iPage Review 2023: Are They Good Web Host for India?
Of the many obstacles beginners face when starting a new business, budget issues remain the most common. Hence, looking for the most cost-effective solutions becomes a necessity.
It’s possible such necessity led you to iPage web hosting. And instead of thinking to yourself, “Hey, it’s quite cheap and seems legit. Let’s go with it,” you took your time to research about it and landed on this page.
Well, if that’s the case, welcome to Forrst, and read on to know everything about iPage hosting. We’ll be discussing iPage’s speed, security, customer support, top features, and more. In the end, you’ll find that iPage is the right choice if you want to host multiple websites as cheaply as possible.
iPage Overview
Here’s everything about iPage in brief:
Our ratings | A- | 4/5 |
Average response time | ~175 ms |
Avg. response times in top-targeted countries | US: ~ 50 ms | India: 230 ms |
Uptime | 99.93% |
Support | 24/7 live chat, phone calls |
Site transfer | DIY |
Introductory Pricing | Starts at $1.99/mo |
Top features | Free SSL, Free domain for the 1st year, Free email, Free website builder |
Company Information
Initially started in 1998, iPage is among the veteran web services companies to still exist. However, they haven’t been in the web hosting business since the launch; they entered the web hosting market in 2009.
A decade later, today, it hosts over a million websites on servers located in its two data centers: Boston, USA & Waltham, USA. Moreover, Endurance International Group or EIG is now owned by the same organization that holds other hosting giants like Bluehost & HostGator.
Talking of Bluehost & HostGator, both are amongst the best web hosting provider in India. Is iPage even close? Let’s begin our in-depth review.
4 reasons why iPage is a good web host
1. It’s Affordable
As mentioned in the introduction, if cost-effectiveness & budget-friendliness is your top priority, iPage is among the top options out there.
iPage’s shared web hosting plan costs a mere $1.99/month. That’s a business cost almost anyone can bear. However, remember this: If you want to get it at the lowest introductory price, you’ll need to pre-pay for three years, i.e., your starting cost will be $71.64 or nearly INR 5500 for three years.
All in all, it’s affordable, and you should only consider it if you have budget constraints. Otherwise, we recommend spending more on a quality web hosting service.
2. Great server response time
Testing server response time — or total time between a browser requesting information and server responding — can immediately weed out all the inferior web hosting providers. We always start there.
The fact that you are reading this sub-section under the iPage’s Pros section means that iPage’s server response time is under Google’s recommended 200 ms.
We ran our test site through Bitcatcha, a server response time measuring tool, and found these results:
- Global Avg. Server response time: ~ 175 ms.
- India Avg. Server response time: ~ 230 ms.
The server response time in India is comparatively worse. It’s obvious considering iPage has only two data centers & both are in the US. Still, the server response time tested from a machine in Bangalore was decent. Plus, if you are serving a global audience, the avg. server response time is in your favor.
3. Quite a few freebies
Page offers many mandatory-in-today’s-market features. Of those, these value-added features make it a great deal:
Long story short, these freebies make iPage’s offering an outstanding value for money.
4. Good customer support
A typical user, especially a beginner, can get stuck many times when building a new website on his/her own. Issues can range from merely connecting the domain to the server to security problems because WordPress wasn’t updated. For such users with little to no technical knowledge, quality customer support is necessary.
iPage lets you talk to the customer agents via email, phone call, and live chat. Their live chat replies were fast in our experience, and the agents seemed to know what they were doing. We found their email response time to be a bit slow, but most of the time, their live chat will do for you.
Overall, we had a pleasant experience with iPage customer support.
2 things that can be improved by iPage
1. It’s not as affordable as the peers
One of the primary reasons users choose to buy an iPage plan is its pricing. As we mentioned, almost everyone can afford $1.99/month.
However, if looked at from a broader perspective, some other hosting providers offer about the same features at less cost to you. One of our favorites is Hostinger, a top-tier web hosting company that offers shared hosting for as low as $0.99, i.e., half of what iPage plan costs.
Indeed, Hostinger misses out on a couple of features. Still, if you want something basic as cheap as possible, it’s an excellent, more affordable option. Otherwise, if you don’t find what you want (say, multiple website slots) with other services, iPage is your best option.
2. Average performance
We’d consider iPage’s performance average — Keeping in mind its a low-cost hosting, the performance is good as compared to many other web hosting providers costing the same.
A blank page hosted on the iPage server took approx. 900 ms to load. It’s still under the recommended 1-second limit, but it’s average compared to the leading peers. Similarly, iPage’s 99.93% is good but not that great. Yes, it’s above their 99.9% uptime guarantee, but still average compared to other options that consistently measure upwards of 99.95% uptime.
Long story short, iPage’s performs mediocrely...but that’s part of the parcel with low-cost services.
iPage Hosting Plans & Features
iPage offers several web hosting solutions, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers.
1. Shared hosting
We already discussed the shared hosting plan. iPage has only one shared hosting plan, namely Go Plan, starting at $1.99/month. You can host unlimited websites on unlimited storage with this plan. Plus, you get many freebies like email addresses, SSL, a domain name, etc.
In our view, you shouldn’t host more than a couple of small, low-traffic websites on this plan.
2. WordPress hosting
If you plan to use the ever-popular WordPress CMS for your website, iPage has two WordPress-specific hosting packages:
- 1WP Starter: Costing $3.75/month, this plan lets you host a single WordPress website. Plus, you have all the other features featured in the web hosting section.
- 2WP Essential: For multiple websites, this $6.95/month package is fantastic. Besides what’s included in the starter plan, you get an automatic malware remover & SiteLock professional security.
3. VPS hosting
If you do not want to share your server resources, nor do you have a requirement/budget for a dedicated server, iPage’s VPS plans are pretty good. They offer three packages for different requirements:
- 1Basic: Priced $19.99/month, Basic comes with 1 core CPU, 1 GB RAM, 40 GB disk space, 1 TB bandwidth, 1 dedicated IP, and free domain registration for the first year.
- 2Business: For $47.99/month, Business gives 2 core CPU, 4 GB RAM, 90 GB disk space, 3 TB bandwidth, 2 dedicated IP addresses, and free domain registration for the first year.
- 3Optimum: Finally, $79.99/month gets you 4 core CPU, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB disk space, 4 TB bandwidth, 2 dedicated IPs, and free domain registration for the first year.
4. Dedicated hosting
Suppose you don’t even want to divide server resources. In that case, iPage has the ultimate web hosting packages for you: The three dedicated server plans.
- 1Startup: Priced $119.99/month, Startup comes with 2 core CPU, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB disk space, 5 TB bandwidth, 3 dedicated IP addresses, and free domain registration for the first year.
- 2Professional: For $151.99/month, Professional gives 4 core CPU, 8 GB RAM, 1000 GB disk space, 10 TB bandwidth, 4 dedicated IP addresses, and free domain registration for the first year.
- 3Enterprise: Finally, costing $191.99/month, Enterprise gets you 4 core CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1000 GB disk space, 15 TB bandwidth, 5 dedicated IPs, and free domain registration for the first year.
Conclusion | Do we recommend iPage?
Yes, we do.
iPage, without a doubt hits many right points, especially for beginners with a low budget that's why iPage is featured in our top web hosting providers in the business.
To wrap it up: If you want to host multiple websites on a tight budget + would really like a free domain registration thrown in the deal, iPage is the web host for you. Besides, its performance for the price is good, customer support is fast, and it has some excellent value-added features!
Go ahead! Get iPage!
starts at $1.99 per month
starts at
$1.99
per month
• Uptime 99.9%
• Average response time - 175ms
• Free SSL Certificate