Review of iPage: Best Budget Web Host

iPage has gained a lot of ground recently, and for a good reason. In terms of price, quality, performance and the presentation of their website they are hard to beat. iPage is our choice for the BEST BUDGET HOST for a good reason. Read to whole hog below:

FANTASTIC value
Great looking and unclattered website
Massive set of features
Good customer experience
Did I mention UNREAL value?
True limits of “unlimited” use vaguely expressed

Summary

iPage has gained a lot of ground recently, and for a good reason. In terms of price, quality, performance and the presentation of their website they are hard to beat. iPage is the winner of my budget hosting category – you won’t get much more bang for your $3.50 anywhere else. If you are looking for quality hosting for cheap, iPage is the way to go. However, since they do not offer much in the room of growth, I would only recommend iPage for reasonably small sites. If you expect your site to get more traffic, or gain in size HostGator is the way to go.

Price: 99
Features: 98
Speed: 95
Uptime: 94
Reliability: 94
Customer support: 90
Customer experience: 95
TOTAL: 96

Detailed overview

Unlimited Stuff
  • Disk Space
  • Hosted Domains
  • Data Transfer
  • MySQL Databases
True Limits
  • Not allowed to use disk space for online backups (for files unrelated to the website)
  • Like many other budget hosts, iPage is evasive in defining what exactly their “unlimited” policy means. Even after grilling the pre-sales support, they would not tell me what would be considered outside “normal” use.
Free Stuff
  • Free domain name
  • Search engine submission
  • $25 Yahoo Sponsored Search Credits
  • $50 Google AdWords Credits
Hosting platforms
  • Linux
Control panel
  • Custom control panel
Technical support 24/7 Phone, Email and Live
Contract term
  • Cheapest: 12 or 24 months / $3.50 month
  • Most expensive: 12 or 24 months / $3.50 month
Customer experience roundup Most feedback about iPage has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, it is pretty hard to find anything negative about them. Remember, however, that iPage is geared towards small and medium sized sites. It is a great choice for your first web host.
Uptime
  • Claim: no claim
  • True: 98.284%
Features Very extensive selection of features. You will most likely find anything you could ever need here.
Plans iPage only offers one plan at one price. You will have to commit for 12 or 24 months though, however, they offer anytime money back guarantee.
Price
  • $3.50 / month / 12 months
  • $3.50 / month / 24 months
Guarantees
  • Anytime Money Back Guarantee
Technical quality Excellent
Email services Webmail, POP3/IMAP
Warnings
  • Vague limitations of overuse in TOS
  • No backup, unless you pay for it
  • No monthly plan
  • Linux hosting only