If you are looking for an industry leader in web hosting that allows you to start small and scale up, InMotion is a trusted choice. In fact, it is one of the best web hosting services tested by our experts and recommended for hosting any website.
Many users would choose this provider because of its solid range of hosting types with support for small and resource-demanding projects.
But then, what makes InMotion Hosting stand out in a competitive market filled with many web hosting providers? And how does InMotion actually perform, and can it meet your specific needs to ensure your project’s success?
The answers to your questions are in this comprehensive InMotion review. We have tested out their most valuable shared hosting plan, so you don’t have to.
After reading this in-depth review, you’ll gain a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of InMotion Hosting and decide whether it’s the right fit for your business. If that’s something you will be interested in knowing, keep reading.
InMotion Hosting Pros and Cons
Pros
- Free Website Migration
- Boldgrid Website Builder for WordPress
- Monarx Security ($19.99 value)
- cPanel Hosting Provider
- Free Domain for 1 to 3-year term lengths
- 20x faster on Ultrastack and NVMe SSD
Cons
- Lacks Windows servers
- Limited Data centers
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Exclusive Offer: InMotion Hosting offers a 90-day money-back guarantee, far exceeding the standard 30-day refund policies of most other web hosts. This gives you ample time to try out their services risk-free.
Who uses InMotion Hosting?
According to our findings during this review, InMotion hosting has been in business since 2001 with over 170K+ customers using their services.
They are known and widely adopted for fast, secure and scalable web hosting with 24/7/365 U.S based customer support. Our experience revealed that InMotion’s scalability is ideal for growing businesses.
Does InMotion Hosting offer cPanel?
Yes, InMotion Hosting does use cPanel. If you choose InMotion Hosting, you can expect to have access to cPanel to help you manage your hosting account efficiently on shared web hosting, VPS and reseller plans.
cPanel is popular for its user-friendly interface, making it easy to manage websites, domains, emails, and other hosting features.
The inbuilt cPanel on InMotion’s Platform i is tailored to optimize performance and manage resources more efficiently, especially for users who need more control and scalability without the complexity of a standard cPanel. It’s built with additional features that allow for faster website management, such as one-click installations and enhanced security settings.
So, whether you’re using their standard cPanel or the inbuilt version on managed plans, InMotion ensures you have a powerful and user-friendly tool to manage your hosting needs.
Key Features of InMotion Hosting
The next aspect we looked at during our inMotion Hosting review is their key web hosting features.
Like other top web hosting providers, InMotion hosting also offers the necessary tools to help you host your business website with up to 20x faster speed and response times.
Here, we will discuss why the features are important and how it makes InMotion hosting a go-to choice for best in class server and network performance.
Free Domain Name
One of the reasons InMotion Hosting is beginner-friendly is their free domain name included with all their web hosting plans.
Securing a domain is essential for establishing your brand identity online and makes it easier for customers to find you.
For new business owners, this free domain helps reduce startup costs while still providing a professional web presence. With InMotion, you get both affordability and credibility right from the start. However, you can only get it if you choose the 1 year or 3 year plan.
Get a free domain name with InMotion
Website Migration
Moving to a new server can be difficult, but InMotion Hosting makes it seamless and hassle-free.
We were pleased that they offer website transfer services to help you switch to a better Linux hosting provider or move your website to a new domain without stress.
One of the benefits of using this service is that the whole process will be handled by experienced professionals while you focus on other aspects of your business.
To initiate the process, click on ‘Website Transfer Request’ in your account management panel (AMP) and submit a technical support ticket. We also found that the free website transfer option requires you to have a full cPanel backup from your other host.
You can also locate ‘Transfer Domain’ to point your domain to InMotion Hosting Servers, once you review the transfer process, click on ‘Begin transferring your domain’.
However, If you do not have a full cPanel backup, you can request for a manual transfer using their Launch Assist Service. This service is designed to assist you in migrating your website, email, or database, but it does come with a $199 fee.
Free Website Builder
Another great feature of InMotion Hosting that you’ll find extremely helpful is the free drag-and-drop website builder. The user friendly platforms allow you to customize and build a professional website without any coding or design experience. At the same, you can add and edit text, images, videos and other elements with ease.
You can either use the built-in SiteJet builder available in the cPanel or install BoldGrid from the account management panel. We found the SiteJet website builder to be intuitive with a drag and drop interface and a range of well designed and mobile responsive templates.
Whether you’re starting a blog, launching a business, or showcasing your portfolio, the templates are categorized based on different industries and layouts to suit your needs.
Furthermore, you can install BoldGrid if you don’t have an existing site on your domain, have an existing site but not built with BoldGrid or WordPress, or want to rebuild a WordPress website.
You are required to choose any of the setup options that work best for you to continue. Check how we created a test website with BoldGrid later in this review to see our full expert opinion and analysis.
Build and host a website with InMotion
Enhanced Security
InMotion Hosting provides a strong security suite to protect your website. We found during our review that they offer Free SSL which is important for data encryption, and Hack & Malware Protection which helps scan and patch your website files for any vulnerabilities to keep threats at bay.
At the same time, DDoS protection ensures continuous site availability and performance, along with automatic backups that ensure your data is safe at all times.
We were happy to see that they also provide Monarx Security, an anti-malware solution to protect websites developed using PHP and other programming languages. As an InMotion Hosting customer, this tool, valued at nearly $20, is completely free for you.
Marketing Tools
In our test, we were pleased to discover that one of the features that make InMotion Hosting a top web host is its free marketing tools, which are included with shared hosting.
InMotion Hosting understands the importance of marketing and provides a robust set of tools to help users promote their businesses effectively. It is a great way to advertise your business and get your website noticed by potential customers.
One of the marketing tools is that you will get email on any device. This means you can stay connected with your customers at all times by checking and replying to emails instantly on your phone or tablet.
Another InMotion Hosting marketing tool is the free $100 in Microsoft advertising credits. These credits help connect your business with millions of searchers who are not using Google.
We like the fact that the Microsoft Search Network can help deliver your pay-per-click ads on Yahoo, Bing, MSN, and AOL sites. However, you need to spend at least $25 on Microsoft advertising to get a special offer of $100 on search advertising.
Excellent Customer Support
Another key feature of InMotion Hosting we looked at during our review is reliable human support. Customer support is essential in hosting, providing website owners with the help and guidance they need when issues arise.
Like other top web hosts, InMotion Hosting excels in customer support. Their U.S.-based team is available 24/7, ensuring you receive the help you need, whether for sales or technical issues.
Their experts are always at hand to help with any problem or question at any hour of any day, 365 days a year. This high level of accessibility brings great peace of mind and enriches the overall hosting experience.
With this kind of dedicated support, we find it, in our review, to be of very great value, setting InMotion Hosting apart from other web hosts. You can reach them via phone, chat, and ticket support.
To give you a glimpse of what to expect, we tested their customer support service using the live chat option. Upon clicking the live chat icon, we were prompted to provide a name and email address, after which the chat started.
The response was quick, but the initial reply came from a sales consultant. Based on our previous experience with their chat support, we knew we should ask for a customer support representative who could handle technical inquiries instead.
The chat was transferred to the agent, and he joined and responded to our inquiry in less than a minute. However, he requested an additional 5 minutes to pull up our hosting account, which required us to wait.
Overall, our investigation of their customer support shows that the technical support team is not available 24/7 and can only be reached between 9 AM – 9 PM ET, Monday – Friday. We also noticed that the queue might require you to wait for a while to speak to a technical agent sometimes. However, their sales team is available 24/7 with fast replies in less than 10 seconds.
Types of Hosting InMotion Offers: Plans and Pricing
Another aspect we examined in our 2024 InMotion Hosting review was the pricing of its various hosting types and packages.
Each hosting type is priced differently based on their unique features and server configurations.
These include Shared hosting, WordPress on cPanel, WordPress VPS, VPS, Reseller hosting and Dedicated Server options.
Discover all the offers from InMotion Hosting
We review the various hosting types offered by InMotion Hosting, their plans and pricing and what they are best for.
Shared Hosting
InMotion Hosting, like many other web hosts, offers shared hosting services specifically designed for small business websites.
Our findings show that they offer four customized shared hosting plans: Core, Launch, Power, and Pro. All plans include features such as free domain and SSL certificates, free email hosting via webmail, live chat support, and unlimited bandwidth.
The cheapest plan is below $3 per month for a 1-year subscription. Like Hostinger, Inmotion also offers enough resources in their Core Plan with 100 GB SSD and the option to host only two websites.
As your site grows and requires more resources, you can easily upgrade to a higher plan. InMotion offers unlimited NVMe SSD on the higher plans, which means you won’t be charged based on how many resources you use. On the other hand, we discovered that websites hosted on these plans are fine-tuned to ensure up to 20x Ultrastack speed and optimal performance.
At the same time, the higher plans are customized to allow you to host more websites under one account.
WordPress Hosting
If you are planning to create a WordPress website, InMotion is a great choice and one of our favorite picks. They offer purpose-built WP hosting that’s simple and secure, with up to 40x performance to suit your needs.
We discovered that InMotion offers affordable shared hosting plans specifically optimized for WordPress. These packages ensure faster website performance and quicker loading times, thanks to advanced caching tailored for WordPress sites.
Discover the WordPress hosting from InMotion
Each WordPress hosting plan provides access to a free drag-and-drop builder and WordPress pre-installed at checkout. This allows you to create rich and mobile responsive layouts with free WordPress custom themes and templates.
With InMotion’s WordPress hosting, you can install plugins like Speed Coach, Total Upkeep, and more, enabling you to launch your website in just minutes.
Here is a breakdown of their WordPress-optimized shared hosting plans.
- WP Core: starts at a bit more than $3 per month on a 1 year subscription and renews at around $11 per month. It includes support for 2 websites, 100 GB NVMe SSD, and 10x WP performance.
- WP Launch: Costs a bit more than $5 per month and renews at around $14 monthly. You will get the chance to host up to 25 websites, Unlimited NVMe SSD and 20x WP performance.
- WP Power: Priced at under $6 per month and renews at a bit above $18 per month. It comes with unlimited websites and NVMe SSD, 30x WP performance, and 4 PHP Workers per site.
- WP Pro: Cost a bit above $11 per month and renews at around $25 monthly. It comes with Pro level support, 40x WP performance, Dedicated IP and WordPress multisite and staging tool.
In our InMotion review, we found that they also offer managed WordPress hosting on Platform i, featuring purpose-built cloud servers. The high performance solution guarantees superior speed and support for agencies, businesses and online eCommerce stores.
We were pleased to discover that this hosting service includes the built-in Platform i control panel, which allows you to create, launch, and manage WordPress websites more efficiently.
While trying our InMotion managed WP hosting, we found out that they will handle server maintenance, security updates, and provide sales and technical support, so you can focus on the next big thing for you and your business.
The Ultrastack 2GB RAM plan is the cheapest with access to 50 GB NVMe SSD, 1 TB bandwidth, 8 PHP workers and 32 MB+ Redis Cache. Besides, you only need to pay around $8 per month. On top of that, the managed plan ensures guaranteed performance for one WordPress site and offers the flexibility to scale your resources when you need them.
Verdict: The Managed WordPress hosting plans are an ideal choice if you’re looking for significantly faster WordPress sites with the benefits of fully isolated VPS hosting.
VPS Hosting
Another highlight from our InMotion Hosting review is the ability to scale your business without slowing down. With InMotion, you don’t need to look elsewhere for more power and resources.
If you need more control over your server environment or require custom software installations, InMotion’s VPS hosting service is suitable for growing businesses and developers.
Their VPS hosting service is optimized for faster speeds and enhanced security. This is because their managed virtual servers are built on Ultrastack for high performance. Each of their VPS plans comes with free SSL, DDoS protection, and free website transfers, and they guarantee 99.99% uptime. At the same time, you can only get unlimited bandwidth and 10 GB of free backup storage on the higher plans.
Here is a breakdown of their VPS hosting plans:
- VPS 2 : It’s the entry-level plan, and it is currently offered at $4.49/month, whether you choose a 1, 2, or 3-year commitment. In terms of resources, you get 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of RAM, 50 GB of NVMe SSD storage, and 5 TB of bandwidth.
- VPS 4: less than $10 per month. It comes with 8 GB RAM, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB Bandwidth, 2 dedicated IPs, and 4 vCPU. Renews at a bit below $17 per month.
- VPS 8: costs under $20 per month and offers 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 200 GB SSD, and 3 Dedicated IPs. Renews at less than $47 per month.
- VPS 12: Priced at almost $32 per month and renews at below $77 per month. You will get 12 vCPU Cores, 24 GB RAM, 360 GB, and 8 dedicated IPs.
- VPS 16: costs under $45 per month; renews at a bit above $110 per month. The professional grade plan comes with 16 vCPU Cores, 32 GB RAM, 460 GB NVMe SSD, and 10 dedicated IPs.
Tip: The prices mentioned above apply to the 3-year subscription plan. If you opt for a 1-year or 6-month term, the monthly cost will be higher.
Dedicated Servers
Unlike Hostinger and SiteGround, InMotion Hosting can boost your business further with a dedicated server. However, the perfect time to switch to a dedicated server is when:
- your current hosting solution can no longer handle your growing traffic
- you need greater control over your server environment,
- you require the highest level of performance and security for your operations.
InMotion Hosting provides custom dedicated servers built to your required specs. You can either choose the affordable standard dedicated server plans or the performance class for enhanced performance resources.
The cheapest plan starts at only $35 per month and renews at less than $70 monthly. It comes with sufficient dedicated resources, including 1 TB SSD, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, and 10 GB free backup storage, and one dedicated IP. We were happy to discover that you can easily upgrade your server resources by switching to higher plans.
However, all dedicated plans come with 1 Gbps unmetered bandwidth, free website transfer, security suite, server setup, free SSL certificate, cPanel, and WHM.
Reseller Hosting
If you are looking to start your own web hosting “company” with unlimited earning potential, a reseller plan is all you need. With InMotion’s reseller hosting service, you get white-label capabilities, allowing you to apply your personalized branding and messaging seamlessly.
What we liked most during our review is that you can try out the cheapest reseller plan for as little as $14 per month. This presents a great opportunity for agencies and developers to start on a budget with free domain resellers to make more money selling hosting and TLDs.
See the reseller offers from InMotion Hosting
With features like high-performance cloud VPS infrastructure, WHMCS and cPanel licences, InMotion provides the tools needed to build a successful hosting business while ensuring reliable performance and scalability.
Verdict: InMotion’s reseller hosting services offer a robust solution for those looking to manage multiple client websites with ease.
Onboarding Process with InMotion Hosting: Website Setup
Everything you need to get started with InMotion Hosting can be efficiently managed through their robust Account Management Panel (AMP). This centralized hub allows you to control every aspect of your hosting experience, from domain management to website setup, with a level of precision and ease that even seasoned professionals appreciate.
During our InMotion Review, we asked the technical support agent which of their website builders is recommended to make a website. For context, InMotion offers BoldGrid Site Builder in the AMP and SiteJet Builder in the InMotion cPanel area. While the SiteJet builder offers beautiful templates, the BoldGrid Website builder was preferred because it can take a WordPress site to the next level.
To set up a website on InMotion, simply follow our step-by-step guide.
Step 1: Change Primary Domain
After purchasing the WP power plan, we first changed the primary domain from the temporary one. InMotion offers a free domain for one year, so this process was a breeze, allowing us to set up a custom domain for our Gizmodo Test website.
To activate your domain name with InMotion, start by navigating to Register New Domain in the AMP menu bar. Enter your desired domain name and search for available TLDs. Since InMotion offers a free domain, we opted to use domain credit to purchase ours and added it to the cart. After entering our payment details to complete the domain order, we were ready to proceed with the website setup.
Step 2: Install BoldGrid With Softaculous
Another important step in our website setup is to install BoldGrid. Follow the additional steps below to complete the process.
- In the Account management panel, locate the Softaculous installer tool and click on it.
2. The onboarding process required us to login to the Softaculous cPanel dashboard to install the BoldGrid script.
3. Locate BoldGrid from the top scripts and click on install as shown below.
4. We added a new admin username and password on the form and clicked on install. Softaculous completed the software installation on our test domain website.
Step 3: Design and Customize your WP site
After clicking on the administrative URL, we discovered that despite using BoldGrid, the initial setup automatically included a standard WordPress website, as shown below.
After clicking on the WP Admin URL, we found ourselves in the WordPress admin area.
The next task was to enter our BoldGrid Connect Key to activate BoldGrid. This step wasn’t immediately clear, so we reached out to their technical support team for guidance. After all, they are there to help you set up your website efficiently.
We were impressed by the smooth and fast conversation with the support agent, who only needed a verification code for our AMP account to proceed with the request. This experience highlighted the value of InMotion’s customer support in ensuring a seamless setup process.
Next, we entered the BoldGrid connect key obtained from the customer support agent and clicked on submit. While the whole process was a bit stressful since we were using it for the first time, we finally got to the point where we could start editing our site.
The BoldGrid Inspiration process outlined three key steps: selecting a theme, configuring page options, and providing essential details to get started. As soon as we clicked Let’s Get Started, we were prompted to choose a theme to begin our design. We noticed that the templates were beautifully designed and thoughtfully crafted to suit various industries and business needs.
After selecting our preferred template from the available options, we added a blog page and enabled the speed boost functionality to optimize the website’s performance.
Click Next to navigate to the essentials sections. The page contains a form to enter company name or site title, email, phone, address and social media icons. Complete the form and click on finish and install.
Our test website is now live and fully operational. To further customize your page, simply click Edit Page from the menu bar to make additional adjustments for each page on your website.
InMotion Hosting Review – Speed Test and Performance Results
The next step in our InMotion Hosting review was to conduct speed and uptime tests to evaluate its performance.
The performance of a web host directly impacts the success of a website. A high-performing host ensures faster load times, better SEO rankings, and an overall smoother user experience, giving your site a competitive edge.
Conversely, poor hosting performance can lead to slow speeds, frustrating users, and ultimately, causing your website to struggle in achieving its goals.
That’s why we assessed InMotion Hosting’s performance through speed and uptime tests using trusted tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom to determine if it can support a fast, and stable SEO-optimized website.
InMotion First GTmetrix Test Result
After purchasing the WP Power plan and pointing our domain name to InMotion Hosting, we installed WordPress and, for this first test, used the BoldGrid website builder to create our WordPress website.
Upon analysis of our test website using the BoldGrid WordPress theme, we recorded a TTFB of 163 ms, which is impressively fast and indicates a responsive server. This is a strong start for ensuring optimal site performance.
We also noted FCP and LCP times of 679 ms and 892 ms, respectively, which demonstrate that the server handles file compression efficiently. This suggests that InMotion Hosting’s SSD storage is well-optimized for media-heavy websites, minimizing any potential web page loading speed issues.
Get the best performance with InMotion Hosting
On top of that, the CLS was recorded at 0.01 ms, which is excellent and reflects the stability of our website’s layout with the BoldGrid theme.
Our fully loaded time was 968 ms, comfortably under the 1-second mark, which is significantly faster than Google’s recommended 3-second threshold, ensuring strong SEO performance.
Overall, the GTmetrix Performance rating was 99%, with a Structure rating of 95%, earning our test website an “A” grade, confirming excellent performance across the board.
Here is a summary of our GTmetrix results:
- TTFB: 163 ms
- FCP: 679 ms
- LCP: 892 ms
- CLS: 0.01 ms
- Fully loaded time: 968 ms
InMotion Second GTmetrix Test Result
Our second InMotion Hosting speed test aimed to assess the performance of our server when hosted in a nearby data center. In our initial test, we found that our website was hosted in a data center in Amsterdam, while the GTmetrix server location was set to the United Kingdom.
For this second test, we contacted InMotion’s technical support team to transfer our website to one of their US servers, either on the West or East Coast. We also adjusted the GTmetrix server location to the USA. From the improved results, it became clear that selecting a data center close to your target audience significantly enhances website performance.
In addition, we also decided to change the look of our site by installing WordPress through the Softaculous software installer, without using BoldGrid. We then selected the Neve theme and experimented with one of its starter sites.
Furthermore, this setup gave our website a polished, fully functional appearance right out of the box. To complete our InMotion speed review, we immediately analyzed the site using GTmetrix to see how it would perform under this new configuration.
The test results were impressive: the TTFB clocked in at 191 ms, slightly slower than our first test’s 163 ms, but still well within the excellent range. First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) came in at 389 ms and 583 ms, respectively—both improvements over the initial results. The Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) was recorded at 0.03, indicating stable visual performance.
Most notably, the fully loaded time was 583 ms, a significant improvement over the previous 968 ms, showcasing the efficiency of this setup. The overall performance was outstanding, with a 100% Performance rating and a 93% Structure rating, earning an A grade. GTmetrix confirmed that everything was optimized perfectly, with no further adjustments needed.
These results affirm that InMotion Hosting, combined with the Neve theme and a closer data center, provides a robust foundation for building a high-performance website that excels in speed and SEO metrics.
Here’s a quick summary of our findings:
- TTFB: 191 ms
- FCP: 389 ms
- LCP: 583 ms
- CLS: 0.03
- Fully loaded time: 583 ms
InMotion Hosting Uptime and Website Response Test
Continuing our InMotion Hosting review for 2024, we decided to check out the uptime of the web host too.
Uptime is critical for any online business because your website needs to be accessible 24/7, even when you’re not actively monitoring it. For example, an eCommerce or portfolio website must be available at all times so visitors can browse, place orders, or book sessions whenever they choose.
If your hosting provider can’t ensure consistent uptime, you risk losing traffic, customers, and revenue during unexpected downtimes. Frequent outages can also negatively impact your SEO performance, leading to a drop in search rankings due to repeated 503 errors.
Regarding uptime, we were happy to find that the advertised 99.99% by InMotion was achieved. We recorded an uptime of 99.96% in 1 week, showing the reliability of their server despite 3 outages and 3m downtime during this period. This performance indicates that InMotion’s infrastructure is robust, even under real-world conditions.
Furthermore, we recorded an average response time of 852 ms, which matches our GTmetrix fully loaded time, further confirming the accuracy of these tests.
This excellent response time means your website will load quickly, providing a smooth user experience. Fast load times are crucial for keeping visitors engaged and improving your site’s SEO ranking, making this a strong indicator of reliable performance for your website.
Final Verdict: Is InMotion Hosting worth a try?
Absolutely. After thoroughly testing and reviewing its services, we can safely say that InMotion Hosting offers fast, scalable web hosting and server solutions, making it one of the most trusted providers in the industry. It stands out as one of the few hosts that offer a full range of hosting services, including dedicated servers and robust support for WordPress websites.
Although our first uptime test recorded a 99.76% uptime, which fell short of complete reliability, we were impressed to see our new uptime after 7 days rise to 99.96%. The speed performance was impressive as well with a fully loaded time of 583ms.This makes InMotion Hosting a top choice for anyone looking to build and maintain a website.
Their hosting packages are reasonably priced, and they provide a customer service team of experts, available 24/7/365, to guide and assist whenever needed. Overall, InMotion is one of the best options to host your website. However, if InMotion doesn’t meet your needs, you can explore our list of the best web hosting services to find the perfect choice for your website.
FAQ about InMotion Hosting
You might want to check these frequently asked questions for more details about InMotion Hosting.
Is InMotion Easy to Use?
Yes, InMotion Hosting is designed to be easy to use, especially for beginners. The Account Management Panel simplifies most tasks, and the integration with cPanel allows for more advanced controls when needed.
What is the Money Back Guarantee for InMotion Hosting?
InMotion Hosting offers a 90-day money-back guarantee for shared hosting plans and longer-term VPS and reseller hosting plans. For dedicated servers, month-by-month VPS and reseller hosting plans, the money-back guarantee is 30 days.
Is InMotion Hosting Fast?
Yes, InMotion Hosting is fast. In our speed test, we recorded a fully loaded time of 583 ms, demonstrating its ability to deliver quick website performance.
Is InMotion Hosting Good for Hosting a WordPress Site?
Yes, InMotion Hosting is excellent for hosting a WordPress site. It provides optimized shared hosting plans and managed VPS WordPress hosting on Platform i. You can easily install WordPress using Softaculous or use BoldGrid to create WordPress websites on all InMotion Hosting plans, including shared, VPS, and dedicated options.
Where Are InMotion Hosting Data Centers Located?
InMotion Hosting has data centers strategically located on the West Coast (Los Angeles) and East Coast (Washington D.C.) of the US, as well as a European data center in Amsterdam.