IONOS is one of the largest hosting providers in the world, and its web hosting page leads with a headline price of $1/month. That's not a typo, and it's not a misprint. It's the promotional rate on the Plus plan for a 12-month term.
It is also, by a wide margin, the most misleading number on the page. Read the same card past the price and you'll find the sentence that matters: "Save 94% — $1/month with a 1-year term, then only $14/month."
IONOS's $1/month Plus plan bills $14/month from the second term onward — a 1,300% increase. Over a three-year relationship you pay $348, not the $36 that "$1/month" implies. This is the largest renewal jump of any major host we have measured.
This article pulls the rates directly from IONOS's own published pricing tables rather than from review aggregators, and shows you what each plan costs across a realistic three-year lifespan.
The Verified Price Breakdown
IONOS publishes both the promotional rate and the post-term rate on the same plan card. Here are all four shared hosting plans exactly as displayed, with the increase calculated from those two figures:
| Plan | 1-Year Term | Then Per Month | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $4 | $8 | +100% |
| Starter | $6 | $10 | +67% |
| Plus BESTSELLER | $1 | $14 | +1,300% |
| Ultimate | $10 | $18 | +80% |
Source: IONOS web hosting pricing page, verified 30 September 2026. Prices are USD, exclude state and local sales tax, and reflect the 12-month term billed annually.
Two things stand out immediately.
First, the "bestseller" badge is on the worst deal. The Plus plan is flagged as the most popular, and it carries the steepest renewal jump on the entire page — fourteen times its own entry price. The Essential plan, at $4 to $8, doubles, which sounds bad but is the mildest increase in the lineup.
Second, nobody gets a price lock. Not one of the four plans renews at its introductory rate. IONOS also publishes a formal price-adjustment notice for its customer base, confirming that rate increases at renewal are an ongoing, recurring practice rather than a one-off.
The Real Three-Year Cost
The promotional rate covers twelve months. Everything after that bills at the "then" rate. So a three-year relationship costs one year at the intro price plus two years at renewal. Here is that calculation for every plan:
| Plan | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | 3-Year Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $48 | $96 | $96 | $240 |
| Starter | $72 | $120 | $120 | $312 |
| Plus | $12 | $168 | $168 | $348 |
| Ultimate | $120 | $216 | $216 | $552 |
Now compare each total against what the headline rate implies. If the Plus plan's $1/month rate had simply held for three years, you'd pay $36. The actual bill is $348 — $312 more than the advertised number suggests.
| Plan | Cost If Intro Held 3 Yrs | Actual 3-Year Cost | You Pay More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $144 | $240 | +$96 |
| Starter | $216 | $312 | +$96 |
| Plus | $36 | $348 | +$312 |
| Ultimate | $360 | $552 | +$192 |
This is the number that matters, and it's the one never shown on a hosting sales page. Nobody advertises the delta between the promo price and the renewal price. They advertise the promo price.
Enter any hosting plan into the free calculator and see your real total cost — with and without renewal hikes.
What You Get for the Renewal Price
To be fair to IONOS, the renewal rates aren't buying you nothing. Here is what each plan includes at its regular rate, straight from IONOS's published feature table:
| Plan | NVMe Storage | Performance Level | Email Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | 100 GB | Level 2 | 1 |
| Starter | 200 GB | Level 3 | 2 |
| Plus | 350 GB | Level 4 | 4 |
| Ultimate | 500 GB | Level 5 | 5 |
Every plan includes a free domain for the first year, unlimited traffic, a 30-day money-back guarantee, a 99.99% uptime guarantee, SSH and SFTP access, WP-CLI, and manual PHP version selection across 8.4, 8.3, and 8.2.
That's a genuinely capable shared hosting lineup — NVMe storage and a CDN boost are standard rather than gated behind a premium tier, which is more than several competitors manage. The issue isn't the product. It's that the entry price you make the decision on is roughly one-seventh of the price you keep paying.
Why Renewal Pricing Works This Way
Introductory pricing is a customer acquisition tool, and the mechanics are well understood:
Step 1 — Win the signup. A $1 price converts. It removes the single biggest objection a new customer has, which is whether the commitment is worth it. That first year is marketing spend.
Step 2 — Bank on switching friction. Migrating a site means DNS changes, file transfers, and email migration. Most owners accept a price increase rather than spend an evening moving their site, especially once email is involved.
Step 3 — Collect the margin. The renewal is where the profit sits. If a meaningful share of customers renew automatically without comparison-shopping, the intro price can be set almost arbitrarily low.
The clean alternative is a host with price-lock renewal — where your monthly rate is guaranteed to stay the same every year. It sounds like the bare minimum, but almost no major host offers it.
Is IONOS Worth It Anyway?
If you keep the site for a single year, IONOS is close to the cheapest credible option available, and there's little reason to leave. The math only turns against you if you stay past year one — which, based on how shared hosting works, most people do.
Two practical notes for existing IONOS customers. First, monthly billing is available without a minimum term and a one-month cancellation period, though it costs more than the annual promo rate. Second, IONOS's price-adjustment notice means even the "then" rate shown today is not guaranteed to be the rate you renew at next year. Budget with the assumption that it can rise again.
For site owners, speed matters as much as price. A slow host doesn't just cost you subscription fees — it costs you sales. You can quantify that with our Revenue Leak Detector using your own traffic and order data.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Plus plan is listed at $1/month on a 12-month term, and renews at $14/month — a 1,300% increase. It is the cheapest entry price and simultaneously the steepest renewal jump in the lineup.
No. None of the four shared hosting plans renews at its introductory rate, and IONOS publishes a formal price-adjustment notice for its customer base. Renewal rates are set per term and can be adjusted again at subsequent renewals.
The promotional rates shown require a 12-month term. IONOS also offers monthly billing with no minimum term and a one-month cancellation period, at a higher monthly rate than the annual promotion.
The Starter plan, moving from $6 to $10 per month — a 67% increase. It is the mildest jump of the four, though no plan renews at its introductory price.
It is a first-year offer. All four plans include free domain registration for one year; the domain renews separately at its own rate thereafter.
Summary: The Numbers at a Glance
| Metric | IONOS Plus |
|---|---|
| Advertised price | $1/mo (12-month term) |
| Rate from second term | $14/mo |
| Increase at renewal | 1,300% |
| 3-year actual cost | $348 |
| Cost if intro rate held | $36 |
| Price lock at renewal? | No |
IONOS is a capable host selling an aggressively discounted first year. The product is sound; the entry price is simply not the price you will pay. If you plan to keep the site beyond twelve months, budget against the renewal rate from day one — or choose a host that guarantees your rate stays flat.
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