Any Experience with Ionos as a Domain Registrar?

[themacmarketer]

Has anyone any experience with Ionos as a domain registrar? Is it easy to use and transfer domains there?

They offer USD $1 domains for new customers. I currently use NameCheap but was exploring registering a new domain with Ionos.

Thanks.

 

[Golan]

NO.

Don't touch it.

Few bucks saved are not worth possible troubles.

The worst registrar ever, in history. Just google 1&1 reviews.

 

[Potatoe]

^ This.

I'll PayPal you $8 to never think about using any of those janky registrars again.

Namecheap, Namesilo, Dynadot, Porkbun if you aren't reselling, a small handful of others are solid with fair prices.

When a company sells a .com for $1, they're still usually paying full price ($7ish?) to Verisign, so they're going to make up that money in other ways. Chaging for privacy, weird useless things added to your cart without you noticing, incredibly high renewals as they make it difficult to transfer out, etc.

The margins on .com's are pretty low to begin with, so it's usually a good idea to just bite the bullet and pay a fair price, let them make their $.50 or $1 per registration and renewal, and not have to mess around with transferring around when suddenly the $1 turns into $30 on year two.

Porkbun offers something like your first 3 .com's for $4ish each for new customers. The reason I said they're not as great for resellers is because they aren't a part of the Afternic fast transfer program so your name won't get as much visibility on the aftermarket, but if you're planning to develop the domains anyways, this doesn't matter to you.

 

[Thoth]

1&1 is the perfect example of a company that has horrible customer service, experience, and satisfaction, but don't care because they put most of their money into marketing and customer acquisition. For every customer they lose, they add 2 more. And they know most surface level domain buyers aren't going to go through the pain of transferring to a different registrar. They'll just keep paying the renewal at that point. Much like Comcast.

 

[secretagentdad]

heh 1 and 1 was my first registrar.

They got me with their full page maximum pc ads back in the day.

Worst experience and tech support on earth.

 

[peteredw]

Stay clear or IONOS, having been telephoned or emailed by them on a regular basis, until I cancelled my account with them. They will get a pushy sales person or as they call them an account manager, if they do get you on the telephone, want you to upgrade to a business account, or whatever product they are trying to promote at the time.

Even when you do cancel, thankfully for me it was only £1 gbp per month, lock you in until the initial period is up which is usually a year. There are better alternative service providers out there. Make sure to do your research. Another one to be careful of is GoDaddy. Most of the add on features are there only to make the company money. This goes for any domain provider.

 

[peteredw]

heh 1 and 1 was my first registrar.

They got me with their full page maximum pc ads back in the day.

Worst experience and tech support on earth.

Right con artists, tried to get me with an upgrade for £1 pm, which after the trial was £10 pm. Cancelled within 10 days, lost the domain I had not worrying about it though.