Hi, I’m Kayla. I test tools for a living, and I use them in real life. I built two small sites on iPage this year. One was for my neighbor’s cookie shop. The other was my own one-page portfolio. I’ll tell you what worked, what got weird, and what I’d do again. (I also documented the full step-by-step process in a separate play-by-play: I built a website on iPage—here’s how it really went.)
Spoiler: it’s simple and cheap at first. But you’ll hit a few walls.
If you want to see where iPage stands among dozens of competing builders, the latest rankings at Website Builder Awards lay it out clearly. For deeper dives, you can skim TechRadar’s detailed iPage review and Tom’s Guide’s nuts-and-bolts hosting rundown for extra context before you commit.
Getting started felt easy… mostly
Sign-up was fast. I got a free domain for the first year and a lock (SSL) without any fuss. The website builder sits inside the iPage dashboard. I clicked “Create,” picked a theme, and boom—there’s a draft site.
I liked that the starter themes looked calm and clean. I changed the colors to match the cookie boxes. Pink and cream. Soft, not loud. It took me ten minutes to find the font I wanted. The font list is long, and the preview can lag a bit, but it’s there.
One hiccup: the free builder only gave me a handful of pages. I hit that limit fast with the cookie menu, gallery, FAQs, contact, and a home page. I upgraded so I could add more. Kind of annoying, but okay.
Drag, drop, scoot things around
The editor is block based. You add sections like “Hero,” “Text,” “Gallery,” “Map,” and “Form.” Then you drag them where you want. It’s very “what you see is what you get,” which helped my neighbor watch me make changes in real time.
Real example: on the home page, I added a big hero photo of sugar cookies shaped like stars. I put a button there that says “Order a dozen.” The button links to a simple form. That form sends an email to her inbox. She likes it because she can reply fast from her phone.
Another example: the contact page. I added the map block, set the pin to her shop address, and set store hours. The hour picker is basic, but it does the job. I also added a little strip with Instagram photos. It pulled the feed without extra code.
Mobile view: cute, but mind the spacing
I always tap the “Mobile” view before I publish. On the cookie site, headlines wrapped funny on small screens. One line jumped and made the button float too low. I fixed it by shrinking the font and hiding one decorative image on phones. There’s a simple toggle for “Hide on mobile.” That saved my layout more than once.
Tip: keep your headlines short. iPage can handle long lines, but it looks cleaner when you keep it tight.
Speed and uptime felt fine for small stuff
The pages loaded fast for me in Ohio and okay for my cousin in Texas. On a rainy Tuesday night, the editor froze once while saving. I lost a few minutes of changes. After that, I clicked “Save” a lot. Old habit from school papers, I guess.
Published pages stayed up. No big outages on my end.
Selling stuff: I kept it simple
We didn’t build a full store. She didn’t need carts or complex tax rules. So I added a PayPal “Buy Now” button for sampler boxes and used the form for custom orders. It worked, but it’s basic. If you want real-store stuff like stock counts, coupons, and shipping tables, you’ll likely feel boxed in.
I tried the product block on my portfolio just to test. It looked neat but lacked deep settings. Good for one or two items, not a full shop.
Blogging: it exists
I wrote a short post about her new lemon glaze. The blog tool is plain. You can add a cover photo, write text, and set a date. No tags. No fancy filters. That’s fine if you post once a month. If you write daily, you’ll want more control.
Email and little tech bits
I made hello@[ourdomain].com and it worked with webmail right away. The inbox felt old-school but stable. I set forwarding to my Gmail and added a reply rule. Spam filters were okay. A few odd emails slipped through, like fake “invoice” notes, but they got caught later.
I asked chat support to make sure every visit used HTTPS. The agent set a quick redirect and checked my DNS for me. It took about ten minutes. Friendly, not stiff.
Support: real people showed up
I used chat three times:
- Day 1: theme not loading a header image—cleared cache and it showed up.
- Week 2: billing line looked off on my plan—intro price showed one thing, cart showed another. They fixed it and sent a summary.
- Month 2: I broke the contact form while testing spam settings. They reset it and sent me a note with steps.
Wait time was 5–8 minutes. No reading from a robot script vibe. I like that.
Prices and the renewal surprise
The first year felt cheap. That’s why I tried it. Renewal costs jump. Not wild, but higher than the first year. Also, remember the page limit. The free builder plan let me start, but I upgraded to keep going. If you plan a five-page site forever, you’re fine. If you want ten or more pages, budget for the higher tier.
I also paid a few bucks for backups. Worth it. One late night, I deleted the whole gallery by mistake. I restored it in five clicks.
What bugged me (the honest bits)
- The editor lags a little with big photo galleries.
- Style control is shallow. You can’t set deep global styles across every block. I had to tweak buttons on each page.
- The blog is too simple for heavy posting.
- The store tools feel light for complex sales.
- The theme library looks clean, but some templates look the same once you remove their stock photos.
What I liked
- Fast start. From zero to a live site in a day.
- The map, form, and gallery blocks just work.
- SSL clicks on by itself, which is nice.
- Chat support actually fixes things.
- Backups saved my bacon when I messed up.
Two real builds, two real results
- Cookie shop: six pages, lots of photos, one PayPal button, an order form. We published in a weekend. She’s had steady orders since. People say the map helps.
- My portfolio: one long page with a contact form, a quick “About,” and three small case cards. I mobile-tested, changed the font once, and left it alone. It still looks clean months later.
Who should use iPage
You want a simple site, fast. If you’re a coach or consultant and want something tuned for scheduling and lead capture, here are the best website builders for life coaches that I tried. A local shop, a service page, a one-pager, a church flyer, a short menu—stuff like that. Running a cabin or beach condo? I compared the best website builders for vacation rentals if that’s your jam. You don’t want deep design control. You don’t want to tinker with code. Maybe you’re planning an adults-only advice blog or hookup resource and want to study how successful sites frame their copy and CTAs—check out this step-by-step guide to getting free sex online for a real-world look at content structures and engagement tactics that keep readers clicking.
For an even more granular peek at how regional classifieds gear their wording and safety cues, take a look at the New Iberia case study on SkipTheGames alternatives over at One Night Affair—you’ll find specific headline formulas, disclaimer language, and conversion-friendly call-to-action placements you can adapt to any adult-oriented landing page.
If you need a big store, heavy blog control, or pixel-perfect design, you’ll want something stronger. I’ve used WordPress on iPage with a theme, and that gave me more power, but it also took more time.
Quick tips from me to you
- Write your page titles first. It makes layout easier.
- Keep photos under 2000px wide. Upload smaller files for speed.
- Check mobile before you publish each page.
- Turn on backups. Seriously.
- Test your form with two emails, not one. I send a test from my phone and my laptop.
My bottom line
iPage helped me get two small sites live without drama. It’s simple and calm. It does the basics well. I wish the design control went deeper, and that the free plan let me add more pages. But for fast, tidy sites, it works.
Would I use it again