iPage Blog Hosting Review – Should you use them for your Blog?

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my terms & conditions for more info.

One of the most common questions I get asked about blogging is how do I make money from it. There is never a straight forward answer to that and would be worthy of an entire blog post on its own. The second question is what’s the difference between hosted and self-hosted?

So what is the difference?

What’s the Difference Between Hosted and Self-hosted?

Hosted Blog:

A hosted blog is when you use a free blogging platform such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com.

Benefits of Hosted

• They are normally easy to set up
• Free

Downsides of Hosted

• You have less control over your blog.
• Limited amount of bandwidth
• Unless you pay for your own domain you will have whichever platform you chose tagged onto the end of your domain. For example www.example.blogspot.com instead of www.example.com
• You will have limited advertising options and money earning potential.

Self-Hosted Blog

If you choose the self-hosted route you either host the blog yourself or more commonly you would use a hosting company such as iPage to host it for you for a monthly fee.

Benefits of Self-Hosted

• Your blog is your own, you can customise it to your heart’s content.
• You can install plugins
• You are in control and can make changes to the code
• You can move hosting companies and take your blog with you should you feel the need to
• No caps on earning potential

Downsides of Self-Hosted

• You have to pay for your hosting (although the prices are normally very low)
• It can be daunting for new bloggers to set up without the right help

iPage Blog Hosting Review

Who is iPage?

*iPage was founded in 1998 by Thomas Gorny and is now owned by the Endurance International Group, who also own other web hosting companies such as BlueHost and HostGator – Wikipedia 

What Do They Offer?

Key Features

• Free domain registration
• Unlimited domain names allowed
• Unlimited disk space
• Unlimited email accounts
• Unlimited MySQL databases

iPage power over 1 million websites worldwide.

Added Extras

• 24/7 phone support
• Online help centre and ticketing system
• Free drag and drop iPage Website Builder
• Hundreds of mobile-friendly templates
• SEO marketing tools
• Freedom to upload files with FTP
• Flexibility to create a blog, online store, or website
• Step-by-step tutorials

Reasons to Choose iPage

• Over 1 million websites being hosted worldwide
• Great customer service
• 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee 

If after purchasing your web hosting you’re not satisfied with the service you have a 30-day money back guarantee. No questions asked. iPage will refund your hosting fees in full within 30 days of purchase. Please note this only applies to their hosting plans and not to any of their add-on services.

• Competitive prices!

Setting up your own blog with iPage is very easy to do, even for people like me that are not great at the techy side of blogging.

If you want to set up your own blog with iPage then check out my  How To Start a WordPress Blog on iPage post which has a step by step guide on getting your blog set up. If you follow the steps you should have your own blog ready to go in under an hour. 

How Much Does it Cost?

Currently, they are offering an introductory offer of just £1.50 per month (billed annually) for their Essential Plan. This is the plan that I have for my two blogs. After this, the cost goes up to £8.95 per month, again billed annually. VAT not included. 

You have the option to choose from an initial term of 12, 24 or 36 months. This price may be subject to change but today (7th March 2017) it is that price.

The above amount is all you will pay for as your domain name and emails are included in that price. Obviously, you may wish to spend more on your blog in the future to grow and develop it. I personally have paid for certain plugins, blogging courses and resources over the years to help grow my business.

iPage include a selection of ‘add-ons’ which are optional. It is entirely up to you whether you buy them or not. Personally, I didn’t buy them as I found a lot of free plugins that could do the same job for me.

Convinced Yet? *Click here to sign up and take advantage of their special introductory offer of £1.50 per month, saving you 83% on web hosting.

Earn Money By Becoming an Affiliate

If you do decide to take out hosting with iPage and you are happy with the company and what they have to offer you can become an affiliate for the company and earn money for recommending them, just like I am doing now!

If you are a successful affiliate you can cover the cost of a year of hosting with only two successful referrals.

Watch a 1 Minute Video

For more information about iPage blog hosting and the other services that they offer check out their *website.

My Personal Experience of iPage

Why I Chose iPage: Personally, I chose iPage over all of the other hosting companies for three main reasons. Their prices, their 24/7 free customer service and how easy it is to use their website & systems.

I have been with iPage for over 5 years now and I have two blogs with them. I can honestly say I have never had any issues with their hosting. If I have had a problem with my blog they have always helped me. On the rare occasions that I have needed help with something, I like to use the chat rooms to contact support. They have always sorted out whatever the issue was there and then.

For the record, I am not ‘techy’ minded at all! We never had ICT lessons at my school, in fact, we had one room that had about 4 computers in it. I have had to teach myself everything about how to blog and building up my business.

The iPage team were incredibly patient with me when I was first setting up my self-hosted blog, I have no doubt my ‘silly’ questions drove them nuts but they never showed it.

In Conclusion

I can safely say that from personal experience I have never had an issue with iPage. I’m happy with their pricing plan and wouldn’t see any need to switch to anyone else.

As always I am more than happy to answer any questions that you may have just leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

Start Your Own Blog with iPage

If you’d like to take your blogging to the next level that I would highly recommend going self-hosted with a company such as *iPage.

 

You may also like: How To Start a WordPress Blog on iPage + How to Create a Custom Blog Header using PicMonkey

**Image Credits: Luca Bravo + Sebastian Mantel