IONOS Website Builder Review: Great Support, Basic Design

Our in-depth research found IONOS (formerly 1&1) is a snappy yet somewhat basic business website builder. With an overall score of 3.2/5, we weren’t blown away by its design features but found it best suited to busy entrepreneurs who need to get online fast.

With plans costing between £84 and £300 plus VAT annually, IONOS is a relatively affordable option particularly well suited to local businesses.

Our in-house team of specialist researchers scored IONOS’ website features, design functionality, value for money, customer support, and ease of use. All the key elements that mean the most to you as a business leader with a to-do list longer than England’s World Cup losing streak.

Read on to learn whether IONOS is right for you. 

IONOS website builder at a glance

We reviewed IONOS against objective criteria that we use to score the best website builders on the market. Unfortunately, its performance didn’t shine in most categories.

All scores are out of five:

We’ll go into more detail about the strengths of weaknesses of the IONOS website designer below. But, for now, here are the main features which all price packages include:

• Drag-and-drop visual editor
• No code needed
• Hosting included
• Email inbox as standard
• Customer support (phone, email, web chat)
• No IONOS adverts on your website
• Royalty-free image library
• Separate mobile design view
• SEO tag editing and speed optimisation

That’s more than enough to set you up with a professional website – with surprisingly little effort required. The only reason its score seems relatively low is because website builders are an extremely competitive market right now. That’s great for the likes of you and me because it means the standard is high.

IONOS pros and cons

✓ Pro: Quick editing process

You don’t need professional design skills to create an appealing website with IONOS. Handy on-screen hints pop up just when you need them to, so you can get creating without reading through long instruction guides.

That’s extremely useful for anyone intimidated by building a website from scratch. What you need is a website that works well and looks good. IONOS delivers this – fast.

There’s even a stock image library to save you time searching for royalty-free pictures elsewhere.

✓ Pro: Stellar customer support 

Website builder support is often patchy on lower cost products. Not so with IONOS – you’ll get 24/7 assistance from a real person, no matter what you need. While some website builders like Wix and Squarespace make you jump through some hoops before you can reach a real human, IONOS customer service staff freely hand out their email address.

This perk is available on all of IONOS’ plans, even if you stick to its basic tier, Starter. Providers like Wix make you upgrade to a higher tier before you can access better customer care.

✓ Pro: Email inbox included

As a hosting provider first, IONOS excels at core web services such as uptime guarantees and domain name provision. But a key reason for getting a website is to gain access to a professional email inbox – yet this is often forgotten about at the product comparison stage.

Most providers will charge extra for a Google or Microsoft email inbox, for instance. But IONOS includes an email inbox with a minimum of 2GB storage. That gives customers a chance to get in touch with you, meaning you’re less likely to lose out on sales leads.

✗ Con: Just one website

It’s easy to miss this, but you won’t be able to edit and publish multiple websites from your IONOS subscription. If you want to use the drag-and-drop visual editor, you get just one website.

If you really want to publish multiple websites with IONOS, you can subscribe to a hosting package. But you’ll need to use a content management system like WordPress or Joomla to edit them.

Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Square, GoDaddy and Jimdo (yes, even Jimdo) all allow you to edit and publish more than one website from a single subscription.

✗ Con: Can’t precisely position images

IONOS designs are fairly restrictive, so you can’t just drag-and-drop an image to anywhere on a web page. You have to edit pages within sections, which have certain layout limitations. So if you’re a burgeoning Jackson Pollack, you’re going to have to learn to design within the lines.

✗ Con: Very few templates

Website builders vary in their range of template offerings, but IONOS is at the stingier end of the scale. While Wix has over 900 ready-made web designs, IONOS offers… around 20.

How much does IONOS cost?

There are three main price plans to build a website without online sales features:

For as low as £1 for the first 12 months, you can subscribe to IONOS Plus. This plan allows you to enjoy five times the storage (50 GB) of its entry-level tier, Starter. Moreover, it includes bonus resources and website features that you can use to improve your professional website, like SiteAnalytics, which tracks how long visitors stay on your site, their location, browser type, and other related data.

However, its comprehensive plan, Premium, offers more flexibility. It has an advanced SiteAnalytics Plus tool, allowing you to generate and export PDF reports of the key metrics of your site. You also unlock active syncing on your professional email to boost your efficiency.

However, IONOS’ limited website features and design functionality could be a deal-breaker. Squarespace, which scores 4/5 for pricing, may cost more (starting at £16 per month), but it does offer a far richer web design experience than IONOS.

Like IONOS, it also provides a free domain for the first year of subscription. So, if you’re willing to pay more to unlock a more comprehensive set of website-building features, Squarespace is a more viable option. 

How does IONOS compare with other website builders?

IONOS is the 8th most popular simple website builder on the internet, with Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy taking the top three spots. But popularity isn’t everything, and just because other products are more widely marketed doesn’t mean they’re better by default.

Now we’ll look at its performance in comparison with major rivals.

Website features: Basic Betty

IONOS only scores 2/5 in our website features analysis. Although it has all the basics, you can’t get beyond basic functionality because of its lack of integrations. Like GoDaddy and Jimdo, IONOS doesn’t have an app market. Yet it sadly lacks inbuilt features which would compensate. 

For instance, there are very few social media options. While Squarespace and Wix have social media post creation tools, the most you can do with IONOS is… link to your social media profiles. Which we’ve been able to do since, you know, 2001.

For a more versatile website, we’d recommend Wix, which scores an excellent 4.8/5 for website features. It has an app market to expand the range of tasks your website can perform. It also integrates with Google Analytics, the gold standard for SEO analysis.

Design functionalities: Snappy but limited

IONOS scores a 2.9/5 in our research for design functionality. That’s lower than Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and… most of the other top website builders, in fact.

IONOS web design editor is not difficult to use, but it’s a little limited. For instance, you can easily crop or re-size an image, and we particularly like the right-click menu options to rearrange image layers. This is a feature you’ll be used to using in PowerPoint, Word or even Paint.

But you can’t position images exactly where you’d like them on the page, because you have to stick within the section design limits. You may find this curbs your creative ambition – although you won’t lose hours perfecting every detail because the design process is rapid overall.

The “new flexible editing experience” IONOS launched this year does not offer the flexibility of the equivalent feature in Squarespace. With the latter, you can situate an image anywhere at all on the page.

For a better design experience, we recommend Wix, which scored 4.3/5 in design functionality, the highest of all website builders we tested. Wix has hundreds more theme options than IONOS, and supports more image editing options.

However, it’s worth mentioning you cannot switch themes with Wix after you’ve started editing – you can only choose a different one and build it from the ground up once again. This isn’t the case with IONOS.

Ease of use: Simple and straightforward

Despite being an excellent option for small businesses, our research found that IONOS is not the most user-friendly platform we’ve explored, scoring an underwhelming 2.8/5 for ease of use. Its interface is straightforward to use, though it feels – in the words of one test user – “clinical”.

Factor in its limited theme options, and you’ll grasp the idea of how much IONOS has to improve in terms of user experience. Users also report how slow the backend is, making it harder for them to complete tasks.

If you’re wanting an intuitive platform with wider customisation options, Wix will suit you best. As the front-runner in our analysis, Wix allows you to freely explore the platform – you can choose from its multiple element options and themes as well as customise your page as much as you want.

Help and support: Rapid and helpful

IONOS punches above its weight and redeems its score with a solid 4.5/5 score for customer help and support. Unlike almost all other similar platforms, IONOS allocates a single web design consultant to your account. 

They’ll be accessible via email, live chat, or phone for guidance, ensuring a single point of contact throughout your web build journey. When we contacted IONOS web chat with questions about using the website builder, the response was almost instant – even though it was 18:30 in the evening.

For a quick comparison: a simple question to Jimdo took weeks to get a response – with several email requests asking for confirmation that I even wanted a response. And after all that, the answer finally came: “Sorry, we can’t help you”.

What kind of business is IONOS best for?

IONOS is handy for newbies to website creation, as its uncomplicated interface is unlikely to feel overwhelming to most.

IONOS also offers a variety of themes tailored to many industries, from gardening, to architecture, to art, culture, and design. To ensure expand your reach overseas, IONOS allows you to translate your content into 60 different languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, or French! This feature makes it a great choice for small businesses that also want to expand their reach globally. 

Unfortunately, it’s not best suited to ambitious online merchants. If you’re keen to expand a retail business, you should check out our guide to the best small business ecommerce platforms for our recommendations there.

Does IONOS have good customer reviews?

IONOS scores an average 3.2/5 in our customer score analysis. Users compliment its attentive and helpful personal consultants, which proves to be one of its unique selling points when it comes to customer service. 

However, some users wanted more from its website functionality, with one reporting that it proves to be much slower than its competitors. This was notably evident when accessing the backend of the websites, which takes up much more time than usual, as noticed by Neels V., a small business owner.