IONOS Reviews

This company is the new pro scammers! I ordered a domain but later cancelled it because I didn't start the business. Later they "Auto Charged" my account for $216 for a "website builder package" which I would never use because I don't even have a domain with them. I called and several times they told me it would be removed, but it never was and they sent me to collections. There's tons of terrible reviews online regarding their fraudulent billing issues.

This company will get you on the hook by promising cheap hosting prices. Written in the fine print are useless AI tools that they'll charge you a couple of dollars for the first couple of months and then up the price to $45 after the 3 month mark. They are exploitative, horrible, terrible customer service. I will never be using this company again.

I’ve never signed up with this company. Didn’t even know who they were when I saw the bill on my credit card. I called the credit card company and they of course considered a fraud and refused to pay it and now they’re trying to get a collections company to claim I owe them money.

I had been paying for my Mail.com email address for almost 20 years. Over that time, the address became part of my professional and personal identity. IONOS/Mail.com decided to discontinue the entire @lawyer.com domain. I was given approximately four months to move everything to a new email address. I have more than 120 logins associated with this address, plus banking, business accounts, subscriptions, professional contacts, marketing materials, business cards, and countless other services. I contacted the company because I wanted a practical transition solution. I asked about forwarding and other options. The response from IONOS's Legal Department was that the decision was final.

The whole contract was a scam!!! I've been getting charged for no reasons over and over again.

Deceptive practice!!! I have got to work with IONOS due to having a different practice asking me to pay for retaining a domain for my website. Needless to say that the other practice is shady too! But, I have contacted IONOS to cancel all the services with them. A week before, one of their representatives called my phone to offer me a service, I told her several times that I cannot understand the services she offers and that I am driving and cannot focus on what she offers. She stated that she will have someone calling me to explain what this is all about but first I have to agree.

Hidden fees, locked into 1-year contracts, terrible customer service. Prices are 2-3 times more than other services. Very difficult to enroll for the average person. When cancelled, no reaction or desire to help solve the problem.

Absolute garbage. No support. I received an invoice after paying a year in full for a VPS. Can’t get anyone on the phone. Next stop is lawyer and Amex.

This company seems legit at first but then they become deceiving and continue to attempt to pull money from you even when you had already purchased a domain in full and stated that you plan on only using their service as a domain. Do not do conduct business with this company.

IONOS was going to build me a website. Never called to schedule meeting. When we they did call they want to meet that day which I told them I need a couple days notice. I canceled my service in May of 2026. It's July they are still billing me. Cancelation dept is a joke, the young lady said her name was Jie was so disrespectful. Trying to out talk and over talk the customer.

This provider is awful! The website builder and email were not easy to use. Their dashboard continually directed and redirected me to add additional services. I got bullied into some the first time or two it happened because I thought it was a requirement for the services I intended on purchasing. At some point I was bullied into some 12 month contract at $30 a month. I KNOW I did not initially sign up for that. I deleted my website and email and moved to another service, but when I tried to cancel they refused and threatened to send me to collections if I do not pay. I would never intentionally sign up to pay a MINIMUM of $360 for a simple website and email, but here I am. Avoid this company.

Review Title: Stay Away From IONOS! Severe Security Breach, Terrible Support, and Fraudulent Charges. I should have learned my lesson when they allowed my account to be hacked, resulting in over $400 in fraudulent charges. Now, even after paying their email invoices and spending 3 agonizing hours on the phone, absolutely no one can get my email restored properly.

We were billed more than what we signed up for. Also after specifically declining a special offer it was still added to our contract and invoice. We called to cancel less than 30 days later, we were unable to cancel. The customer service representative was unclear due to language barrier and was without and serviceable manners. She kept us on the phone waiting for far to long and was unable to assist with our billing inquiry and cancelation request.

2 months in, they auto charged me over $120 for a website package that they added to my account without telling me or me requesting it to be added to my account. I found this out by getting the notification on my debit card that I'd just been autocharged. In addition to them adding services to my account that I didn't order, they also didn't even honor the promo deal!!

Ionos is a big rip off. They make it hard to cancel them and once you cancel them, they will take money out of your account. I tried the Wordpress and Woo Commerce, I couldn't even do anything to the website for over 8 hours, I guess because so many people fall for the "cheap deal." It's too many on the server. IDK, I'm not a techy so I don't know.

I cancelled my domain with IONOS.com today! About 3 months ago, I set up a simple website, I was encouraged to also obtain a website review and monitoring service. I found out later it was $45 extra per month. When I tried to cancel, I was told that I would be cancelled upon renewal - 12 months later... Unacceptable!!!

Absolute worse customer experience of my 50 years of existence! First, after I paid for my service and transferred my domain as I was setting up my website they suspended my service. I called and they told me it was a decision made by security and they couldn't tell my why. I called and was bounced back and forth with no answer as to why. So I decided to cancel (They suspended me but wouldn't cancel my service). I went to Facebook and spoke with someone via messenger. The via email, nothing and told me they would refund my money and never did. Then they send me a bill and I called again to cancel, bounced around again and put me on hold for over 20 minutes and got nowhere! Horrible!

I've been with them for years, I deeply regret it. The invoices grow a lot and with no explanation. They renew packages without sending the mandatory information email or letter 15 days before. They recommend you services that you do not need. When trying to understand what you are paying, you discover services that you had no clue were charged. If you contest an invoice, they ignore you. If you try to cancel a service, they tell you it can be done only via phone by giving your availability slots. The law establishes that a service must be easily cancelled, as easy as the activation. I strongly invite you to avoid them at all costs.

I contacted this company multiple times after trying to cancel during the free trial, but their system would not process it properly. A year later I was billed $159 and tried to resolve it by calling them. They kept telling me the ONLY way they could talk to me was if I verified that I had my invoice by providing a number on that invoice. At the time of the free trial, I deactivated the email associated with IONOS so i could not get the invoice that they sent to that deactivated account. They didn't care-- we went round-and-round getting nowhere. I finally hung up. I tried again today to get my refund and they kept trying to get me to move my account to another person, a friend, who hosts a website. None of my friends do and that is ridiculous. They don't listen, they interrupt constantly and generate unnecessary stress with their tactics. They are horrible!! I will get my money back in 7-10 business days but not until raising my voice and pushing back.

PREDATORY CONTRACTS. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. They will lock you in and charge you monthly for things you’ve canceled.

I will be filing a complaint with the FTC with this company. Ruined my whole website experience signing me up for their upsells harassing my phone during work hours. They will extort your company, class action lawsuit they have damaged my business. Now stealing many hours of my time trying to get this fixed. Not worth it.

IONOS automatically activated renewal on my domain without my permission, charged me an outrageous high price, and sent ZERO reminders beforehand. I never authorized this, and now they refuse to issue a refund despite proof I didn’t receive any notifications. Terrible customer service—steer clear!

Purchased a domain name and built a website. Then got locked out. Called hotline because you can’t email. No progress so called another 5 times before being told the reason. I was meant to provide proof of who I was when I bought domain but they didn’t ask. Drivers license or national ID. Provided info and 5 days later still no unlock. Ridiculous hosting service.

2026 Apr - IONOS worst services ever. I purchased the premium hosting service, my credit card was charged, I received an email that takes from 24 to 48 hours to activate the service (stating 48hrs in rare cases), so by now has been 8 days and several calls where the security and cancellation teams are never available and the people that answers cannot actually do anything but to leave messages for the "other teams". They are just making me waste my time as they say cannot even cancel because the service is in "pre-active" mode.... never get IONOS, you will waste your time, but this happens to me for believing that paying $1dollar a month was true, for me this project is not critical and still giving me so many headaches. Imagine they cannot even cancel and refund because the contract is not active... charged.. but not active... OMG!!! Run!

I signed up with IONOS in February 2026. At first, everything seemed to go smoothly. Questions were answered promptly, and I got a domain, website hosting, and some safety features. I was told that a free website came with the domain, but I didn’t like the way it was structured, as I found it very confusing. Then the troubles started. Since the website was free, I opted not to use it and hired a relative to design my webpage to my liking. Then I saw I was being billed for a service or two that I didn’t need, so I called to cancel them. And got into an argument with customer service. They refused to cancel and said I had signed a contract for a year. I said I would refuse to keep paying for something I wasn’t using.

I got a domain and mailboxes from IONOS. On March 16th, 2026, I created a mailbox and it had preselected a BUNCH of stuff that before I realized were checked in, I submitted to create the mailbox. I called to cancel everything right away and to this day (April 15th), I'm given the run around. I was told that I won't be charged for the extra that THEY added for me and then was send 2 invoices that I call for right away. I received credit memo for the first invoice BUT NEVER the funds. Every time I call, I'm told that they are "escalating" the issue and it would be a few days to receive my money back. It's been almost a month and I haven't received anything yet!

I would like to share that I had issues months after joining. When I joined I had hopes of using this company for my website for a year of hosting, it looked like a good deal. Not satisfied. A couple months when I called and reached out, I told the customer service- I was surprised how rude they were and I was actually hung up on a couple times. After that I wanted to cancel my membership and lo and behold they told me I could however I still received statements and I have been paying ever since (for something I am not using). Anyways do not trust this company, poor customer service.

This is obviously a bait and switch company that uses child labor from the Philippines. While my over 20 years of using Ionos, starting with the 1and1 name has been long, it constantly got worse and worse. Staff was able to solve my problems, but then there are the IONOS-created problems which will cause the consumer to waste hundreds of hours trying to solve the unsolvable issues.

I had a very frustrating experience with IONOS. I initially signed up for a promotional offer at around $12.99 for one month. Before the next billing cycle, I called and was told that my service had been successfully canceled. However, a year later, I was shocked to be contacted by a debt collector claiming I owed $160. I had not used their services since that first month, and my payment method was no longer active. Instead of properly resolving the cancellation, they allowed charges to accumulate and then sent the account to collections without my knowledge. This feels very misleading and unprofessional. I made a clear effort to cancel, yet I’m being penalized for something that should have been resolved at the time. Based on my experience, I would strongly caution others to be very careful when dealing with this company.

My experience with IONOS was surreal, to say the least, and reveals an embarrassing internal disorganization for a company of this size. It all stemmed from THEIR IT error: I activated and canceled a service on the same day, claiming their "satisfied or refunded" guarantee. Despite this, due to a "synchronization issue" they claimed, they unfairly issued and charged me a €124.89 invoice via PayPal. Since I filed a dispute through PayPal to protect myself, and since they had in the meantime issued a late manual refund, a technical mismatch occurred (a double refund). In complete good faith, I immediately contacted IONOS to refund the excess amount I was not entitled to, simply requesting to use PayPal, the same payment method as my contract.

I bought a VPS with them, coding the basic site is complete, but the VPS did not fire up yet. Come on it is 2026 and they can not fire up a simple VPS in hours.

Do yourself a favor and spare yourself the aggravation and waste of money. By far the worst customer service and customer retention skills I've ever encountered with any business. I'm convinced they purposely make it difficult to contact or deal with customer service so they can keep soaking up cash from your credit cards every month. I honestly have nothing positive to say about them. I don't even know where to start. Cancelled their service last year, and are still dealing with unauthorized monthly billings. Unfortunately, one of our managers switched our hosting to these buffoons, after numerous, numerous phone calls and emails, we finally have control of our hosting, but now we're getting invoiced monthly from some BS Ranking Coaching. If see any offers, ads, etc... RUN, DON'T CLICK the link, FIND ANOTHER COMPANY!!

This a big scam, I paid $74 for supposedly 3 years of emails services and I was being charged monthly fees still and once I remove my card they suspended my account. I contacted customer service and they are talking about email archieving email that is auto selected that I didn’t uncheck. I ask for a refund for the remaining 2 years and 10 months and they said no refund. This is a highway robbery. Stay away.

Absolutely the WORST customer service team, I would guess that they are in India from the names I have seen. They never read emails or notes between the support staff. NEVER use a credit card with them as they will automatically charge you full price and they also move you up to the most expensive options, plus they add extras after your "deal" has run its course. It is absolutely impossible to get a credit from them if this happens to you.

Ionos played “bait & switch”/deceptive promos/hidden fees/unethical upsells … promising me a lower rate than they charged me. Then I tried to cancel, both on their site & via phone, neither worked and I was on hold on the phone for OVER 35 MINUTES and then HUNG UP ON! I’ve not been using their hosting for MONTHS & am STILL being charged (as of 3/2/26)!

The cancel option in the account does not work -- I am still charged monthly. I called to cancel and was still charged. There's no one to turn to. I was recently charged an extra $180 to pay for a new year. It's unbelievable. I was able to block their payments, but they're still sending invoices, stating I am behind on payments. Besides this, the website builder is terrible and incredibly difficult to manage.

When I contacted them to cancel, thinking this was an obvious mistake or at least something they would work with me on, I was told that even if I cancel the service, I am still obligated to pay for the full annual contract — meaning 12 months at $122 per month. So essentially, once you’re in, you’re locked in. This is not customer service — it’s a hostage contract. The pricing structure feels intentionally misleading. The promotional rate is clearly designed to get you in the door, and the long-term commitment terms are either buried in fine print or not adequately explained during signup.

I purchased a domain name in early 2025, and immediately turned off the auto renewal feature trusting it would work, then a year later I was charged for a domain name renewal. When I noticed the charge to my account I contacted their support requesting a refund and to close my account. My account was immediately closed and I was sent this statement: "In case of a domain cancellation, the domain fees already paid by you cannot be refunded."

THIS IS A SCAM! Customer support is rude and terrible, called me **, and told me they will not cancel/can't cancel my subscription or give a refund. I figured out how to cancel online and fighting for my refund.

This company refuses to cancel all of the add-ons that they put on my account. This is so frustrating as I have been a 1&1 customer for about 15 years. Now that IONOS has purchased it the company has turned out to be non-compliant. This is so sad.