What has your experience been with IONOS?

[Allysin]

I honestly think that IONOS is the worst registrar in the world!

Here are my issues with them:

1. They don't bill you instantly as it with any other registrar in the world, you go on there, buy or transfer a domain, go through a check-out, put in your payment card and they take out a payment so you can see an authorization in your on-line banking right away and the amount is deducted from your bank account in a few days when the transaction settles.

What IONOS does drives me crazy! They put your transaction in a 'contract' and they bill randomly weeks or months after the fact when you can't even possibly remember what you did that long ago!

(Most recently, I've transferred INTO IONOS a bunch of domains in the beginning of December 2022 and they still haven't charged me for them)

Yet the 2nd issue is way worst I think and that is:

2. Their renewal prices are exorbitant so I want to control what to renew and what not etc. so I turned the auto-renewal off. When I do that, they remove the year I've already paid for and when it goes past that date, the domain just disappears from your account! I have a very good system of keeping track of my domains and expiration dates but this really confuses me so much and I don't know if it is safe to turn the auto-renew on as I don't trust them!??

Have you guys experienced the same and can you give me more information on how to deal with this? I really hate calling their support line as they are not knowledgeable/helpful at all.

 

[Sophia Alice]

same experience i had today..worst experience .. i paid for a domain on 29 th dec ..invoice was raised on 30 jan after 31 days again ..marked unpaid and they unlocked my account

i sent them bank statement as proof but of no use

worst provider..worst support ..worst to deal with

 

[ploskov]

Definitely ionos is better than epik.
Ionos always reg domain for me with in 1 hr . Epik takes around 6-7 days for domain registration complete.

 

[Allysin]

Definitely ionos is better than epik.
Ionos always reg domain for me with in 1 hr . Epik takes around 6-7 days for domain registration complete.

Really? is this a new thing with ePik? I have always been very happy with ePik to be fair. And they have registered my domains instantly but I pay with a debit card. What kind of a payment did you do to have to wait for 6 to 7 days? What was the reason they have given you for such a long wait? It feels like we might be missing part of the story here?

 

[bhartzer]

When I was running DNProtect, we had several reports of stolen domain names from that registrar. I was VERY difficult getting those domain names back after they were stolen.

 

[HostThatIdea]

I like IONOS technology and deals, but their payment processing is pretty much my turn off point. I run many servers and occasionally I forget dates, invoices, or to unlock cards or reconnect accounts since my cards are not accepted on the platform directly.

So occasionally I overlook payments - my fault, but unlike other platforms they will lock the product and slowly process payments over 2 - 3 days as what I can only say is a punishment.

However, they do have the ability to turn it on immediately (from experience), but prefer to slap your wrist and make you wait.

On other platforms like DigitalOcean, Vultr, Godaddy, and more you can just pay and get back to business. I warn anyone running servers that they will LOCK your product and will say they can't intervene - when I know for a fact they can.

The support is obviously trained to make the process seem like it a multi tier lock but right on the screen is the button to continue service. WARNING ABOUT IONOS they will let you burn and not think twice.

They're the only company I have ever purchased services through that does this. I also used them once back in like 2011 for a $11 domain and they require a manual cancellation or they will assume you still want it and charge you. Which is unusual in comparison to other providers.

This business is in the business of contracting you. My last month is in January.

 

[NameGroove]

They appear to offer at least one .com registration for $1 (with $17 renewals). For a buck I thought I'd take a shot with them, but these are some horrible reviews. Hmmmm

https://www.ionos.com/domains/domain-name-prices

 

[josedesir123]

I’ve had one of the worst experiences with IONOS Hosting. June 30th 2025, my server was abruptly taken offline without any prior notice or a reasonable opportunity to respond or take action. This irresponsible move not only disrupted my services but also blocked me from backing up critical data or resolving the supposed issue myself.

To make things worse, IONOS’s customer service is beyond frustrating. Representatives were unhelpful, often reading from scripts without actually addressing my concerns. I was bounced around from department to department, each giving conflicting information and offering no real solution. At no point did I feel like anyone took ownership of the issue or showed any urgency to help.

I expected more from a company that claims to offer professional hosting services.

On July 5th 2025, IONOS notified me that access to my server control panel was restored and my server was back online. The goal being to allow me to retrieve and backup my data.

My cloud server control panel was reactivated but I was still not able to connect to my server.

July 9th 2025, After days of back-and-forth exchanges with the IONOS Server team allowing us to find out that the connectivity issue to my server was simply caused by a switch port that was down in their Datacenter, I was finally able to access my server.

As a computer specialist with many years of experience in IT and systems administration, I fully understand that technology can fail. Servers can go down, and unexpected issues can arise—that’s part of the industry. However, what truly matters in these situations is clear, honest, and timely communication with customers... informing me with transparency about the waiting time required to resolve my issue could ve changed positively my experience.

I still recommend IONOS

 

[cooljub]

This kind of service is unacceptable, especially when you rely on your server for essential business operations.

Hi, what do you rely on them for?

 

[josedesir123]

Hi, what do you rely on them for?

All I was hoping for was reliable server resources to run my containers—nothing more.