Two hosts that compete for your business in the UK, owned by the same German group, running on related infrastructure. What that means and when it is actually a good deal.
Compare UK hosting and two names come up repeatedly with aggressive first-year pricing: IONOS and Fasthosts. They present as separate companies with separate brands and separate support. Both are part of United Internet, the German group that also owns Strato, Arsys and 1&1.
What United Internet actually is
A large, publicly listed German technology group — one of Europe's biggest hosting operators by customer count, with millions of accounts and its own data centres in Germany, the UK, Spain, France and the US. IONOS was floated separately on the Frankfurt exchange in 2023 but remains within the group's orbit.
This is a genuinely different kind of owner from a private-equity roll-up. United Internet builds and runs infrastructure rather than buying brands and harvesting them, and the engineering is real: European data centres, serious network capacity, and a credible cloud platform underneath the consumer products.
Where the shared ownership shows
The pricing model is identical. Both run very low introductory rates — IONOS's £1/month offers are the most aggressive in the market — followed by renewals several times higher. If you are comparing them against each other on headline price, you are comparing two expressions of the same commercial strategy.
The upsell structure is similar. Personal consultants, bundled domains, email and marketing add-ons, and a checkout that assumes you want more than you asked for.
Cancellation is more effortful than signup. A common complaint across both brands, and a recurring theme in reviews. Diarise renewal dates rather than relying on being able to cancel quickly.
Where they genuinely differ
Fasthosts is the more British proposition: a Gloucester data centre it owns and operates, UK phone support, and a customer base weighted towards UK small businesses. If you want a UK legal entity, UK invoicing and a number to ring, it makes sense.
IONOS is the larger and more technical of the two, with a broader cloud offering, better GDPR positioning through its European facilities, and cheaper entry pricing. It is closer to a general cloud provider with a consumer hosting arm attached.
When they are actually the right choice
- You need a UK phone number and a UK company on the invoice. Fasthosts delivers that at a scale most independents cannot match.
- You want European data residency from a large operator. IONOS's own EU facilities are a stronger GDPR story than a US host with an EU region.
- You are running a lot of small, low-value sites where a £1/month first year genuinely is the point and you will move or renegotiate at renewal.
- You need windows hosting, dedicated hardware and cloud from one supplier with a single account manager.
When to look elsewhere
If you have one or two sites that matter and you intend to keep them where they are, the flat-priced UK independents work out cheaper over three years and are considerably easier to deal with. Krystal at £5.99 flat beats a £1 first year that becomes £10, and 20i beats both on multi-site value. Our renewal pricing analysis has the three-year arithmetic.
The point is not that these are bad hosts — the infrastructure is better than most of their price tier. It is that comparing IONOS against Fasthosts is not comparing two options. Put an independent in the comparison and price all three at year three.
Published 22 April 2026. Prices and ownership change — check the comparison table for current figures, and the provider's own site before buying. No affiliate links anywhere on this site.