Chances are that you’re familiar with InMotion Hosting.
Maybe you haven’t used them, but you’ve heard of them. Or seen them around. A vague recollection of their name or ads somewhere some time.
Since 2001, InMotion has grown a customer base of over 300,000 domains with two data centers in Los Angeles and Virginia Beach. (Fun Fact: turns out they also own Web Hosting Hub, which is more targeted towards bloggers and beginners.)
As one of the older and more established names in the industry, they also boast grandiose claims of being numero uno in transfers, support, and industry guarantee.
But here’s the thing:
Many times, the largest companies are the worst offenders. Coasting by on their brand recognition or flashy ad campaigns while neglecting the things that made them successful in the first place.
Is InMotion an established company that’s keeping the quality which made them successful? Or are they just another large enterprise getting by on reputation alone?
To find out and provide an unbiased review, we purchased an InMotion “Lite Plan” and set up a basic WordPress test website to monitor their uptime and speed.
Did InMotion Hosting perform well enough to get our recommendation?
Read on to find out.
General Info & Hosting Overview
Our Rating: |
Our Verdict: 4.5 |
SPEED: | 463 ms (February 2020 to January 2021) |
UPTIME: | 99.93% (February 2020 to January 2021) |
SUPPORT: | Live Chat, Phone, and Knowledge Base |
APPS: | 1-Click Installs of 400+ Apps |
FEATURES: | Unlimited Bandwidth, Free Website Builder, SSL Certificate, 10GB SSD Storage, One Website, Email Accounts, Spam Experts, 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee |
HOSTING PLANS: | Shared, WordPress, VPS, and Dedicated Servers |
SITE TRANSFER: | Free |
PRICING: | Starting at $2.49/mo (renews at $7.49/mo) |
Pros of Using InMotion Hosting
InMotion performs well in three big areas of uptime, speed, and support. They also provide a few additional features which can make your experience more enjoyable.
Let’s take a look:
1. Good Uptime of 99.93%
InMotion’s average uptime clocked in at 99.93% with almost six hours of downtime based on our careful tracking and monitoring over the last 12-months.
This is not the most reliable result we’ve seen but it’s a solid industry-standard uptime and you can trust your site to be up and running.

Last 12-month average uptime:
- January 2021: 99.99%
- December 2020: 100%
- November 2020: 100%
- October 2020: 99.95%
- September 2020: 99.99%
- August 2020: 99.72%
- July 2020: 99.96%
- June 2020: 99.75%
- May 2020: 99.96%
- April 2020: 99.92%
- March 2020: 99.98%
- February 2020: 100%
2. Good Speed 463 ms
Fast loading times aren’t just great for user experience. Speed is also factored into Google’s algorithm for dictating where in the rankings you’ll show up (you know – the whole SEO thing). How fast your page loads has one of the biggest impacts on your bottom line, forcing half your traffic to bounce if it doesn’t load within two seconds.
Luckily, InMotion’s average page loading time of 463 ms is fast enough to keep visitors on your site.

Even better news?
InMotion Hosting has shown continuously improved speed over the past year.
A2 Hosting and Hostinger are still faster, though.
3. Customer Support
InMotion Hosting has a variety of support options to choose from: live chat, phone, email, and even Skype.
The best part?
All these support options are available 24/7/365.
We tested out their live chat option. We asked a few simple questions about their shared hosting plans and the customer rep connected within a few minutes. The replies were a bit delayed and concise, but still good enough to keep our attention and not go looking elsewhere for answers.
Besides the abovementioned options, InMotion also offers a vast knowledge base, in case you prefer to find solutions independently.
4. 90-Days Money-Back Guarantee
Standard industry practice for money-back guarantees typically falls around the 30-day mark. But not InMotion. They’re so confident in their service, that they provide up to 90 days of business, VPS, and reseller hosting plans.
(For shared hosting options, they only offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.)
5. Integrations & Apps (WordPress, too)
Another claim InMotion makes on their website is that they’re a leader in supporting Open Source projects.
Again, those boasts are backed up with a portfolio of over 310 applications (!). You can find everything from popular content management systems like WordPress and Drupal to shopping carts or eCommerce systems like Prestashop and Magento.
6. Premium Sucuri Plugin for WordPress Users
InMotion’s WordPress Hosting comes with the Sucuri security plugin that regularly scans your sites for exploits and security risks, in addition to ongoing remote backups, anti-spam, and anti-virus protection.
7. Free Site Transfer
The good news is that, like other web hosts, InMotion Hosting offers to transfer your site for free from your current host.
The bad news is that they DO NOT promise zero downtime during the migration process (which other hosts regularly guarantee).
8. Great for E-commerce Support
InMotion is one of the few web hosts with active partnerships between Prestashop and other leading eCommerce services (SiteGround being the other).
They make your eCommerce experience even better by providing easy integrations with payment processors, helping you side-step an otherwise huge pain in the… neck.
9. Google Apps Integration
Last but not least, InMotion also provides a handy little three-step wizard for connecting with Google Apps.
Some web hosts (GoDaddy comes to mind) force you to pay for their subpar email clients. While setting up a Google App integration to use your new domain with Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more isn’t exactly brain surgery, it can be a frustrating process if you’ve never edited MX records before.
10. Super Secure Smartwall Threat Defense System (TDS)
The recent Equifax security breaches illustrate just how clear and present the danger of cyber terrorism really is, and with the continual rise of brute force, Dos, and DDoS attacks, it has become more important than ever before that every website owner has a clear understanding of the security protocols being used by their web hosting provider.
Luckily, InMotion Hosting spares no expense to ensure the security of their user’s private information.
Partnering with Corero Network Security, InMotion security now offers a unique security measure called the Smartwall Threat Defense System or TDS.
Corero’s TDS is a family of DDoS protection appliances that detect, mitigate, and eliminate DDoS attacks in real-time.
Boasting an impressive array of technical specs, Corero’s TDS delivers the following to all of their customers:
- The SmartWall is a slimline DDoS protection appliance that delivers 10Gbps full-duplex or 20Gbps unidirectional performance in a ¼ wide, 1 RU form factor.
- 1 RU delivers up to 80Gbps, and 4 RU delivers up to 320Gbps.
For those of you who aren’t well versed in technical jargon, it suffices to say that the Threat Defense System employed by InMotion Hosting and their partner, Corero Network Security, is among the most impressive in existence.
With InMotion Hosting, you can sleep soundly at night knowing that you and your website are protected from even the most aggressive brute force and DDoS attacks
Cons of Using InMotion Hosting
InMotion is mostly perfect. Of course, there’s always gonna be a few drawbacks to providing good uptime, speed or excellent customer service.
Here are InMotion’s:
1. Low Advertised Pricing ONLY for 24 Month Signup
Yes, InMotion’s pricing currently looks on par with much of the competition. An excellent value considering all of their positives, right?!
Unfortunately, the only way you can get this low advertised rate is by signing up for 24 months. If you’d prefer a shorter timeline (like 12 months), that cost rises a little bit.
This is a very common trick employed by many web hosts, making the too-good-to-be-true price – actually too good to be true.
2. Delayed Verification Process
InMotion requires all new customers to be verified by phone for security purposes. That means NO instant account access after signup for many, especially outside the U.S.
In rare cases, they might even need a picture of your ID card.
While we applaud their security efforts, this understandably might turn off many potential customers (especially international ones).
3. Some Plan Limitations
In their defense, InMotion does go above and beyond providing free site restoration.
However, InMotion Hosting does not offer free automated data backups and it has to be purchased for $2/mo. Moreover, it only applies for the first 10GB and you would have to pay $1/mo for each additional 10GB.
It’s definitely something to consider before purchasing their services.
InMotion Hosting Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts
Here’s a quick overview of the hosting plans offered by InMotion Hosting:
Lite Plan | Launch Plan | Power Plan | Pro Plan | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Pricing | $2.49/month Renews at $7.49/mo |
$4.99/month Renews at $9.99/mo |
$7.99/month Renews at $13.99/mo |
$12.99/month Renews at $22.99/mo |
Websites | 1 | 2 | 50 | 100 |
Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
Storage | 10GB | 50GB | 100GB | 200GB |
Email Accounts | 1 | 10 | 50 | Unlimited |
Other Features | •2x Performance | •3x Performance •Free Domain |
• 4x Performance •Free Domain |
• 6x Performance •Free Domain |
Quick Facts
- Free Domain: Yes, starting from Launch Plan.
- Ease of Signup: Four-step signup process. A bit lengthy. Don’t forget about the security verification too.
- Money-Back: 90-day money-back guarantee.
- Payment Methods: Credit Card, Check, Purchase Order.
- Hidden Fees and Clauses: There’s a limit of 50,000 files per account for users.
- Upsells: A few upsells.
- Account Activation: Account activation can take a while. Usually, they verify orders by phone before activating accounts.
- Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
- Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Softaculous for one-click install of popular apps and CMSs.
Do We Recommend InMotion?
Yes, we do.
Our InMotion experience started out well.
Their uptime, speed, and support were all good. Moreover, they offer plenty of useful features with their shared hosting plans.
Sure, there were also a few drawbacks, like high renewal prices and some plan limitations. But in the bigger picture, these are not as crucial.
- Bluehost
Very Good Uptime | Easy to Use for Beginners | 24/7 Customer Support
Read Bluehost review - Hostinger
Extremely Affordable | Top 3 Load Time | Multilingual Support
Read Hostinger review - DreamHost
Best Month-to-Month Plan | 97-Day Refund Period | Unlimited Bandwidth
Read DreamHost review
Further reading: The 10 Best Web Hosting Services (In 2021)
Have you had any experience with InMotion Hosting? If so, please leave a review below – positive or negative.