InMotion Hosting Review
InMotion Hosting
$3.99/mo | $7.99/mo
PROS
- tons of features and options
- multiple levels of service
- supports WordPress websites
- web design and SEO services
CONS
- unprofessional support behavior
- slow/unresponsive technical support
- inconsistent performance
- misleading billing policies
- no international data centers
InMotion Hosting was founded in 2001 and is employee-owned and -operated. They offer a variety of Linux-based web hosting services, including both shared hosting and dedicated servers, as well as adjacent services like reseller hosting and web design. InMotion Hosting is best-suited for medium to large businesses, especially those looking to outsource pretty much everything to do with their websites.
InMotion Hosting Price
InMotion Hosting has somewhat middle-of-the-road pricing, with a slightly high introductory rate of $3.99/month and an okay-ish $7.99/month renewal rate for their shared hosting. But keep in mind this is for their basic plan, which only supports 2 websites. If you want to host more than 2, you’ll need to start at their $5.99/month plan (renews at $9.99/month) but that plan comes with a limit of 6 websites. Any more and you’ll need to jump up to $13.99/month for unlimited hosting.
InMotion also offers WordPress hosting starting at $4.99/month. It renews at the same $7.99/month price, and the price difference is a negligible $1/month, but their WordPress plans are extremely limited. Even if you upgrade to their best WordPress plan at $13.99/month, you’ll only be able to host 3 websites, which is a raw deal for developers.
InMotion’s pricing is a little better if you’re considering a VPS (which you may need to, since most of their shared plans severely limit the number of websites you can host.) Their VPS Hosting starts at $19.99/month and renews for $34.99, which is on the lower end of the VPS pricing spectrum and reasonable for this type of hosting.
InMotion Hosting Performance
InMotion offers acceptable performance on their shared servers. Our test account was up and running most of the time, though we did experience about a day of downtime during a 6-month period. That doesn’t quite meet their 99.9% uptime guarantee, but it’s far from the worst uptime we’ve seen. Again, middle-of-the-road for shared hosting.
Server speed is fairly good, with a 2.7s average page load speed for HTML sites and 3.6s average for WordPress sites. However it’s important to note that these speeds were tested from North America, not too far from InMotion’s servers, all of which are located in North America. If you’re located elsewhere in the world, you’d be better off searching for a web host with server options closer to your physical location to avoid any latency issues.
InMotion Hosting Support
InMotion’s support team is less than stellar. They do offer 24/7 support via email, phone, and chat, and we didn’t have any problems with requesting smaller fixes or adjustments. Their team knew how to handle the day-to-day issues of web hosting. But if you have a more complicated issue or a significant problem, don’t be surprised if InMotion takes days or even weeks to respond to and resolve your ticket, even when requesting an update. They do have an absolutely massive knowledgebase and support center where you can fix your own issues, which might be quicker.
We also noticed that some of the chat and email support reps weren’t entirely professional when addressing issues or responding to basic questions. We here at RateMyHost are pretty laid-back and easy-going ourselves, so ‘professionalism’ is low on our list of priorities, but there’s still a line between ‘unprofessional’ and ‘rude’ some of their reps were skirting pretty close to. If you’re running a business and expect a certain level of professional etiquette, or if you’re going to need quick and timely support for any unforeseen major issues, you should find a host with a better support team than InMotion.
InMotion Hosting Usability
InMotion’s usability rating is perfectly acceptable. They use the cPanel control panel, which is icon-based and fairly straightforward, and they have some standard, popular website builders and CMSs like WordPress and PrestaShop, all of which make it fairly easy to build a site or online shop. Plus they have extensive documentation and self-help support options with guides for pretty much everything, so even if it’s not immediately clear how to do something, you can find out how just by searching. This makes InMotion a good choice for DIYers and those looking to learn as they go without wasting any time waiting on support, though it’s certainly not the only good option on that front.
InMotion Hosting Features
Here’s where InMotion truly shines—its features. While there may not be a whole lot of them included on the lower-tier, cheaper plans, as you move up through the plans their list of available or included features just grows and grows. InMotion offers dedicated servers that you can even configure yourself to suit your specific needs. You can also choose between specific hosting types—SSD, SSH, eCommerce, WooCommerce, Ruby, SSH, PorstgreSQL, and PHP hosting are all available. They have extensive options for website design, SEO, and even logo design. This makes InMotion a fantastic choice if you want to sit back and let them setup, create, and manage your entire website from start to finish—assuming you have the budget for it.
Conclusion
InMotion hosting is best suited for hands-off, high-budget, full-service websites for US-based large businesses or corporations, especially if you don’t have an in-house development and design team. But if you’re a smaller business, developer, blogger, or an individual without money to burn, you’re probably better off looking for a cheaper host with less restrictive plans and better support.