Website builders are abundant and finding the right website builder to suit your needs becomes more of a difficult task with each new builder that gets created. The 1&1 website builder is owned by a famous German internet company called United Internet, and their 1&1 service is a web hosting company that started operations by the end of the 20th century.
A powerful website builder, 1&1 is also gifted by the fact that the company offers amazing hosting services. The cost of keeping your website running will also be very low should you choose 1&1 as your provider, as they’re known to offer low-cost hosting services to people all around the world.
As you might expect, expectations for the service of the 1&1 website builder are very high – but does it meet them? We’ll be exploring every feature that makes the 1&1 website builder a great tool for small businesses, as well as all the drawbacks that you might find when working closely with this site creator.
1&1 Website Builder Overview
The 1&1 website builder should not only be seen as a website creator but as a complete tool of shared services. The features offered by the company are too complete, and you won’t have to resort to another website to get your online ventures started. United Internet has made sure that 1&1 is able to offer users a self-sustained service.
Furthermore, the company offers you the chance to fully tweak the number of resources that your website is receiving from the host. This is done very quickly, thanks to the shared link between host and website provider. If you, for example, publish something that draws a ton of visitors to your site, you’ll want to up the resources so it can handle the traffic.
Likewise, the prices of the services are as low as they are effective. The list of features is very rich, which gives a ton of versatility to your 1&1 website. It’s hard to find such a service with a value for money that matches 1&1, and even though their website builder might not be as complete as Wix’s, its entire service easily matches it – and some would say it even surpasses it.
The Pros & Cons of 1&1 Website Builder – Why Choose it Over Others?
Apart from the ability to integrate various service in one offer, 1&1 has a ton of other features that make it a viable option for most small startups, companies, and independent website owners. What you do with the program is up to you, and how far you take your site is also in your hands thanks to the versatile features that it offers.
Pricing is one of the main reasons as to why we would recommend the 1&1 website builder over other of the most popular programs that you can find online. The services that you get by paying their cheap subscriptions are far greater than anything that other sites might have in stock.
With dynamic cloud servers and guaranteed 99% uptime, not choosing 1&1 over other services could be hard. However, some things are not as great with 1&1 and other platforms far outperform the German company in some respects. You should be fully aware of what you’re getting into before committing your website to 1&1.
1&1 Website Builder Pros
- You can build a professional site very quickly thanks to the drag-and-drop features of the software
- It’s aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, and they have templates that fit the theme of most enterprises
- The company offers amazing customer support to its users, and this isn’t limited to their most expensive plans. You’ll be entitled to 24/7 support from the company, although they might prioritize the high payers first.
- The servers support people from all operative systems, including Linux.
- A very intuitive interface allows people to work quickly, without having to resort to tutorials or other external tools to understand how to use the program
1&1 Website Builder Cons
- Although their plans are cheap, they don’t offer an option to host a website for free. This is a common practice among website builders and plays against their popularity
- The templates aren’t as cool as those you get in other websites. Granted, they focus on business sites, but it’d be better if they had more variety on their themes
1&1 Website Builder Features & Widgets
Simple Widget Placement
One of the most difficult things in most website builders is the clean integration of widgets. With 1&1, all you need to do is select whichever widget you want your site to display, drag it wherever you want it to go, and watch it successfully be added to your site. It’s very simple, and we haven’t found a website with such an easy widget integration as 1&1.
The menus also make widgets very simple to locate, and you can even sort through categories to make sure you’re browsing the widget section that you need.
Full Starting Features
Your subscription to the 1&1 website builder service comes packed with a ton of additional benefits, such as the inclusion of a free domain name that will remain paid through your first year of subscription.
Each plan that 1&1 offers is different, but they are all very complete and include most of the features you expect from any of the big names in the website building industry. With plans that don’t surpass the $30 a month (even when it comes to eCommerce bonuses), 1&1 also offers the best value for money amongst the best business website creators.
Special Website Offers
The 1&1 website builder allows you to create certain offers that show up to a reduced number of users, or even some that show up in certain times of the year. This is ideal if you’re an eCommerce business owner and you want to show certain offers during the winter, or maybe you’re having a discount special during the spring.
The 1&1 Website builder comes packed with options that enrich the experience of building a website, as well as the experience that users get from whatever you’re offering in your page.
1&1 Pricing and Plans
The IONOS 1&1 service offers very good hosting prices, with a plan to host over 50 websites for just $14 a month. However, their website creator is also known to be one of the cheapest options on the market – even when taking into consideration special eCommerce plans.
It’s a shame that they don’t offer a free service, however. It would’ve been nice to try out their services for free and test how good the website fares without having to spend money in advance. However, the plans are very well priced and they’re extremely affordable. These are their top plans and their benefits:
- 1&1 Essentials Plan: The Essentials plan comes at a cost of just $7 a month if you choose the non-eCommerce version of the plan. It has every basic tool that you’ll need to create a basic site and host it, with a free year of domain name payments included with your subscription
- 1&1 Business Plan: The Business plan also includes a 1-year free domain name and an even more advanced setup than the essentials plan. The service costs $10 a month, but the company offers a $1 a month special for the first year of your subscription
- 1&1 Pro Plan: Their pro plan includes a bunch of additional features, such as email marketing tools and better SEO-oriented options. It comes at an elevated cost of $20 a month, but it’s well worth the money if you intend to grow your business
The company doesn’t offer any free trials, but they do offer massive discounts for the first year of your subscription. These are worth it because they allow you to try the software at a very low cost.
Our Final Verdict on 1&1 Website Builder – Does It Live Up to The Hype?
The 1&1 website builder doesn’t only live up to the expectations that have been set on it in recent years, it seems that it surpasses them. Given that the platform isn’t held in as high a regard as other services (such as Wix, for example), you would expect a solid service with not too much added and just a few good things to offer.
However, what we’ve found in 1&1 is a wide variety of tools that allow you to create a well-designed, beautiful website without having to know a thing about HTML coding. The drag-and-drop tools used in this website builder are very simple, but at the same time allow you to put a lot of depth in your sites without tweaking the coding.
The templates, themes, and the overall feel of the website are clearly aimed at the creation of small or medium businesses sites. Personal blogs and other sorts of websites might end up looking better in other website builders, but it’ll be hard for you to find a better website builder than 1&1 if you’re an entrepreneur or a business owner.
