InMotion Shared Hosting Review (2020): Is The Price Worth It?

Disclosure: if you purchase through any links on this web page, I earn referral fees from partners. These fees do not influence my recommendations.

Review summary:

InMotion’s shared hosting is quite expensive – if you’re on a tight budget, check out our cheap web hosting page for alternatives.

Their servers are relatively stable, but the test website that we hosted with them couldn’t handle more than 25 concurrent visitors without experiencing performance issues. This is not good; many competing and cheaper hosts can handle 50, 100, and even more simultaneous users without breaking a sweat.

InMotion’s approach to website security seems lackluster. They don’t offer free website backups or free automatic malware scans.

They offer a free domain for a year, but their domain renewal prices are high.

On the flip side, InMotion offers a very long money-back guarantee and exceptional customer support. Unfortunately, we don’t feel that this makes up for deficiencies in fundamentals such as pricing, performance, and security.

Overall, while InMotion is a trustworthy company, we do not recommend their shared hosting services in particular.

For better alternatives, take a look at InterServer, A2, or Hostinger.

Plans and Pricing

InMotion has three shared hosting plans to choose from.

As a new customer, you can take advantage of discounted first-term prices.

First-term prices (per month):

What immediately caught our attention was that a monthly subscription is available only for the Pro Plus plan. This is unusual, as most hosts offer monthly terms for all their plans. (Related: best hosts with cheap monthly plans).

The price for a 2-year Launch plan subscription is $6.39 per month. This is relatively expensive for a plan that supports only two websites. For comparison, InterServer‘s cheapest plan supports unlimited websites and starts at $4.00 per month, while AccuWeb is even cheaper.

If you want to host just one website, the cost of the Launch plan becomes even less appealing. To understand why, consider that SiteGround‘s and A2’s single-website hosting costs less than four dollars a month.

If you plan to host unlimited websites with InMotion, you’ll need their Pro Plus plan, which comes in at $14.71 per month – that’s two to three times more than what many competitors charge!

So far, we’re not impressed.

Following the first term, you’ll be able to renew your hosting at InMotion’s standard renewal rates.

Renewal prices (per month):

This looks better. InMotion’s renewals are just 8% more expensive than their first term, whereas most hosts double or even triple their rates following the first term.

However. even though the price hike after the initial term is not considerable, these rates are still relatively high. Looking at InterServer again, they charge just $4.00 per month for renewals on their unlimited websites hosting plans.

DreamHost and Hostinger both offer single-website hosting renewals for under $3.00 per month – less than half of what you would pay at InMotion.

Overall, InMotion’s shared hosting services are expensive, and based on what we will learn later in this review, we don’t feel like these prices are justified.

If you plan to host a single website, check out our best single-website hosting page.

If you plan to host multiple sites, see our best unlimited-websites hosting page.

Does InMotion Offer Student Discounts?

Yes, they do – a 50% discount on the Power plan.

This means that students can purchase the Power Plan at a starting price of $4.25 per month instead of the usual $8.49 per month.

To qualify, you’ll need access to an active email account in an educational (.edu) domain.

For a list of other quality hosts with student discounts, including completely free hosting for students, see: hosts with the best student discounts.

What Payment Methods Does InMotion Accept?

As we expected, InMotion accepts payments via PayPal and credit cards – the two payment options you’ll find at almost all hosting companies.

You can also pay by check if you put in a request with their presales team.

If you need to pay via Skrill or bank transfer, take a look at A2 Hosting instead.

Are Prices Negotiable?

InMotion is one of a handful of hosts that are open to price negotiations.

Expect a discount between 3-8%, depending on the length of the hosting term you want to buy (the longer the term, the better the discount).

If you’re not sure how to negotiate prices with a hosting company, check out our short guide near the bottom of this page.

Does InMotion Offer Discounts for Non-Profits?

InMotion does not currently offer special discounts to charities.

If your 501(c)(3) organization is looking for a good hosting deal, see: top hosts with non-profit discounts.

Features and Server Resources

How Much Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Do You Get?

You get unlimited data transfer with InMotion, which is always a plus.

However, as per a statement that we obtained from a live chat agent, InMotion’s shared servers are optimized for websites that receive no more than 1,700 users per day. This is towards the lower end of what other shared hosts provide (usually 2,000-3,000 per day).

If your website regularly receives more than 1,700 users per day, some of them will likely experience website performance issues. You probably don’t want that.

If you’re a beginner looking to launch your first website, it’ll probably be a few years of consistent website growth before you start to see more than 1,700 daily visitors, so you shouldn’t be too concerned about this limit for now.

On the flip side, if your website already serves more than 1,700 visitors, you’ll be better off with a different shared hosting provider. SiteGround, WPX, and WP Engine might be worth looking into.

What Server Locations are Available?

You can choose between servers in Los Angeles, California, and Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, they don’t offer shared servers in Europe or Asia.

If you’re looking for hosts with a better spread of server location, check out SiteGround or Accuweb.

You may also want to consult our list of hosts with servers in Europe if the majority of your website’s users hail from the old continent.

How Much Disk Storage Space Do You Get?

Disk space is unlimited, so you don’t have to worry about running out of storage – as long as you use your server to only store files necessary for your website to function. No personal files are allowed.

Unlimited storage is great, however, it should be noted that there are multiple cheaper hosts that offer this feature.

Is There an Inode Limit at InMotion Hosting?

Although InMotion has no disk storage limit, they do limit the maximum number of files you can store on your server. This type of restriction is called an Inode limit and is a standard practice in the shared hosting world.

The current Inode limit at InMotion is 50,000. This is very disappointing and far below what you’ll get from competitors. For example, A2 has a 600,000 Inode limit, GoDaddy has 250,000, and Hostinger has an impressive 800,000. Most hosts have a limit of 150,000 or higher.

50,000 will be enough for a small-to-medium-sized WordPress website, but it probably won’t be enough to host multiple WP sites. Take a look at our WordPress Inode requirements guide for more details.

What’s even more disappointing is that the limit applies to the Pro Plus plan as well. What good is a plan that supports unlimited websites if you can’t store more than 50,000 files?

Overall, if you don’t plan to host multiple websites, then InMotion’s Inode limit is unlikely to become a problem for you anytime soon.

Otherwise, refer to our hosts with the highest Inode limits rankings page for alternatives, or just go with any of the hosts on our best budget hosts list.

Is There a Limit On The Number or Size of MySQL Databases?

Overall, these are generous limits. In particular, the fact that you can create two databases on the cheapest plan is excellent – as many hosts limit you to a single database.

How Many Websites Can You Host?

The two-website limit on the Launch plan is great to see, as most providers allow just one website on their cheapest plans. Unfortunately, we don’t think this makes up for the premium price tag.

You’ll need the Pro Plus plan if you want to host more than six websites. However, as we mentioned earlier, the value of this plan is not too good – you can get cheaper plans with unlimited websites from other hosting companies. Also, keep in mind InMotion’s 50,000 Inode limit if you plan to host multiple websites with them.

Email Limits

The default sending limit is actually 250 per hour, however, you can reach out to their support team and ask them to raise this limit to 750.

Additionally, the sending limit is separate for each email account you create. So if you create 10 accounts, you can send up to 750 x 10 = 7,500 emails per hour. That’s impressive! We’ve reviewed dozens of hosts and most of them limit email sending to 100-500 per hour.

Overall, InMotion’s email policy is among the most liberal in the industry – a fact which has secured them a strong position on our list of hosts with the best email limits.

Can I Get a Dedicated IP Address (Advanced Webmasters)?

You can buy a dedicated IP from InMotion’s Marketplace for an extra $4 a month, which is in line with prices offered by other hosts.

Is There a Concurrent Database Connections Limit (Advanced Webmasters)?

The maximum number of concurrent database connections is 25 per MySQL user. This is similar to what you’ll find at most hosts.

If you own a website that makes lots of simultaneous database connections, please see: best hosts with high database connection limits.

DreamHost and HostWinds, in particular, might be worth looking into (300 and 150 concurrent connection limits, respectively).

Ease of Use and Interface Functionality

Is It Easy to Install WordPress?

Like all serious hosts, InMotion makes it very easy to install WordPress quickly and for free. There are two ways to do this:

1. checking the Install WordPress box during checkout. This will automatically install WP for you.

2. If you forgo installation during checkout, you can install WP at any time using the one-click installer available in cPanel (your server control panel):

Overall, those new to WordPress will appreciate how easy it is to install WP.

InMotion’s User Interface Dashboard

After you log into your account, you’ll be greeted by InMotion’s uncluttered, though somewhat dated, Account Management Panel (AMP):

From here you can access your email accounts, fire up cPanel, use the Softaculous tool to install applications (including WordPress), submit a support ticket, or request an email limit exemption.

All options are neatly laid out on a single page, making it easy to quickly find what you’re looking for without feeling overwhelmed by endless options.

If you click on MARKETPLACE in the top menu:

You’ll be able to buy add-ons such as dedicated IP addresses, premium backups, domains, and even web design services.

Overall, InMotion’s AMP is a flexible and straightforward interface that maintains a user-first approach. It’s not as inviting as the one you’ll find at WPX or Bluehost, but it gets the job done and helps you stay in full control of your websites.

Does InMotion Shared Hosting Include cPanel?

Yes; most shared hosting providers include cPanel for free nowadays, and InMotion is no different.

You can access cPanel from your InMotion account to perform a range of website-related activities, including:

• Adding and deleting server files using the File Manager
• Installing WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and many other scripts using the Sofcatulous auto-installer
• Manage email accounts and FTP accounts
• Manually create backups of your website

And so much more. If you’re new to hosting websites, we encourage you to take 10 minutes to get acquainted with the various tools at your disposal.

Unfortunately, InMotion does not offer a free website builder via cPanel – check out A2 or InterServer if you need one.

Website Speed Test

We set up a test website on our InMotion server, following our standard testing procedure.

Next, we set-up GTMetrix – a website speed monitoring tool – to test and record the speed of our site once every hour for a whole day.

In the end, we had 24 independent speed measurements to draw conclusions from. Here’s what we found:

• The average time it took our test site to load was 1.4 seconds. This is a great result.
• The fastest loading time recorded was 0.8 seconds.
• The slowest loading time recorded was around 2 seconds.

InMotion passed this test with flying colors. You want your website to consistently load in three seconds or less for the best user experience.

The fact that the average load speed was far below the 3-second threshold, plus the fact that we didn’t register any serious load speed spikes (see our Bluehost review for an example of these) fill us with confidence.

Here are the results of the 24 website speed tests we conducted:

Website Performance Under Heavy Traffic Test

In addition to performing the website speed tests we described above, we also performed a stress test.

As part of this test, we used LoadImpact’s server testing service to send artificial traffic (“bots”) to our website. These bots “browse” the website just like any normal person would.

By monitoring the performance of our website as bots browse its contents, we can get an understanding of how well InMotion’s servers perform in different real-life scenarios.

As usual, we started with 50 bots. Unfortunately, this test detected errors, indicating that InMotion’s server was stretched thin trying to handle requests coming from these many users.

We then repeated the test with 45 bots and got a similar result. Cutting it down to 35 bots didn’t help, either.

It wasn’t until we were down to 25 bots that InMotion’s server was back in its comfort zone:

What does this mean? Basically, if there are more than 25-30 users browsing your website, some of those users will experience performance issues and slow page load speeds.

Is 25-30 simultaneous users a lot?

This depends. New websites are unlikely to receive this much traffic, so if you’re just starting out, you’ll definitely be OK for a year, maybe more.

However, if you are a seasoned webmaster with an established website, or if you plan to work aggressively on marketing a new website over the coming months, consider alternative hosts with more robust servers. SiteGround and A2 Hosting are excellent choices.

Safety and Security

Does InMotion Backup Your Website?

InMotion doesn’t take free backups of your websites. This is unfortunate, as the majority of providers include free backups with their shared hosting plans.

If you want the option to schedule automatic backups, you’ll need to purchase InMotions premium service, Backup Manager. This costs:

• $2 per month for 10 GB of backup storage space, and
• $1 for each 10 GB thereafter

So $3 per month buys you 20 GB of backup storage, while $10 per month gets you 90 GB, and so on.

This is quite expensive. For perspective, InterServer offers 90 GB of premium backups for $3.60 per month – that’s 70% cheaper than InMotion.

Alternatively, you can create backups manually for free using the Backup Manager in cPanel.

Overall, free backups are arguably the most important safety feature in a host, so we have to dock a few points because InMotion fails to deliver on such a critical area.

We recommend that you take a look at our list of the best hosts with free backups.

Does InMotion Offer Free Malware Scans?

InMotion will perform a free malware scan using ClamAV if you request a scan via live chat.

If you want automatic scans, you’ll need to buy the Sucuri Website Security package, which includes automated scans and malware removal. Unfortunately, the cost is prohibitive at $200 per year!

Overall, anti-malware is yet another critical security area where InMotion fails to deliver.

If you plan to use WordPress, make sure to install a free security plugin such as WordFence. You’ll need the extra protection it provides.

Is 2-Factor Login Authentication (2FA) Available?

You can enable two-factor authentication from the Login & Security section of your InMotion Account Management Panel.

You can receive your 2FA authentication codes via one of two methods:

1. The Google Authenticator app
2. An SMS text message

InMotion is the only host we’ve seen so far that offers 2FA via SMS. This is hardly enough to sell the sizzle, but it’s worth mentioning.

We strongly recommend that you enable 2-factor authentication for the extra account security it provides.

Free SSL Certificates?

Although free SSL certificates are an industry-standard, by the time we got to this part of the review, we weren’t sure if

It turns out that they do include free SSL certificates from COMODO, but only if you contact live chat before you purchase your hosting package.

This is very unfortunate because it means a majority of InMotion’s clients will miss out on the free certificate.

Just about every quality shared hosting provider installs free SSL certificates for all websites by default.

Additional Services and Freebies

Free Domain?

InMotion offers a free domain for one year with all their hosting plans.

Following the first year, you’ll be charged the standard annual renewal price of the domain. Here are some price examples:

$16 per year is an average price. It’s definitely better than Bluehost’s $19/year, but more expensive than InterServer’s $11/year.

If getting a free domain is high on your priorities list, take a look at our affordable hosts with a free domain page.

Free Website Migration?

InMotion will transfer one website from your old hosting company for free.

We found this disappointing because most competitors are happy to migrate an entire cPanel account for free, not just one website.

Refunds and Cancellations

Does InMotion Offer a Money-Back Trial Period?

InMotion offers a 90-day money-back guarantee – one of the best refund policies in the business.

What’s more, if you get a free domain with your hosting account, InMotion won’t deduct the value of that domain from your refund. This was great to hear, as the majority of hosts make you pay for any freebies when you ask for your money back.

See further below for details on what the refund process was like for us.

Can You Refund Unused Subscription Months (Pro-Rated Refunds)?

Unfortunately, no.

See our list of the best hosts with pro-rated refunds for alternatives.

Our Money-Back Request, Documented

After we finished writing this InMotion review, we put their money-back guarantee to the test.

To proceed, we first needed to cancel our account. This can’t be done manually from the control panel, so we reached out to InMotion’s support team via live chat for help.

We were connected 10 seconds later. Our support representative, William, canceled our account as soon as we put in the request. We received an email confirmation:

Our support rep then told us that we should expect to receive our refund within 3-5 days. We’ll update this review the moment we receive our money.

EDIT: we received a full PayPal refund on the very next day:

It would have been nice to be able to cancel our account and request a refund via the control panel and without the need to contact support (this is possible at A2 Hosting, for example). Despite this minor inconvenience, the refund process at InMotion was quick and painless.

Live Chat Customer Support Quality

InMotion’s live chat is available 24/7 and connection times are very short; even when the average wait time was listed as 5-10 minutes we were still connected in less than 30 seconds.

What’s great about InMotion’s support team members is that they are all native English speakers. This is a breath of fresh air in a world where most hosting companies outsource their support efforts to countries where English is not an official language, which frequently leads to communication problems.

This may sound like a minor issue, but it can actually make a big difference in the long-term, particularly if you’re a beginner and require support on a regular basis.

In the process of conducting this review, we submitted more than 40 questions to InMotion’s live chat customer service team. We received detailed, courteous, and quick responses to every single question.

We felt that the support reps were completely focused on us; they didn’t seem stretched thin attempting to handle multiple customers simultaneously.

At no point were any of the agents cold or redirective – they went out of their way to help even after more than 60 minutes of continued interrogation.

Overall, if there’s one area where InMotion stands out from the pack, it has got to be the quality of their support team.