos, maps, and videos) are added to your website by simply dragging and dropping them into place. Building your website is done in real-time, right from your web browser, with no coding or plugins required.
Includes: Drag-and-Drop Website Building, 100+ Mobile-Friendly Templates, Built-in Paypal Integration, and SEO and Social Media Tools.
Trial period
iPage doesn't offer a Free trial on their services but they do offer Moneyback. If you're not satisfied with iPage, they will give you your money back. No questions asked. During the first 30 days, they'll refund your hosting fees in full.
Billing cycle
iPage offers simple, low-cost shared hosting, aimed at small, low-traffic personal and business sites. iPage's shared hosting is as simple as it gets, with just one plan. It's seriously cheap at $1.95 a month over three years ($7.99 on renewal), but still has a reasonable feature list.
You can choose to pay for their hosting service in different billing cycles which is 12 Months and/or 36 Months contract.
Control panel
iPage uses its own control panel and auto-installer tools. These are limited, with fewer features than the best alternatives, less reliable and more awkward to navigate.
Many hosts use Softaculous as an auto-installer, for instance. This can install WordPress and 150+ apps, has all kinds of options to ensure you get the setup you need, reliably installs apps (often in seconds) and can help you manage your app afterwards. iPage's installer works with WordPress and its own website builder only.
Limits
iPage's WordPress hosting plans improve on its shared hosting by preinstalling WordPress, a collection of themes and plugins, and a custom WordPress control panel. The company says its WordPress platform 'has been designed to increase load speeds by up to 2.5 times', and the premium plan ($6.95 a month initially, $10.49 on renewal) throws in specialist WordPress support, SiteLock-based security and automatic malware removal.
This is fair value - you can sometimes pay more for standard shared hosting - but the feature list is a little short. Here's a list of what you will get as per their Wordpress hosting plans:
Basic - 1 website, up to 10GB SSD Storage, Free CDN, and Free SSL.
Choice Plus - 3 websites, up to 40 GB SSD Storage, Free CDN, and Free SSL.
Online Store - 3 websites, up to 40GB SSD Storage, Online Store, Free CDN, and Free SSL
Pro - 5 websites, up to 100GB SSD Storage, Free website daily backup, Free CDN, Malware scanning, and Free SSL.
Security
One effective tool to increase your website security and build a strong web presence is iPage’s SiteLock. iPage is a US-based web hosting provider that has partnered with SiteLock, an automated cybersecurity software solution for businesses of all sizes. SiteLock scans a website to detect potential malware, viruses, and other vulnerabilities – ensuring it is protected from fast-growing cyber threats.
A website that is protected by SiteLock displays the SiteLock Trust Seal. It helps build trust and credibility among website visitors, ensuring it is secure. This also helps prevent the website from getting blacklisted by search engines.
OS
iPage hosting services offer Linux operating system. Linux is a Unix-like, open source and community-developed operating system (OS) for computers, servers, mainframes, mobile devices and embedded devices. It is supported on almost every major computer platform, including x86, ARM and SPARC, making it one of the most widely supported operating systems.
Support
iPage offers support on the website, via live chat, and telephone (7am to 12am Eastern Time, seven days a week). That's probably enough to get by, but the best hosts do better, with a 24/7 phone line and ticket or email support, too.
iPage support had no problems with our simple technical and product queries, providing speedy and accurate replies, with occasional links to relevant help pages. Ask an unfamiliar question, though, and it's a very different story.
Conclusion
Pros |
Cons |
- Low prices;
- Free SSL;
- Free Domain for 1 Year;
- Free CDN;
- 24/7 telephone and live chat support.
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- No monthly billing on some products.
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With no VPS or dedicated server hosting these days, iPage is all about its shared plans. These have rock-bottom prices, but they're also poor performers, awkward to use and missing some key features. IPage might work for the simplest sites, or to learn WordPress or some other web technology, but it doesn't have the power or features to handle anything more serious.
FAQ:
💢Does iPage offer refunds?
iPage has a 30-day money-back guarantee covering 'all basic hosting fees.' 'Domain registration fees, setup fees, or any fees for additional Services' are excluded.
That's a very standard guarantee, but there are a couple of exceptions you need to know about.
The first is the guarantee is valid for PayPal and card only; keep that in mind when you're paying.
The second is only first-time hosting accounts are eligible. If you've had an account before, canceled and signed up again, you won't be able to claim a refund.
✳️Does iPage have an uptime guarantee?
iPage quotes a '99.9% uptime guarantee' for its shared hosting packages. We found no website documentation to explain what this meant, though, how it was calculated, what counts as downtime, what doesn't, and whether you might receive any compensation if the target isn't achieved.
The end result is that although iPage says it has an uptime guarantee, there's no way to assess whether it meets the 99.9% figure or not, making it essentially meaningless.
✅Where are iPage's data centers?
The iPage website says the company uses two data centers, but doesn't give any further details.
We entered our server IP address at iplocation.net to find out more, and the site checked it with eight geolocation services. Everyone said our server was in Jacksonville, Florida.