IONOS
Europe's biggest host-registrar runs the pound-then-fifteen playbook, has withdrawn WHOIS privacy on every TLD and wraps domains in 12-month contracts.
Who owns it
IONOS (IONOS Cloud Ltd, Gloucester, for UK customers; registrar of record IONOS SE, IANA 83; parent IONOS Group SE, Frankfurt-listed since February 2023 and majority-owned by United Internet AG, whose founder Ralph Dommermuth holds over half the shares; 6.8 million customers, 22 million domains, sister brands including Fasthosts, STRATO and united-domains) is the scale player of European hosting, and its domain pricing is built for acquisition. On 5 September 2026 the UK site showed .com at £1 for the first year ("Save 93%") renewing at £15 a year on the overview grid and £16 on the .com product page; .co.uk £1 then £10; .io £41.25 then £75, all ex VAT, so a UK buyer adds 20%. The promotion is once per customer and new customers only. A test checkout on 7 September 2026 pre-added nothing and priced the basket ex VAT with the renewal stated, but put two mandatory upsell pages between the search and the basket (Domain Guard, a four-TLD bundle and premium domains, then email, hosting and website builder), with auto-renew fixed on in the contract details. What you get for it is decent: free DNS with a 10,000-subdomain allowance, unlimited email forwarding, a wildcard SSL per contract, authenticator-app 2FA, a DNS API, third-party nameservers allowed, transfer-out by auth code or self-service IPS tag change, and a UK phone line on 0808 303 0000 that IONOS says is staffed around the clock.
What to know
The problems are structural. IONOS discontinued WHOIS privacy for every TLD on 6 December 2025, citing the NIS2 implementation, and company contact details have been published in the public WHOIS since 6 March 2026. Only .uk individuals get Nominet's opt-out. DNSSEC requires the paid Domain Guard (£1 then £15 a year) or DNS Pro, where every other registrar here includes it. Services carry a 12-month minimum contract that auto-renews; domain auto-renew must be switched off at least 72 hours before the term ends; cancellation is "by telephone or through your Control Panel" and is not deemed received until IONOS confirms in writing; restoring an expired domain costs £90 plus VAT. Trustpilot is 4.7 on 41,642 invited reviews, but the 8% one-star is dominated by cancellation friction ("cancellation requires request then phone call", 19 Aug 2026), auto-renewals passed to debt collectors, and, in three dated reviews from August and September 2026, "constant sales calls". IONOS's privacy policy does list "telephonic contact for advertising purposes" as a processing purpose, opt-out via the control panel. The free "personal consultant" is customer-activated and advisory, with a remit that includes recommending "suitable solutions".
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +24/7 UK phone line and a DNS API
- +Free DNS, unlimited email forwarding and a wildcard SSL per contract
- +Self-service .uk transfer-out
Cons
- −.com renews at 15 times the advertised first-year price
- −WHOIS privacy withdrawn on all TLDs since Dec 2025; DNSSEC costs £15 a year extra
- −12-month contracts with auto-renew fixed on, phone-confirmed cancellations and debt-collection complaints on Trustpilot
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £15 (£15/yr for the entry licence). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
.com renewal
£15/yr · annual commitment
Month-to-month: not published
- ✓GBP ex VAT (£18 inc); the .com product page says £16; first year £1 (new customers, once per customer); .co.uk £1 then £10; .io £41.25 then £75; 12-month minimum contract; restoration £90 + VAT.
Specifications
| Rating | 2.5 |
| Pricing and plans | |
|---|---|
| .com renewal / yr | £15 |
| .com first year | £1 |
| Renewal premium* | 1,400% |
| .co.uk renewal / yr | £10 |
| Pricing pattern | Intro discount |
| .co.uk first year | £1 |
| Transfer-out fee | Free |
| Features | |
| WHOIS privacy | Not offered |
| Checkout upsells | Light |
| Transfer out | Free, self-serve |
| Bring your own DNS | ✓ |
| DNSSEC | No |
| Blocks AI agents by default** | No |
| Free DNS hosting | ✓ |
| Transfer lock by default | ✓ |
| Free email forwarding | ✓ |
| Free SSL with domain | ✓ |
| Integrations and developers | |
| API | ✓ |
| MCP server | No |
| Ownership and trust | |
| 2FA | ✓ |
| Trustpilot (reviews)† | 4.7 (41,642) |
| Support | |
| UK phone support | ✓ |
| 24/7 live chat | No |
| Support channels | Phone 0808 303 0000 (24/7), Live chat, Support portal +1 |
*Renewal premium: how much more the second year of a .com costs than the first, as a percentage of the first-year price. Registrars advertise the first year; you pay the renewal every year after. 0% means the advertised price is the real price. Prices are per domain per year as shown to a UK visitor on the research date, in the currency the registrar bills UK customers in; see each profile for the VAT basis.
**Blocks AI agents by default: whether the registrar's bundled DNS/CDN stops AI agents (chat fetchers, browser-use agents) reaching customer sites unless the owner changes a setting. Recorded only where the vendor documents such a default (Cloudflare, from 15 September 2026, on pages that carry ads).
†Trustpilot: uk.trustpilot.com TrustScore and review count on the research date. Two profiles are not representative of the registrar and are shown for completeness: Cloudflare (1.4) is mostly non-customers blocked by CAPTCHAs on other companies' websites, and Hover (1.3) is 120 unprompted reviews the company has not answered.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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