iPower Reviews – Many Webmasters Have Mixed Feelings

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Name: iPower
Plans: Shared, VPS, and Dedicated.
Website: www.ipower.com
Summary: iPower is not a host I recommend. Much better options out there. These iPower reviews will show you why.

iPower.com
2.3 Users Score (21 votes)
Overall2.3
Reliability2.3
Server Speed2.3
Customer Support2.1
Features2.5
Cost/Value2.4
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ipower logo

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:

iPower uptime

iPower Uptime VPS

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.

iPower Support

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.

“Positive”
“Negative”

WhoIsHostingThis.com

WhoIsHostingThis does review lots of hosts. They provide an overview of the key features of each service they review.  Along with a scoring based on a five-star scale. Customer reviews follow this. In this case, we’re looking at what WhoIsHostingThis.com has to say about iPower.

Overall Score

WhoIsHostingThis.com is not very impressed with iPower.  Giving iPower only two stars out of five. The highest score is only 2.5 stars for uptime, while support gets only 1.5 stars. Features and value get two stars.

iPower Pros

There is not much positive in WhoIsHostingThis.com’s review of iPower. The nicest thing any customers had to say about the service is that they used to get good service.  Sadly, this was up until about a year ago. The only good thing mentioned is the price.

iPower Cons

There are, however, plenty of cons concerning iPower. Customers who have been with the for a long time are leaving, some claiming that the biggest problem is support. When customers have a problem with their business site, they can’t get anyone to answer their calls or emails. Tech support seems unable to fix problems that crop up, leaving customers with broken websites.

Some customers report that their websites go down for days at a time, with no help from tech support. Others dislike the MOJO marketplace used for WordPress.
Security is poor. Several customers say that their websites were hacked and got viruses.

In all, WhoIsHostingThis.com thinks you can do better with a different host. So far about 30 webmasters have left a comment on iPower, and nearly all of them have been complaints. Clearly, iPower has some issues they need to sort out.

HostSearch.com

HostSearch reviews hosts. They provide a score based on a five-star scale, with five being the highest score. They then provide a screenshot of the web hosts’ websites, followed by customer reviews of the host. Here we will take a look at what HostSearch.com has to say about iPower.

Overall Score

HostSearch gives iPower a score of two out of five stars.  It is a poor rating. The highest rankings were for reliability and speed, which were only two and a half stars. Price and value receive two stars, while tech support gets only one and a half stars.

Pros

The only positive thing customers had to say on HostSearch reviews was from one customer.  Who said it was “a decent hosting company.” No details, only that, and he gave iPower five stars.

Cons

  • The tech support, according to customers, is a joke.  There are long wait times, and when you finally do get to talk or chat with anyone.  iPower reads from a script. You don’t receive the information you need to fix the problem.
  • As for value and cost, iPower has a bad reputation with its customers for double billing. Also, many add-ons are automatically checked. You end up paying for services that you didn’t ask for and had a hard time getting them deactivated. Forget about getting a refund.
  • Speed and reliability are also a problem.

According to HostSearch, don’t bother with iPower. They have about 120 reviews that were left on their website.  99% of them are from people complaining about something about iPower. It looks like this web host has a lot of complaints on them and others should be cautioned. They get 2.5/5 for reliability/uptime.  1.5 for technical support.  2/5 for customer service and billing.  2.5/5 for server and network speed.  Lastly, 2/5 for price and value for money.

TopTenReviews.com

TopTenReviews has reviewed many hosts. They offer an overview of pros and cons, with an overall ranking of the hosting service. Their scoring is based on a ten point scale.  They then offer a thorough analysis of the features and services offered by the hosting service. Here we’ll look at what TopTenReviews.com has to say about iPower.

Overall Score

With TopTenReviews.com, iPower receives a lukewarm score of 4.5 out of 10 points. The stated pros are that iPower uses wind power to power its servers. The con listed is that the basic plan offers only a single account for email. While it has ok security, their support is lacking, and usability is faulty.

Pros

  • Green company.
  • Cheaper price tag.
  • Overall decent service.
  • Security is good.
  • SFTP file transfers.

Cons

  • iPower’s customer service is somewhat lacking.  With slow reaction times when glitches occur. There are no forums or video tutorials, either, so you can’t learn how to fix the inevitable problems yourself.
  • TopTenReviews.com found a 23 minute wait time for every chat session they tried to initiate. When they finally did get the chat going, the tech was not very helpful.
  • Workflow is often interrupted with iPower.  With bugs, that can throw everything off. Also, the basic package only offers 5GB of space.
  • TopTenReviews.com states iPower needs to improve on many things. Their score 4.5 wouldn’t even be a passing grade in school.
“Neutral”

PcMag.com

PC Magazine offers much to the tech community, including reviews of hosts. They provide a screenshot of the control panel, with an overall editor rating based on zero to five. They then list pros and cons about iPower.  Then it’s followed by an analysis by two writers (Molly McLaughlin and Jeffrey L. Wilson). Here, we’ll look at what PcMag.com has to say about iPower.

Overall Rating

PcMag.com gives iPower an overall three out of five, calling that a good rating. The editors say that the dashboard is easy to use, as is the web builder. They also conclude that it is fairly easy to build a store.

However, they also say that it is hard to import WordPress documents. Also, IP wants you to pay for some of their services for a year at a time, which is unusual. They also charge a setup fee.

Pros

PcMag.com concludes that iPower is right in the middle with the cost of a one-year contract, at just under $6. With a 12 month contract.  You get your domain free.  iPower offers three hosting packages, with graduated pricing. iPower also provides dedicated servers and VPS.  The email was easy to set up, as was setting up a shop.

Cons

PcMag.com found that several add-ons were automatically checked, each adding charges to the monthly bill. WordPress is also a pain, with difficulty in importing blogs. The editors also said that a flyover ad held them up quite often. According to PC Magazine, iPower is an adequate web host.

Overall, as I have stated iPower does get a three out five stars. It makes them fairly good. PcMag.com even rates them as “good.”  There are also setup fees. The customer support could be improved upon too.

Interviews with iPower customers.

All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It’s up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.
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