In a Nutshell
pros
- Free drag-and-drop website builder
- Shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting
- Live chat 24/7/365
cons
- Not optimal for very large businesses
- Not all plans come with cPanel
Domain.com at a Glance
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Free marketing offer: Free domain name for the first year
Uptime: 99.9%
Website builder: Yes
Money-back guarantee: 30 days
Price per month: Starting at $3.75
Ideal For
- Niche-specific businesses
- Growing and businesses on a budget
- Ecommerce, mobile businesses
Hosting Types
While Domain.com started out as a humble domain name registrar, it has become the go-to service for hosting. That’s because it offers hosting plans of every type and is completely scalable. You can find shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, VPS, and other hosting options from Domain.com. Here’s a closer look at some of the options:
Shared hosting
Cost-effective, efficient, and convenient, Domain.com offers shared hosting plans for businesses that don’t require a lot of server space or are working on a budget.
VPS
A virtual private server is a happy medium between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. These servers are partially shared and partially privately-owned. So, businesses get a lot more privacy than with a shared server while still maintaining affordability.
Dedicated hosting
Of course, if you want the most out of your hosting service, opt for a Domain.com dedicated server. The Rolls Royce of server packages, dedicated hosting is completely dedicated to a single domain. This gives you more power, bandwidth, memory, and privacy.
Uptime & Performance
Domain.com has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is the industry standard for quality hosting services. If a hosting site offers you a 100% uptime guarantee, don’t believe them. It’s just a sales tactic. No one can offer you a 100% uptime guarantee. It's just not possible. The 99.9% guarantee is indicative of honesty, transparency, and superior quality hosting services. That’s what Domain.com delivers to its customers.
Domain.com’s performance is stellar, and what's more, it is totally scalable. The only time you'll experience issues is if your company grows to enterprise-level quickly. The servers don't seem to handle this kind of power surge well. Domain.com does say that it can work to accommodate larger businesses though, so it may be worth a phone call.
Website Building Features
Domain.com’s website builder has drag-and-drop functionality, so anyone can build a beautiful website in minutes. We were pleased with how easy it was to use, especially the customization options. You can start with a pre-fab template, add in sections that are already built, and then tailor to your design or liking.
Since everything is already built, you don’t have to worry about design elements, coding, or other more complicated functions. Domain.com also has mobile-friendly themes for businesses that want a website that is mobile-ready and looks good on all devices.
What else is nice about this company is that Domain.com offers a free website builder. This plan gives you the ability to design up to 6 pages for free, access to SEO tools, mobile and desktop-ready templates, and PayPal integration.
If you want more advanced features like Google Analytics, HD video embedding, coupon codes, inventory management, and a whole lot more, you’ll have to pay for it. But it’s great that Domain.com offers a free account.
Domain.com offers full email services. You can get professional emails for your domain name, sync existing mail services like Office 365, keep it all on the cloud, and get updates automatically to any device. Domain.com email services also work well on mobile for easy collaboration.
You can choose from 3 email plans, Email Essentials, Business Plus, and Business Pro. Starting at just $2.99 per month per user, it’s a bargain. Basic email services include business-class email and calendars, 15GB of exchange online storage, and full integration with Outlook. More advanced plans include more storage space, cloud storage, social networking portals, Office 365 for tablets and smartphones, and a few more perks.
Control Panel
This is the only real complaint we have against Domain.com. It doesn’t have cPanel as the default control panel. Upper-level VPS plans have cPanel and WHM available to users, but it isn't there automatically, and it's only available if you opt for the higher tiers.
Shared hosting plans get access to DomainCentral, a proprietary custom control panel. This isn’t bad, actually. The control panel is simple to use and offers good functionality. Plus, Domain.com has a strong knowledge base if you need more information on how to use the system.
Pricing & Packages
Domain.com has extremely competitive pricing for all of its services, and the hosting plans are no different. Choose between 3 packages; a Basic plan, a Deluxe plan, and an Ultra plan, depending on your business needs.
*Pricing is for shared hosting. Prices are different for VPS and Dedicated hosting.
Plans are all available for 12, 24, and 36 months. Plus, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee with all purchases. Additionally, with all plans come some useful features, including:
- A free domain name for a year
- Ecommerce solutions
- 24/7 customer support
- Marketing tools
- Free website builder
- SSL certificate
- $100 Google AdWords bonus and Bing ad credit
Even the Basic Plan allows you to install popular content management systems that you might already be working with like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, CubeCart, and PHPBB. You can also get a dedicated WordPress hosting plan, available in Starter or Essential form.
We were impressed with the simple and straightforward pricing structure. And what’s more, Domain.com offers discounts and deals frequently. At the time of this writing, for example, Domain.com was offering a free domain name for a year with every hosting plan.
Help & Support
Domain.com offers customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can call a support agent at the 800 number, or send someone a message via the live chat or email features. Support staff is knowledgeable and ready to help out.
Phone: (800) 403-3568
Email: Online contact form
Bottom Line
Domain.com provides so much more value for money than a basic domain name registrar. With multiple hosting packages to choose from—including Ecommerce, VPS, Linux, WordPress, dedicated, and more—inexpensive and varied plans, and a robust platform that offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, Domain.com delivers reliable and powerful hosting for any business.
The domain registry is a big perk of this company. Domain name comes free for the first year, and you can even choose an industry-specific domain like .tech, .design, or .space, so it's clear from the get-go what you're all about. Always available customer support, easy-to-use website builder, and all-inclusive email hosting plans round out this company’s offerings, making Domain.com an ideal choice for small, medium, and semi-large businesses of every industry and type.
