IONOS Website Builder Review: Is It Worth the Cost in 2025?

IONOS Website Builder at a Glance

IONOS Pros, Cons, & Things That Could Be Better

IONOS prides itself on offering a complete suite of solutions for professionals looking to establish an online presence. Its collection includes shared, VPS, and dedicated web hosting, business email hosting, e-commerce services, and of course, a website builder.

Seamless integration with IONOS’ existing ecosystem, affordable pricing, and simple design make it an attractive option. But can it hold its own against the top user-friendly web builders?

After weeks of testing and research, I can say that the IONOS website builder offers an easy-to-use platform and budget-friendly option for business websites. That said, it won’t give you in-depth control over your website’s look and functionality. Also, its plans are a little pricier now than they used to be. It’s not an outrageous increase, but IONOS’ extreme affordability was one of its greatest selling points.

So, is IONOS still worth looking into for your website, or should you look elsewhere? Keep reading to find out.

The Options Are Limited But Good

The good news is that the templates look attractive and work well. They’re clean, modern, and mobile-friendly. But you don’t have many to choose from.

IONOS’ MyWebsite Now plan (its standard website builder) offers no more than 35 templates (one per industry: ie. Photography, Restaurant, or Fashion). The templates themselves look sleek and professional. The design is clear and well-organized, and each option includes just the right number of elements for a site to look professional. While 35 is still a pretty low number compared to other website builders like Wix with 900+ templates, I can’t blame IONOS too much for its “quality over quantity” approach.

Design and Customization

Though the site editor is somewhat limited, it still gives you enough tools to adapt any template to your unique professional needs. It’s also a remarkable tool if you’re in a hurry. Thanks to its point-and-click editor, you could have a professional website ready in just a few minutes.

Instead of opting for full drag-and-drop control like other builders, IONOS lets you edit your site by adding pre-designed sections based on functionality. You can then choose from a handful of different styles for each section.

While this approach is less than ideal if you’re looking to design a fully customized website, it can be just what you need if you don’t have much design experience and you’re looking to get your site up and running ASAP.

The content blocks you can use include an about section, article blocks, galleries, a contact form, and various headers.

Each section is reasonably customizable, providing several predefined and sometimes overlapping “zones” where you can drop your text and images.

Other notes: You will lose any content you’ve added to the site if you change templates after the initial setup. The site builder also doesn’t support multi-language sites or right-to-left (RTL) languages like Hebrew or Arabic. This might be a dealbreaker for businesses catering to diverse audiences. However, workarounds like the Website Translator app via IONOS’ MyApps are available.

All-in-all, IONOS won’t be the best builder if you want complete control over your website’s look or if you want to implement advanced functionality like custom CSS support. But it’s a decent option if you want to create a good-looking, professional site with minimal effort.

IONOS Has a Ton Of Features… On Top of the Site Builder

IONOS, as a web hosting company, has features galore, but many aren’t relevant to the site builder. Even so, I went hunting and found three interesting features to showcase.

First up, you should know that all plans come with a free domain for one year, and that’s awesome. Sites built with IONOS are also GDPR compliant, and you get basic security features like SSL.

Seriously, don’t hang around any service that doesn’t provide SSL. That’s just dumb nowadays.

Now, on to the interesting stuff.

Online Store

Okay, so you have to pay a little extra for the Online Store Starter plan, but it’s one of the cheapest e-commerce-enabled site builder plans I have ever seen. Seriously, the price is that good.

It’s no Shopify, but the online store comes with light inventory management, sizing options, tax and shipping settings, and ways to show related products on your product pages. You also get functions for discounts, coupons, and abandoned cart emails.

Whether you’re selling digital or physical goods, this shop can handle it.

You can also sell your products via Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, eBay, and Amazon. Plus, if you’re selling items face to face, it integrates with Square’s point-of-sale system.

You can run the store via a mobile app for iOS and Android and accept payments via PayPal, Square, Stripe, or other local options.

Lastly, you have some control over how your store pages look, and the user interface (UI) integrates nicely with the templates available.

Email

Every site comes with free email. That’s “[email protected],” and it works with any domain you purchase from IONOS or connect from elsewhere. Yes, you can use domains bought from a third party, which is much more than other builders usually offer.

Unlike many free email providers that rely on advertising, IONOS provides an entirely ad-free interface. Plus, IONOS’ email service comes with security features, including an antivirus and customizable blacklists and whitelists against spam. These tools ensure that your inbox remains free from unwanted messages and potential threats.

RankingCoach Integration

RankingCoach is an app designed to help you set up your site’s SEO, rank higher, and learn a bit about SEO in the process. So no, you don’t get an actual coach, but RankingCoach appears to have support for IONOS’ services built into it.

It’s usually advised to get an actual SEO expert to help you out, but these automated tools are becoming better and better. Plus, SEO experts who know what they’re doing are a lot more expensive than this (paid) add-on.

Online Booking Tool

IONOS Website Builder has an integrated BookingPress app, which allows customers to book directly from your website in real time. With the booking tool, you can block off holidays and unavailable times on your calendar and receive PayPal and cash payments.

For those who want advanced features, the BookingPress Pro version offers group bookings, detailed invoice generation, more payment options, and integration with tools like Google Calendar and Mailchimp. Whether you’re managing a salon, a consultancy, or a fitness studio, this tool adapts to your needs.

My Experience With IONOS Website Builder

The onboarding felt straightforward when I logged into the website builder. I was immediately guided to a page where I could choose between using IONOS Website Builder’s AI Website Generator or starting with a customizable template. For my first attempt, I decided to build my website using a predesigned template.

Getting Started With IONOS

I noticed the templates were well-organized into clear categories like photography, business, and restaurant. This made it easy for me to narrow down the type of website I wanted to build.

After choosing a template, IONOS took me to the next page, where I could view how each template appeared on desktop, mobile, and tablet screens. This was a major plus for me, as it’s crucial to see how a website looks across devices before choosing a template.

I also had to choose a global shapes theme and color palette to maintain consistency across my site’s pages. I didn’t put much thought into the style and color selection because I could change them in the editor later. Finally, I entered my business name before proceeding to the editor.

Customizing My IONOS Website

The IONOS Website Builder’s site editor features an organized sidebar for essential design functions. Instead of sifting through cluttered menus, I could easily access layout adjustment, color selection, and text style tools.

Using point-and-click controls, I added predesigned page sections and elements like images, buttons, and headings in fixed areas. It might not be obvious, but the editor also has a drag-and-drop feature hiding in the “Adjust section” panel. I used it to drag section elements exactly where I wanted them – but only within a selected section. While this was an improvement, I felt that IONOS could do better with a fully flexible drag-and-drop editor.

Besides the color palette, the editor includes a detailed color picker that I used to tweak colors in specific sections. I was also able to modify text size and spacing. As I experimented with colors, fonts, and layouts, I could see the changes immediately reflected on the screen.

Helpful pop-up tips appeared as I hovered over features and fields. With these, I could tell that even someone with no prior website-building experience would find the editor easy to use.

Adding new pages was as easy as clicking a button. I could create a new page from scratch or use the AI tool to generate one with ready-made content. I found this particularly useful if I was in a rush or if I needed a starting point for certain types of pages, such as an About or Services page.

Uploading images was simple, too. Whether I uploaded my own images or used stock photos from the built-in library, it was all just a matter of clicking and dragging the files into place. It’s the kind of simplicity I really appreciate as someone who doesn’t want to waste time on complex tasks like image resizing or formatting.

For SEO, IONOS provides a straightforward way to optimize pages, but it’s only limited to the basics. I only had to select a page in the “Pages” panel to open fields where I could enter the SEO title and description.

Using IONOS’ AI Website Generator

I also tested IONOS’ AI Website Generator, which is helpful if you’re unsure which template to choose. All I had to do was answer a few questions, such as my website category, business description, and preferred website tone.

The AI Website Generator then gave me eight site options to choose from, all of which I could further customize to my liking. This hands-off approach allowed me to focus more on personalization than building the site from scratch.

Overall, IONOS provides an excellent balance of ease of use and customization. The platform is ideal for beginners and experienced users alike who want to launch their website fast. Whether you’re building a personal website or a full-fledged business site, IONOS makes it quick and hassle-free – as long as you keep your design elements simple.

Additional Ease-of-Use Features

There’s a Variety of Extra Tools

These tools are all outside the site builder and can be used to help you spruce up your website:

• Website checker – For performance, optimization, and basic security testing.
• SEO analysis – It’s not the full RankingCoach app, but it can help you get started with SEO.
• WHOIS domains lookup – Find out who owns any given domain name… unless they have WHOIS protection.
• Logo generator – Create and edit simple logos for free. Helpful if you don’t have a logo design budget, though I’d recommend going for a cheap logo on Fiverr if you can.

The purpose of these free tools is to motivate people to enroll in the service. Additionally, they can help you identify issues with your site and manage certain quick and straightforward tasks.

A Hefty Knowledgebase With Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks

If you like to do your own research before asking for help, look no further than the IONOS knowledgebase, which contains most of the basics you’ll need to know.

Like I said before, I still had to ask about some things, and not everything in the knowledge base is up to date. For example, I found more than one reference to analytics features that I could never find. It turns out they’re not available at the moment.

Legal Page Outlines

Dear God, get a lawyer to do your legal stuff. Okay? Okay.

That being said, every MyWebsite Now website comes with some legal policy pages pre-generated. The actual policies are not written for you, but each page has a general outline of what should be included. If you’ve never written a data or privacy policy, for example, this will help you understand what is expected.

You Might Want to Use the Phone

So, I had an okay time with support for the most part. Responses were prompt (I managed to reach a person in under 5 minutes every time), service is available 24/7, and the support agents certainly did their best to be helpful. The score for this section is only as high as it is because the agents clearly put in the effort. 

But the agents just didn’t always know what they needed to know. You know?

In this case, I don’t hold the support agents responsible. I simply think that IONOS didn’t adequately provide them with all the necessary information. It’s an issue with IONOS as a whole, not with any individual.

Live Chat

First up, live chat isn’t always available. But, when it eventually came up, I asked if there was a way I could use the Mexican IONOS site in English. The American support agent didn’t even know there was a Mexican website until I told them!

The short answer to my question is no, of course. You may recall that I went over that little mess back up in the Features section.

Next, I asked how to use the analytics feature that the marketing mentioned. It appears it’s not accessible at the moment, or at least not to me. The agent suggested the SEO checker as a substitute, which didn’t help me at all… but it’s the nearest option to the service.

Like I said – they tried to help.

My last complaint: the text in the live chat windows is TINY. Seriously, view the screenshots above at full size. Last I checked, I had 20/20 vision, and I still got a headache trying to read some of this stuff.

Phone

My experience on the phone was far better. You can call the team directly or request a callback, so you can go and do other things. Since I don’t live in the US, I couldn’t test the callback feature myself.

I asked if MyWebsite Now could handle RTL language and multilingual sites. It cannot.

The support agent had to ask a supervisor for the information I needed. Again, I’m not blaming the agent – she was great and got me an answer. I just think IONOS needs to provide the support agents more information. The info they might need to know.

Discounted Prices for the First Year, but Watch Out for Renewal Rates

Though IONOS is pretty affordable across the board, you should consider that the advertised pricing is somewhat misleading. IONOS offers a discounted price on all of its plans for the first year, which is the advertised price. If you want to use the IONOS Website Builder for more than a year though, you’ll need to start paying the actual price of each plan.

The Starter plan (the version I tested for this review) offers a basic editor with simple point-and-click functionalities, besides a well-rounded set of tools for most professional sites. It comes at $6.00 per month.

If you’re looking for something more advanced, the Plus plan offers more templates, creative control, and functionality. It might seem like the cheapest plan at first since its advertised price is no more than $1.00 per month. But after the first year, the cost jumps to nearly 95% of your initial payment for the entire year. A bit more transparency would be nice.

There’s also the Pro plan, which offers the same functionality as Plus but includes a higher selection of SEO tools to help you get your website noticed online at an extra cost.

If you want to include e-commerce functionalities to your site, it could double your renewal costs, depending on the plan you choose. The Starter online store builder comes in at a discounted price of $6.00 per month and the Plus version starts at $1.00 but only for the first year.

Though IONOS has no free plan, it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all its products. That means that besides the discounted price for the first year, you could test any one of IONOS’ plans for a month risk-free.