IONOS Review (2026): Hosting Plans, Prices and Renewals

This IONOS review gives you the short answer first: IONOS is a cheap, solid choice for a first website, a small business site or a simple WordPress blog, and its VPS plans are some of the lowest-priced servers from a large host. The catch is the pricing structure. The low prices are for the first year (or the first three months on VPS), on a 1-year term, and renewal can cost two to fourteen times as much depending on the plan. Read the “then” price, not the headline.

Below you’ll find every IONOS hosting plan with its first-term and renewal price, what’s included, how the money-back guarantee really works, and who should pick IONOS or look elsewhere. All prices and features come from IONOS’s own US pages and terms, checked on the date at the end.

IONOS review at a glance

US prices before sales tax, on a 1-year term, from IONOS’s pricing pages when this review was updated.

Who IONOS is

IONOS started as 1&1 in Germany in 1988 and opened in the US in 2003. In 2018, 1&1 combined its hosting, applications and servers with the cloud company ProfitBricks and became IONOS; the “1&1 IONOS” name you may still see is the same company. IONOS says it has more than 6.2 million customers and runs its own data centres in the US and Europe. It’s part of the United Internet group and has been a public company since its stock market listing in February 2023.

So it isn’t a small budget brand: it’s one of Europe’s largest hosts. That shows in the range, which goes from domains and email to shared hosting, WordPress, VPS, dedicated servers and cloud.

IONOS web hosting plans and prices

IONOS web hosting is shared hosting: your site shares a server’s resources with other sites, which keeps the price low. IONOS says it doesn’t give root access on these plans because it manages the server for you.

Plus is the odd one: it’s IONOS’s bestselling plan and the cheapest in the first year at $1 a month, but it renews at $14. Starter and above add a CDN, and Ultimate adds the Pro malware scanner with automatic repair and unlimited SSL certificates. Every plan includes a domain free for the first year, a wildcard SSL certificate, daily backups of files and databases, malware scanning, DDoS protection, and over 70 apps you can install in a few clicks, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Developers get SSH, SFTP and WP-CLI.

IONOS’s page shows the same prices whether you choose Pay Monthly or Pay Annually. Its FAQ adds that you can also have web hosting with no minimum term, billed monthly with one month’s notice.

IONOS WordPress hosting

The WordPress plans come with WordPress pre-installed and kept up to date: IONOS updates WordPress, plugins, themes and PHP automatically and keeps daily backups for up to 7 days. You get a Website Cockpit for managing WordPress, vulnerability scans, an AI website builder, PHP 8.2 to 8.4 and SSH, SFTP and WP-CLI. On Grow and Boost, IONOS adds 12 months of daily backups with one-click restore from its partner Jetpack for one site, through a coupon in the control panel.

IONOS says its WordPress is the same as the version on WordPress.org, so every plugin and theme works as usual. If you’d rather start on the regular web hosting plans, WordPress installs from there in one click too, with far more storage for the money.

IONOS VPS hosting

The VPS+ range is where IONOS stands out on price. Each server comes with guaranteed resources, full root access, NVMe storage, unlimited traffic on a 1 Gbps connection, DDoS protection and a choice of data centres in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.

On a 1-year term. The “then” price is the regular monthly price IONOS shows crossed out next to the offer.

You choose Linux (AlmaLinux, Debian, Rocky Linux or Ubuntu) or Windows Server 2022 or 2025, and can add the Plesk control panel for $6 a month, extra IPv4 addresses for $5 a month each, and cloud backup from $0.065 per GB a month. Newer extras include one-click apps such as n8n, VM cloning, a load balancer and private networking.

A VPS means you manage the server yourself. IONOS publishes a scope of support for server products, so check what it covers before relying on support for software you install. If you want a server without managing it, a managed cloud host is the closer fit; the Cloudways alternatives guide compares them.

Performance, uptime and security

IONOS’s web hosting runs on container-based Linux with NVMe SSD storage, HTTP/2 and caching. What changes between plans is how much of the server you can use: IONOS lists CPU priority as basic (1x) on Essential, enhanced (3x) on Starter, high (5x) on Plus and maximum (10x) on Ultimate, and adds a CDN from Starter up. On the WordPress plans, the Boost plan’s “performance boost” means more memory, more parallel processes and a higher PHP memory limit.

IONOS gives a 99.99% uptime guarantee on every web hosting plan and says its infrastructure is geo-redundant. Its pages also make speed claims, such as faster loading on its WordPress plans and lower costs than other hosts; those are IONOS’s own figures, so treat them as claims rather than test results. A small, well-built site will load quickly on any of these plans; for heavy traffic, the higher CPU priority or a VPS makes the difference.

On security, every web hosting plan includes a wildcard SSL certificate (unlimited on Ultimate), malware scanning (basic on the first three plans, advanced with automatic removal on Ultimate), DDoS protection, daily backups of your files and databases with data recovery, and anti-spam for email. The VPS range adds a configurable firewall, IPS/IDS and ISO 27001-certified data centres.

What else each web hosting plan includes

Every plan also includes 5,000 subdomains, DNS management, 200 SFTP accounts, Git, Perl and Python, and a choice of PHP 8.2, 8.3 or 8.4. Because every plan allows unlimited websites, even Essential can host several small sites; the limit you’ll meet first is the server resources, not the number of sites.

Domains and email

Each web hosting plan includes one domain free for the first year, from extensions such as .com, .net, .org, .us, .ca, .info, .me, .biz and .online. After that it renews at IONOS’s normal yearly price. If you bring a domain from another registrar, IONOS’s terms say you pay for one year of registration on transfer, and that year is added to the domain’s remaining term.

The included mailboxes (1 to 5 depending on the plan) each have 2 GB of storage, webmail, forwarding and spam filtering. That’s enough for a personal site or a small team. If your business relies on email, a larger mailbox or a separate email service may suit you better.

Getting started: WordPress on IONOS

1. Pick the plan by its renewal price, not the first-year offer.
2. Choose your free domain during checkout, or connect one you already own.
3. Install WordPress with the one-click installer, or choose a WordPress plan where it comes pre-installed.
4. Turn on SSL for your domain and check that your site loads over https.
5. Set up WordPress for search with the WordPress SEO tutorial, then connect Google Search Console.

Moving an existing site? IONOS also sells a website migration service. Whichever way you move, test the site on IONOS before pointing your domain to it, and keep the old hosting running until everything works.

What you really pay: first year vs renewal

Over two years, the cheapest-looking plan isn’t always the cheapest. Essential costs $48 in the first year and $96 a year after. Plus costs $12 in the first year and $168 a year after. On VPS S+, the first year is $60 (three months at $2, nine at $6), then $72 a year. Domains follow the same pattern: a .com is $1 for the first year against a regular price of $20 a year, and domains renew automatically.

Support and the personal consultant

IONOS offers 24/7 support and, unusually, assigns a personal consultant to every customer at no extra cost: one contact who gets to know your account and business. For beginners that’s a real plus, because you have someone to call rather than a different agent every time. Server customers also get 24/7 expert support, within the published scope of support for server products.

The 30-day money-back guarantee, in plain words

IONOS advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee on hosting, but its terms are narrower than many people assume:

• You must claim within 30 days of your first order, through customer support.
• It refunds certain setup fees and the monthly fee for the first billing cycle.
• It doesn’t cover new domain orders, SSL certificates, additional domains or features, or usage-based fees such as some server charges.
• If you switch from one package to another, you’re no longer eligible.

Also note how the contract works: IONOS’s terms say either side may end the agreement with 30 days’ notice, and fees still owed under a minimum or extended term become due when you cancel. On a 1-year term, plan to stay the year.

IONOS pros and cons

In short, IONOS is strong on price, storage and included extras (domain, SSL, email), and its VPS range is excellent value. It’s weaker on clarity, with big jumps at renewal and a refund policy that covers only the first billing cycle. Its WordPress plans also have far less storage than its regular web hosting.

IONOS alternatives

From each company’s pricing page when this review was updated.

Hostinger is the closest rival on price; its lowest prices need a 48-month prepayment. SiteGround costs more at renewal but includes staging, daily backups and its own speed and security plugins; see Kinsta vs SiteGround. Kinsta is for sites where speed and expert support matter more than price, and Bluehost is another big name worth comparing for beginners. For more options, see cheap WordPress hosting and managed WordPress hosting.

Is IONOS good? The verdict

• Choose IONOS web hosting if you want a low first-year price, plenty of storage and a domain, SSL and email in one bill, and you’re comfortable with the renewal price of your plan.
• Choose IONOS VPS if you can manage a Linux or Windows server and want root access and dedicated resources for very little money.
• Look elsewhere if you want one fixed price for years, a refund policy that covers the whole term, or fully managed premium WordPress hosting.

Once your site is live, the WordPress installation guide and the guide to what WordPress hosting is help you get the most from your plan.