IONOS Review 2026: Hosting and Builder Tested

Who is IONOS best for?

IONOS makes most sense for cost-conscious small businesses that need a credible online presence without a large upfront investment. If your priority is keeping first-year costs as low as possible while still getting a domain, SSL, and email included, there are few builders that compete on price at the entry level.

It suits local service businesses particularly well: tradespeople, salons, therapists, consultants, and similar businesses that need a clean, presentable site with a contact form and basic information. The personal consultant model is a genuine advantage for anyone who has never built a website before and wants a real person to call.

IONOS is less well suited to businesses that rely on organic search as a primary growth channel, or those that need a specific third-party integration. It is also not the right choice if you want pixel-level design control or a large template library to draw from. For those use cases, Wix or Squarespace will serve you better.

How much does IONOS cost?

IONOS's introductory pricing is genuinely competitive. The Starter plan runs around £0.50 to £1 per month for the first year, rising to approximately £5 to £7 on renewal. The Plus and Pro tiers, which add performance and e-commerce features, follow the same pattern: cheap to start, more expensive to stay.

All plans include a free domain for year one, free SSL, and a business email address. The introductory rate applies to the first contract term only. Check the renewal price before you commit, particularly if you are comparing against longer-term value.

Are IONOS templates easy to customise?

IONOS templates are clean and professional out of the box, which makes them easy to launch quickly. The drag-and-drop editor lets you change colours, fonts, images, and text without touching any code, and the AI builder can generate a first draft from just a few prompts about your business.

The honest limitation is depth. IONOS uses section-based layouts, which means you are working within predefined blocks rather than freely positioning elements. You can swap out content and adjust styling, but you cannot reposition elements with the same freedom you get on Wix. The template library runs to around 500 designs, which sounds substantial but is modest compared to Wix's 900+ or the polish of Squarespace's templates.

For most small businesses, the IONOS template range is more than adequate. If you need your site to look distinctive or need to match a specific brand identity closely, the constraints will become apparent fairly quickly.

Is IONOS good for SEO?

IONOS covers the basics. Every plan includes free SSL, and you can edit page titles, meta descriptions, and alt text for images. The platform generates a sitemap automatically and the hosting infrastructure is fast, with UK and EU data centres that keep load times low for British visitors.

Where it falls short is depth. There is no built-in SEO analysis tool, no structured data support beyond the basics, and limited control over URL structure. If you are building a site where organic search is central to how customers find you, those gaps will matter.

For most local service businesses, the IONOS SEO tools are sufficient. A well-written page with a good title and description will still rank for local terms. If you are targeting competitive national keywords or running a content-led SEO strategy, you will want a platform with more granular controls.

Can I sell products on IONOS?

Yes, but with caveats. The IONOS Pro plan includes an online shop that lets you list products, take payments, and manage orders. It supports PayPal and credit card payments and handles basic inventory. For a small business selling a limited range of products, it is functional.

The limitations become clear if you are running a serious e-commerce operation. Product variant management is basic, there is no abandoned cart recovery, and the integration ecosystem is thin compared to dedicated e-commerce platforms. IONOS does not charge transaction fees on top of payment processor fees, which is a plus.

Our view: IONOS e-commerce works for a local business adding a simple shop to an existing site, such as a florist selling bouquets or a therapist selling gift vouchers. If your primary business model is online retail, Shopify is a better fit.

What can you build with IONOS?

The IONOS website builder uses a drag-and-drop editor that works cleanly enough for most basic business sites. You can build a homepage, add a gallery, embed a contact form, and publish without any technical knowledge required.

IONOS also includes an AI website builder that generates a complete site from a short brief. We found it useful for getting a rough structure quickly, but the output needed editing before it looked presentable. Think of it as a starting point, not a finished product.

Where the builder shows its limits is on design customisation. Layout control is more restricted than Wix, and the template library runs to around 500 options compared to Wix's 900+. If your brand has a specific look you need to match, you may find the builder constraining.

For most small businesses that need a clean, presentable site, the IONOS builder delivers. The AI tool genuinely saves time at the setup stage, even if you revise the output heavily afterwards.

What is IONOS customer support like?

Support is where IONOS most clearly punches above its price point. Every account comes with a dedicated personal consultant: a named person who knows your account and who you can request by name when you call. That model is genuinely unusual at this price bracket.

24/7 live chat is available with both a chatbot and human agents. Phone support runs around the clock with dedicated UK numbers. The IONOS Help Centre covers a solid range of hosting and website tasks, and the search works well enough to find answers quickly.

Customer feedback on Trustpilot for the UK site sits at 4.7/5. Reviews consistently highlight support quality as a strength, specifically the speed of responses and the personal consultant model. The negative reviews we found mostly related to billing complexity and the cancellation process rather than the builder or hosting quality itself.

Getting set up with IONOS

Setting up an IONOS website takes around 10 to 20 minutes from sign-up to a published first draft. Here is how it works:

1. Choose a plan. Starter covers basic brochure sites; Plus adds booking and marketing tools; Pro includes e-commerce.
2. Register or connect a domain. A .co.uk or .com domain is included free for year one on all plans.
3. Run the AI builder. Answer a few prompts about your business (industry, tone, colour preference) and IONOS generates a full site draft in seconds.
4. Edit and personalise. Replace placeholder text and images with your own content using the drag-and-drop editor.
5. Publish. Toggle the publish switch and your site goes live. SSL is active automatically.

Your personal consultant is available to call from day one if you get stuck at any point.