iPower was founded in 2001. Since then has established itself as a premier host. The company is boasting about its comprehensive online services you need to manage your business online. They cater to both small and medium-sized businesses. They have more than 700,000 customers from all over the world.
I have come across many different hosts in my day. Many stand out among the competition. Other hosts will go unnoticed. iPower is yet another host that is owned by Endurance International Group (EIG). EIG also owns HostNine, PowWeb, BlueHost, and Globat. iPower advertises themselves as a small business hosting website. Whether this means that a small business is all they can handle or that is their niche is up for debate. The only thing you can’t overlook with iPower web hosting is the consistently negative reviews that they receive from a majority of their unsatisfied customers.
What’s more is that these negative iPower reviews cover a broad spectrum of services provided by iPower. In other words, they seem to have more than one problem that needs solving. But, in the interest of keeping this review fair. Let’s review the different plans that iPower offers.
I will show you the features and plans that iPower has to offer. Then go over their performance. Next, uptime. Then, evaluate their customer support. Lastly, a summary.
iPower Features
Shared Plans
- Starter Plan. $3.99/month. 5 GB storage. 250 GB bandwidth. Supports 1 domain name. 1 MySQL database. 1 GB JustCloud storage.
- Pro Plan. $3.95/month. Unlimited storage. Scalable bandwidth. Unlimited domain support. 25 MySQL databases. 1 GB JustCloud storage. One free domain name
- Pro Plus. $11.99/month. Unlimited storage. Scalable bandwidth. Unlimited domain support. 25 MySQL databases. 1 GB JustCloud storage. Three free domain names.
Fees & Price Increases
iPowers plans are cheap, but you need to pay a full year in advance. Except for the Pro Plan which you can pay monthly. Like StartLogic and Dot5Hosting the price does go up. Starter plan increases to $8.99/month. Pro Plan increases to $12.95 to $14.95/month. Also, there is either a $10 or $30 setup fee based on how you do your billing for the Starter or Pro Plus plan. The setup fee only applies if you do a yearly plan vs. doing a bi-yearly plan.
WordPress Plans
- WP Starter. $3.75/month.
- WP Essential. $6.95/month.
Does not say much about their WordPress plans on their site. States on iPower’s site:
- Customized Control Panel.
- Pre-Installed Themes & Plugins.
- Core Hosting Plan.
- Super Speed. Only for WP Essential.
- Enhanced Security. Only for WP Essential.
- WordPress Experts. Only for WP Essential.
Prices do go up for WP Starter. $8.49 to $10.49/month. For WP Essential $15.95 to $17.95/month.
Windows Pro Plan
iPower does offer Windows hosting. Have one plan for Windows. It comes with the following:
- Unlimited disk space.
- Scalable bandwidth.
- Free domain name.
- 25 domains are allowed.
- 1,000 email accounts.
- $100 Bing Ad Credit.
- $100 Google Adwords.
- Free Yellowpages.com listing.
- $6.95/month.
VPS Plans
- Basic. $19.99/month. 1 CPU core. 1 GB RAM. 40 GB storage. 1 TB bandwidth.
- Business. $47.99/month. 2 CPU cores. 4 GB RAM. 90 GB storage. 3 TB bandwidth.
- Optimum. $79.99/month. 4 CPU cores. 8 GB RAM. 120 GB storage. 4 TB bandwidth.
Free cPanel does come with each plan. A lot of hosts like HostingSource and MochaHost charge you a monthly or yearly fee.
Prices do go up for VPS plans.
- Basic. $21.24 to $24.99/month.
- Business. $50.99 to $59.99/month.
- Optimum. $84.99 to $99.99/month.
Dedicated Plans
- Standard. $119.99/month. 2 Core. 4 GB RAM. 500 GB storage. 5 TB bandwidth.
- Enhanced. $151.99/month. 4 Core. 8 GB RAM. 1000 GB storage. 10 TB bandwidth.
- Premium. $191.99/month. 4 Core. 16 GB RAM. 1000 GB storage. 15 TB bandwidth.
Prices do go up for dedicated plans.
- Standard. $129.99 to $149.99/month.
- Professional. $169.99 to $189.99/month.
- Enterprise. $209.99 to $239.99/month.
Security
iPower does take security very seriously. If you have a WordPress site, you don’t need to install a WordPress security plugin. They have partnered with SiteLock. What SiteLock does is find, fix, and prevent hackers from getting into your site. You can remove malware, block bots, and set up a firewall to tighten down your security. SiteLock does come with a monthly fee, though. I have written about them in this SiteLock review.
Control Panel
Much like a lot of other EIG owned hosts iPower does use vDeck for their control panel. It is not my preferred control panel, though. I tend to favor hosts that use cPanel. I have toyed around with vDeck in the past and do find it to be okay, though. However, if you do have a VPS or dedicated server you can install cPanel with them. I logged onto live chat with them, and they clarified this for me. You can easily install any scripts for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. that you wish to install on your server.
Domain Names
You can also register domain names with iPower if you want. I do like how you can register 310 different web extensions. However, they are on the pricey side. Meaning that a .com website is going to cost you $16.99/month. I do prefer to purchase my domain names with NameCheap.
If you register a free domain through us and wish to cancel your monthly account, there is a non-refundable $15 domain fee if you would like to keep your domain.
iPower Performance & Uptime
Uptime
How good is iPower’s uptime?
Unknown? Why? There is no uptime policy. I learned this from the live chat. Do not know what happens if you ever do have any downtime. Agent would never answer that question.
First, I asked Anoop S. about their uptime policy. Told me this:
We do not have an actual uptime guarantee for our services, as this is not a common practice for a shared hosting environment. Uptime guarantees are typically associated with dedicated hosting agreements.
Anoop S. later told me, “You can try out VPS service for better uptime.”
Here is proof:
Research shows could have some issues with uptime. Have been a few iPower reviews that complained about uptime issues. However, don’t know what iPower will do if you do.
Performance
How good is iPower’s performance?
First, iPower does have two data centers located in Boston, MA. You can read about iPower’s infrastructure here. iPower does use SSD hard drives. There are many benefits to using SSD hard drives. Sites that are hosted on iPower’s servers should run quickly.
Here is a look at the test I ran from multiple locations:
| Los Angeles | 83.33 ms |
| Dallas | 48.72 ms |
| New York | 6.62 ms |
| Singapore | 254.52 ms |
| London | 75.37 ms |
| Amsterdam | 76.62 ms |
| San Francisco | 71.32 ms |
After nine lookups, the average response time of your name server ns1.ipowerweb.net is 88.07 milliseconds.
Also, here is a look at how their web page performance is:
| Loading Time | First Byte | Start Render | Speed Index | |
| First View | 3.153s | 0.730s | 1.496s | 1943 |
| Repeat View | 1.626s | 0.092s | 1.286s | 1286 |
Research does indicate there a few complaints about performance. Sites like WhoIsHostingThis.com and WebHostingGeeks.com has lots of iPower reviews. Most are not complaining about speed. Also, tbwhs.com has complaints on performance, too.
iPower Customer Support
So, how good is iPower’s customer support?
Not good. iPower has lacking support like 1and1 and WebHost4Life. I will explain why iPower’s support is far below average.
Live chat is available 24/7. I have reason to believe it’s outsourced overseas. iPower does have telephone support, too. iPower does have a knowledge-base and user guide section.
Live chat does usually load within 2 minutes. You’re not going to wait 30 minutes like Hostgator. I believe outsourcing support is iPower’ biggest mistake. Get “canned” responses from support as my iPower review has already shown.
Research shows from many iPower reviews that customers are outraged by the support. They seem careless and have been hard to get matters resolved. Here is an example. I ask them about uptime and tell me, “We have a team of engineers who will manage the downtime of your website.”
Customer support is the biggest drawback for iPower.
iPower Reviews Summary
Do I recommend iPower? No. iPower starts you at a small entry fee. Upon, your next billing contract the price often doubles. Lots of other hosts have done this. But, that isn’t the only problem with iPower. You could have some uptime issues and performance issues. But, the kicker is support could be problematic, too. Overall, it’s just best to avoid iPower because they have gotten lots of poor reviews on tbwhs.com. Many other sites have poor iPower reviews, too.
Shared Recommendations?
Instead, I would read my WebHostingHub review. Both hosts are cheaper, and an all around better host than iPower.
VPS and Dedicated Recommendations?
Check out InMotion or RoseHosting. Both of those companies are much better than iPower. They get lots more good feedback, too.
Research on iPower.
Interviews with iPower customers.