1 & 1 MyWebsite is a drag-and-drop website builder from the German web hosting giant 1 & 1 IONOS. The MyWebsite Starter Plan covers the basics of personal sites. You get unlimited pages and web space, a simple built-in blog, limited SEO settings, and website backup and restore.
Yes, that's right, you can start building your site for as little as €1 in the first month (Image credit: 1 & 1 Ionos) After signing up and submitting your credit card details, you can choose your domain (it's included in the price of the first year and, like all other services of this type, is not part of the guarantee. Reimbursement).
Here are the prices, without store (Image credit: 1 & 1 Ionos)
Packages and prices
The first month is significantly reduced for all IONOS plans. There are three available, each with an option for an online store at additional cost. All plans are paid 12 months in advance. The cheapest is called "Starter" at €5 per month (the first month costs €1 and adding an online store brings the price to €12 for all subsequent months). It includes your domain name as well as your email. It's designed with speed in mind, allowing you to use and customize templates so your business can connect quickly. Next up is "Plus" at €10 per month (the first month is €5 and adding a store increases the price of the other months to €20). It offers more customization tools than "Starter", allows you to edit HTML and CSS, adds support for multilingual sites, and allows you to include video backgrounds and animations. Finally, we have "Pro" at €15 per month (first month is €10, and adding a store increases the starting price to €25 and the full price to €35). The main addition is the delivery and personalization of targeted content.
IONOS has a ton of cute responsive templates (Image credit: 1 & 1 Ionos)
Interface
The interface is simple and you can choose from hundreds of responsive templates. These are grouped by theme or you can search the collection by keyword, and most of our test searches returned plenty of attractive designs. If you prefer to start from scratch, you can select a blank template. You still get all the basic layouts, but no graphics. These could make it easier to create your own vision because you're no longer distracted by the big photo of a dog, skier, pizza, or whatever that's stuck on the cover of a common model. Click a template thumbnail to see larger images of the sites' desktop, tablet, and mobile views. Unfortunately, and unlike most of the competition, there doesn't seem to be an option to preview the template as a live site in your browser.
IONOS comes with all the features you'd expect, including blogs and an online store (Image credit: 1 & 1 Ionos)
Features
Depending on the plan you choose, you have two different editors called Now and Creator. Now is designed to be quick and easy, with limited options so you can get up and running quickly. It looks simple and clean, and you can create something that looks pretty good in no time. If you want more control, you should opt for a plan that Creator offers. It has a very professional look and feel. A preview of your website allows you to click and edit images, text, and more. A toolbar allows you to add content, change layout options, and customize settings at the site level. You can choose the page you want to work on, set a display type (desktop, tablet, mobile), cancel the current action, preview the site, and publish when done. There are many features that we liked, such as the ability to add your own images or stock images if you prefer. There are also plenty of tools available for editing images, which is not a feature found in most website builders and is welcome - it saves you the hassle of having to detour through an image editing app, keeping you in the site it is recreating and helping you stay focused. We found a lot of well-designed and useful context menus. This included standard options to replace the image, customize its layout, change the alignment, or copy the image to the clipboard. An animation tool allows the addition of custom animations, such as fading the image from the left or bouncing from the right. We were able to selectively hide the object on desktop, tablet or mobile, an extremely powerful feature. Experts can even edit the object's HTML and CSS code, providing fine-grained, low-level control over functionality. It might seem overwhelming to less experienced users, but you don't have to use this feature if you don't want to, and there are plenty of features available, basics like editing, adding, and deleting. Link, format change, style customization (borders, shadows, rounded corners) and add a variety of hover effects, without needing to see a single line of code.
Competition
The blogging tool is a distinguishing feature of the 1 & 1 IONOS builder. It comes with a simple blogging platform that can be added to your site in seconds. Exceptionally, this does not require you to start with a blank template. If you have an existing blog, point IONOS to your RSS feed and you can import your articles, images and comments from Disqus, ideal for ensuring a smooth migration from your old host. There are many different website builders (Webs.com, RIVYT, Odoo, and DreamHost). But not all website builders have multi-featured blogging tools.
Final verdict
It's a bit more expensive than some, but IONOS' attractive templates, well-designed editor, and powerful bonus features make it easy to build professional, feature-rich websites. You can also check out our other web hosting buying guides: Pricing - 1and1 MyWebsite: ▼