iPage Review (September 2023) | Is It A Reliable Host?

In this modern world, having at least one website is becoming necessary. From business to personal portfolio sites, websites are getting popular and becoming a detachable part of our lives.

If you are planning to start a blog or a business website, you will need domain hosting first. There are several domain hosting providers in the market. But it takes time to choose the right one.

In this article, I will tell you about a hosting service provider that I personally use, which is a value-for-money hosting service for many of us.

Let me introduce you to iPage. I use their hosting services for one of my websites, so let’s find out my experience using iPage.

About iPage (iPage Review)

If you have read one of my articles in the past, you know that I am a digital product reviewer, and I love to review hosting services from different companies.

So, for some reason, three months ago, I was in need of a website. I decided to buy a hosting service, and for that, I chose iPage.

So before buying hosting from them, I researched about them. The first thing I have found out is that iPage was Founded by Thomas Gony in 1998.

So, they have been in the hosting service industry for almost 25 years. We call this a reliable and well-known company for surviving in the industry for so long.

After that, when I went to search for how many websites are hosted using the service of iPage, the number shocked me.

They have hosted over 1 million websites in 25 years. The reason for this is they offer the most affordable web hosting services.

They are well known for providing budget-friendly pricing among customers. iPage is a Part of Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance International Group).

Why did I mention the name of Newfold Digital? The reason is this company also owns Bluehost and Web.com.

This means the iPage hosting service has big names behind its back, so that we can expect good service from them. But there are some things that iPage is different from other hosting service providers.

The first thing is that they maintain offices in six worldwide locations. Because they have a vast customer base, more than supporting them in one office isn’t needed. And they operate two data centers in the United States.

The most unique thing about them is that they demonstrate environmental responsibility as an EPA green power partner.

We know wind energy is a green form of energy. And iPage Uses wind energy to power data centers and servers, which no one in the hosting industry is doing right now.

This makes them exceptional and unique. Because of its flexible pricing, I recommend iPage hosting for beginners. So now let’s see some features of iPage.

iPage Features

iPage offers a ton of features with its hosting packages. These features are essential and helpful.

I like some of the features while using their service. Let’s talk about some features I like the most about iPage.

Website Builder

Website builder is the first feature that surprised me after purchasing iPage hosting. First of all, it was always a hassle for me to build a website.

However, I know coding, but it is a hard job to do. Beginners definitely need help and need to hire web developers for their websites.

iPage website builder will help you to overcome these problems by offering accessible website builder features.

After using their website builder, I found out that it helps to create websites within no time. It’s because of its user-friendly Interface, which allows users to create websites effortlessly.

This is very helpful for both beginners and experts when it comes to saving time. Their website builder made me fall in love with it.

Because it empowers users to create professional-looking sites without technical expertise, can you imagine this?

Can you create a professional-looking website without zero coding? Isn’t it amazing? To help you with more customization options, they offer you a vast library of pre-made template options for your website.

If you want, you can easily customize color schemes, fonts, sizes, and the incorporation of images and videos of your website to make it look similar to your imagination.

The more you engage with your viewers, the more you will get positive feedback from them.

To maintain a healthy interaction with your viewers, you need to add various forms for comments, RSVPs, and business contacts on your website.

The iPage website builder will offer you an easy solution for that. They offer a drag-and-drop feature with which you can easily edit your website and add any section to your website.

You can customize your site’s elements, such as logos, fonts, colors, and more, with this drag-and-drop feature.

As a result, your website will look more professional and unique. SEO is the key to a successful website.

To ensure the SEO capability of your website, iPage website will configure SEO settings for each page.

It also helps you to build a mobile-optimized website because it’s become an undetachable part of SEO now.

E-commerce business is now blooming. Every 20 out of one website is an e-commerce website. So, to help you create an e-commerce website, iPage helps you with their free online store functionality.

Also, they will provide you with shopping cart integration and blogging capabilities for your E-commerce website.

Security

Now, I will talk about the most crucial feature of a hosting provider and that is security. Whenever one buys a hosting from any, they always look for the security feature of the hosting service provider.

So, before buying their hosting service, I researched their security options. After seeing their security options, I confidently purchased their hosting service.

Let me tell you why their security features satisfy me. The first reason is that every plan includes a free SSL certificate for secure connections. So why are SSL certificates so special?

SSL certificates are really important for keeping information safe when it’s sent between devices, especially for online stores.

How can you find out if a website has SSL or not? It’s easy. A website secured by SSL will display a padlock icon and an address starting with “https.”

The following security option they will give you is the SiteLock security plan.SiteLock plans offer comprehensive protection against cyber threats.

With daily site scanning, automatic malware removal, and effective bot attack blocking, iPage’s s site lock option secures your website.

iPage will offer Three SiteLock plans from $3.99 to $24.99 per month. After comparing, I will suggest you buy the $3.99 plan. iPage provides email safeguarding with malware monitoring.

It surprised me after I learned that iPage also offers DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) authentication technologies for enhanced security.

If you want additional protection, you can use their Website Backup and Restore package.

So you can see that they don’t compromise the safety of their hosting package, and I am satisfied with their security features.

Free Domain Registration

Who doesn’t like free things? The easiest way to make people happy is to give them something after they purchase something from you.

Interestingly, iPage has done exactly this to make their customers happy. They offer free domain registration to their customers.

They provide a free domain name, which has been included in their hosting packages. As a result, customers don’t have to buy separate domains.

It’s a good feature for me because I always like the free option. The free domain registration is available for the first year.

After that, you need to pay standard renewal rates to keep the free domain. The renewal rate for a standard .com domain is $19.99 per year.

Unlimited MySQL Databases

Organizing the data of your website is important if you want to make your website successful. To organize your data, iPage offers MySQL databases.

If you don’t know about MySQL databases, let me make you clear about MySQL. It is the digital engine that powers your website’s data management.

As a beginner, it is common to ask questions like how you can manage your data with MySQL.

The answer is with this feature, you can categorize and structure different types of data on your website into tables.

As a result, it will create an organized system that is easily accessible and retrievable.

I have found out that iPage applies a soft cap to database usage to ensure optimal server performance.

You can have up to 1,000 sections for your data, and the limit of data in all those sections is 3 GB.

If you’re using just one of those sections, it can hold up to 2 GB of data. Now, come to the main part: why did I tell you that they offer unlimited MySQL?

Because the average size of a MySQL database for a WordPress site is around 85 MB.

If you compare the limit with the average size, you will find out that a normal WordPress website will need several years to complete the limit. So, it acts like Unlimited MySQL Databases for most websites.

Unlimited Bandwidth and Disk Space

As we know, most of the hosting service providers offer limited storage, and the amount depends on the package you have chosen.

But when it comes to iPage storage, the scenario is totally different. Because it offers unlimited disk space for its customers, it’s an extraordinary feature that got my attention while I was doing research about it.

I dived deep into the feature and found out this offering isn’t as simple as it sounds. Because if you want this unlimited resource,  you must ensure your compliance with iPage’s terms and conditions.

But for some reason, they’ve put a “soft cap” of 20,000 files on the disk space.

To find out why they have done this, I researched more and found out This cap helps prevent overconsumption of server resources by individual websites.

They have done this to make their shared hosting efficient and responsive for every customer.

This unlimited storage is beneficial for small businesses and beginner bloggers because they need a lot of time to trigger the soft cap of iPage’s Unlimited Bandwidth and Disk Space.

By combining limitless disk space with smart resource management and fair rules, iPage supports small businesses and bloggers.

This creates a space where your growth keeps up with others’ websites. I like this strategy of theirs, and it is a unique and compelling feature in my eyes.

Speed and Uptime Performance

Now come to the part of speed and performance. It’s an essential factor for any hosting service provider.

To test their speed and performance, I made a website using their hosting and tested it for one month. I tested a basic WordPress site, which gives me a load time of 1.66 seconds, which is fine.

After adding design elements and optimization plugins, the load time slightly increased to 1.69 seconds.

This speed satisfies the industry standard and meets Google’s recommended 3-second load time.

But some people are giving bad reviews of the speed and performance. But at this price point, their speed and performance are okay.

But when I tested it for uptime over the period of 30 days. I have received a 99% uptime.

To give you a clear view, I will mark their uptime as 10 out of 10 and their speed as 7.5 out of 10 compared to other hosting service providers.

Customer Support

Customer support is the most important thing for a hosting service provider. Because it’s common for beginners to face some problems with their web hosting frequently, and they need support to overcome this.

While testing their hosting, I contacted customer support several times to see how they responded.

The average response time I have found is 3 seconds, which is 10 out of 10. They solved some of my problems instantly, but I required multiple interactions or support tickets for some issues.

So I will give 7 out of 10 here, but the drawback is that they try to convince you to upgrade your package. I wouldn’t say I like this personally, and here I will give them 5 out of 10.

E-commerce Feature

iPage will offer you some features to make your e-commerce website more functional and good. Some of them include online store builders.

With that, you can start selling your goods easily. The second is PayPal integration. You can easily integrate your existing PayPal account to accept payments.

It will reduce the hassle of integrating payment systems into your e-commerce store. iPage will allow you to install many popular scripts to create various types of websites in just one click.

They offer you a variety of shopping carts that you can use for your online store. Email marketing is a big part of the e-commerce business.

So iPage offers their customers easy integration with industry-leading email marketing platforms.

One-Click WordPress Installation

WordPress is the first choice for beginners who want to build their own website.

So, iPage offers a one-click installation of WordPress so that beginners won’t face any problems installing WordPress on their hosting. It’s a time-saving feature.

30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

iPage offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. With this, you can easily get a refund if you don’t like their service.

It gives you an opportunity to test their service. Offering this money-back guarantee is an indication of how confident they are with their service.

Is iPage Hosting Easy to Use?

The answer is yes. Using iPage hosting services is easy. Because iPage offers shared hosting, which I considered the simplest hosting type.

Their control panel is simple, and they will make sure you understand by offering 100 features on your dashboard.

You get a one-click WordPress installation service for WordPress. You can easily create your own website with it. So, because of its offerings and options, iPage is an easy-to-use web hosting service.

Who Needs to Use iPage Hosting?

First of all, iPage hosting is mainly for beginners. After using their hosting services, I can tell you the options and features designed to help beginners.

Its hosting services are cheap, which makes it more beginner-friendly. I will give it 10 out of 10 when it comes to supporting beginners. Beginners can enjoy the full potential of the features of iPage.

Hosting Packages and Pricing

Now let’s come to the actual point, and that is what type of hosting iPage offers and what is the price of it.

iPage offers several types of hosting at different price points. So, let’s see their hosting packages and pricing.

1. Shared Hosting Plans

The first thing you will find when you go to buy the hosting services from iPage is that there is no month-to-month billing, only annual subscriptions.

Their plans are made based on 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year options. Their shared hosting price starts at $2.99/month (1-year) and $1.99/month (3-year).

They offer free domains, unlimited disk space, data transfers, and email addresses with their shared hosting plans.

2. WordPress Hosting Plans

This hosting service is also Linux-based. iPage offers two plans for WordPress hosting, and they are : 

WP Starter: $3.75/month.

• 1 website free
• Free SSL certificate
• Free domain registration for one year
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Pre-installed themes & plugins
• 24/7 WordPress support

WP Essential: $6.95/month.

• 1 website free
• Free SSL certificate
• Free domain registration for one year
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Pre-installed themes & plugins
• 24/7 WordPress support

Also, both plans offer WP Essential, which includes enhanced security and the ability to run unlimited websites.

Pros and cons of iPage

Everything in this world has some good and bad sides. iPage is no different. Here are some pros and cons of iPage.

My personal Opinion About iPage

My opinion about iPage after using it for a while is that if you are a beginner, you can buy their hosting services without any doubt.

Because they designed their features to help beginners enjoy premium features at a low price, I won’t suggest someone who has a very big website or immense traffic use iPage hosting.

Overall, it’s a good hosting service provider. I will give iPage overall 7 out of 10.

Final Thoughts

iPage is a good web hosting service company. More than 1 million websites are running on their hosting.

So with a good service, they will be able to get this many clients. So, if you are a beginner, I suggest you buy their hosting services for your first website.

FAQ About iPage Hosting

Here are some FAQs about iPage hosting, domains, and more. Find out everything you need to know about iPage’s web hosting services and take your website to the next level.