IONOS Website Builder Review (2026): MyWebsite Now, the $1 Plan and Its 20x Renewal

Is IONOS a good website builder? For one year, yes; after that, only if you act on a date you set today. That is this IONOS website builder review in two sentences. MyWebsite Now Plus costs $12 for the whole first year and then $20 a month, which is $240 a year. One dollar becomes twenty: the steepest renewal jump among the builder bundles we compare (only IONOS's own Online Store Plus, at 32x, climbs further), and as of 9 October 2026 it is still printed on IONOS's US plan page in exactly those numbers.

It suits a buyer who wants a plain small-business site with a domain and a real mailbox, and who will put a reminder in the calendar on checkout day. It does not suit anyone planning a shop on the same plan, anyone who wants design freedom, or anyone who lets subscriptions renew unread. IONOS is the company that traded as 1&1 until 2018, so a 1&1 website builder review today lands on this same product.

The price list: two columns, read both

IONOS shows three numbers per plan: a struck-through list price, the year-one rate, and a smaller 'Then only' line underneath. That third figure is the one your card will carry from month 13. Read on IONOS's US builder page on 9 October 2026, all on one-year terms:

Two things stand out once the rows sit together. First, IONOS renews below its own list price on the plans where it prints a renewal at all: Starter's $14 is under its $18 list, and Plus's $20 is under its $24 list. So 'renews at list' is not quite right, and the 'Then only' line is the honest figure to budget. Second, the three plans with no renewal line (MyWebsite Now Pro, Online Store Pro and Expert) leave you guessing. Our advice for those is the dull one: ask IONOS for the renewal rate in writing before paying, and plan around the list price until you have it. We do not estimate a number IONOS has not printed.

Prices exclude sales tax, which IONOS notes may apply. Every builder plan includes the domain at no charge for year one; after that it is billed separately at IONOS's domain rate, which the builder page does not show.

The Online Store track: four tiers and their renewals

Selling is not part of MyWebsite Now at any tier. A shop means IONOS's separate Online Store plans, and they run the same teaser pattern harder. Online Store Plus opens at $1 a month and then charges $32, a 32-fold step that beats even the Plus builder's 20x. Starter goes from $6 to $26. Pro ($34) and Expert ($44) show only a year-one figure against list prices of $65 and $92.

Over three years, a store on Online Store Plus costs $12 + $384 + $384 = $780, and one on Starter costs $72 + $312 + $312 = $696. The credit side is real: IONOS states there are no transaction fees on its store plans, so the bill does not grow with your sales the way a percentage-fee platform's does. The debit side is the size of the ecosystem around it. Expect basic store tooling, not an app market, and if you think you might outgrow it, price a standalone store builder before the first renewal rather than after.

The renewal cliff, measured with a tape

Run the standard three-year window on Plus: $12 in year one, then $240 in each of years two and three, for $492. Starter is gentler in shape but not in total: $72, then $168 a year, for $408. Because IONOS intro terms run twelve months, the cliff arrives in year two. Long-prepay bundles push theirs to year four or five.

The chart shows the trade plainly. On the long-prepay bundles you pay almost everything on day one and nothing more for three or four years; on IONOS you pay almost nothing on day one and most of the bill later. If you leave after twelve months, IONOS Plus is the cheapest box on the shelf by a mile. If you stay three years without renegotiating, it is the dearest of these five.

What's inside: the year-one kit, honestly valued

Credit where the invoice supports it: the $12 year is not a mirage. Every MyWebsite Now plan includes a free domain for the first year, at least one professional email address, SSL and hosting, and IONOS backs the builder with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You get a real site with a real address for less than many registrars charge for the domain alone.

The tier differences are mostly about room and tools. Starter is the bare kit: 10 GB of storage, a 2 GB mailbox, ten pages, an AI logo generator and a competitor-tracking tool IONOS calls marketingRadar. Plus is where the AI text, image and site tools, AI SEO help, online booking and site analytics appear, along with 50 GB of storage, a 12 GB mailbox and room for 200 pages. Pro removes the storage and page limits, raises the mailbox to 50 GB and adds rankingCoach Standard for SEO. For most small businesses, Plus is the tier with the right tools; the question is only what it costs after year one.

The editor and the templates

Templates are sorted by trade in IONOS's gallery (business and agencies, food and events, health and consulting, personal and non-profit among them), or the AI generator drafts a starting site from a few details. The editor itself is the flat part of the package. The 2026 consensus across reviews matches our reading of its documented features: solid business basics, a dated interface and limited design freedom. Sections snap where IONOS wants them. Fonts, spacing and layout control are rationed.

You can ship a presentable small-business site with this kit. You will not get the layout control of a standalone builder, and you should not pay $240 a year expecting it.

Not included: an exit

IONOS's own help documentation says website-builder projects cannot be used outside the IONOS infrastructure. Its migration notes for MyWebsite Now offer no import or export and no database access; the best you can do is save pages as HTML, or copy them with a site-grabbing tool. That is a screenshot with extra steps, not a migration. Leaving means rebuilding elsewhere.

Put the two facts together and the product's shape is clear: cheap to enter, dear to stay, hard to move. That shape is fine for a one-year project and poor for a site you expect to keep for five years.

IONOS vs the bundle field

Set against the other builder-plus-hosting bundles we track, IONOS wins year one and loses year three. Here is the same entry-level shelf on one receipt:

If the three-year total matters more than the first-year outlay, Hostinger's Premium plan covers four years for less than a third of the IONOS Plus three-year bill, and Bluehost's Starter plan costs about the same while keeping you on portable WordPress. For more detail on either, see our Hostinger Website Builder review and our Bluehost website builder review. Our three-year bundle cost audit runs the same arithmetic across six vendors.

Who should still take the deal

The calendar-reminder people. If you set a reminder for eleven months out the moment you check out, and then act on it, the $1 year is the best arbitrage in this category. A seasonal project, an event site, a business idea you are testing, a placeholder while the real site is built: each takes the full $12 year and leaves clean. Cancel before renewal, or ask IONOS what it will offer to keep you.

The people who should not take it are the set-and-forget majority, which is, plainly, the business model. If your card on file will do its quiet work, $240 a year is your real price, and at that price the editor does not justify the invoice.

Edge cases worth a line

• You may want a shop later. MyWebsite Now has no store at any tier, and the Online Store plans are a separate product with their own price list. Decide before you build, not after.
• You want the top tier. Pro opens at $17 a month with no renewal line printed. Get the renewal figure in writing before paying, and budget the $32 list price until you do.
• You are already past month 12. The renewal has posted. Check what you are paying now against the table above, and weigh a rebuild elsewhere against another year at the renewal rate.
• You are buying outside the US. Every figure here is the US page. IONOS prices differ by country, so read your own checkout.
• You just want the domain and email. The bundle includes both, but the domain renews separately after year one at IONOS's domain rate. Check that line too.

Verdict: a cheap year, with a calendar attached

IONOS sits third on our ranked builder and hosting bundles shelf, a placing that weighs an outstanding year one against a below-average everything after. The domain, email and SSL kit is real value, the editor is serviceable but dated, and the 20x renewal is the fact a buyer must sign off on with open eyes.

If the calendar event already exists (eleven months out, with a title you will not ignore), check the current IONOS website builder offer. Prices re-checked on 9 October 2026 on one-year US terms; the $1 rate applies to the first year of Plus, and $20 a month is the figure printed under it.