Companies Using 1and1

As of our March 2026 crawl, TechnologyChecker.io tracks 387,287 domains hosted on 1and1 (now IONOS) and 62,130 enriched company profiles matched to LinkedIn data. This European hosting provider has been around since 1988, but our data shows it's gradually losing ground to cloud-native competitors, creating both challenges and opportunities for sales teams.

Growth Trajectory

1and1 holds just 2.65% of the web hosting market, ranking #11 behind cloud-native platforms like Cloudflare Hosting (33.43%) and established competitors like GoDaddy (4.51%). That's a weak position for a company with 37 years of history. After peaking at 387,333 active domains in April 2025, our monthly crawl shows a meaningful decline, dropping to roughly 335K by July 2025. The most striking data point sits in the churn numbers: we've detected 417,355 sites that previously used 1and1, which is actually more than the current active count. A near-1:1 ratio of former to current customers signals persistently high churn. Compare that to Shopify, which shows a much healthier 1.3M former vs. 2.4M active ratio.

Sales Signal: The 417K+ former customer list is a goldmine for competitors. These companies already made a hosting decision once and then switched. They're warmer leads than cold outreach. If you're prospecting 1and1 customers with a migration pitch, lead with performance and price. Our data shows those are the two levers that drive churn away from this platform.

"1and1 has more former customers than active ones, 417,355 vs. 387,287. That's one of the highest churn ratios in the entire web hosting category." - Mehmet Suleyman, CEO at TechnologyChecker.io

Customer Profile

The data is unambiguous. A full 91.9% of 1and1 customers have 1-10 employees, based on our analysis of 62,130 enriched companies. This isn't an SMB platform. It's a micro-business platform. Only 38 companies in our entire dataset qualify as enterprise (10,001+ employees), and most use 1and1 for specific subdomains rather than core infrastructure. Notable enterprise names include Honeywell, Telefonica, Roche, Bayer, and 3M, but they're outliers deploying 1and1 on secondary properties. Company age adds context: 42.04% were founded in the 2010s (during the platform's growth era), while only 21.88% are 2020s-founded, suggesting new startups aren't choosing 1and1.

Sales Signal: If you sell to micro-businesses in Germany, the UK, or France. This is a rich prospect pool of 62,130 LinkedIn-matched companies. If you're targeting enterprise or mid-market, look elsewhere, the 91.9% micro-business concentration means your win rate will be near-zero for deal sizes above $5K/year.

Industry and Geographic Concentration

Germany accounts for 39.3% of all customers, nearly triple the UK (14.5%) or US (14.4%). That concentration reflects 1and1's German origins and explains why it struggles to compete globally against US-based alternatives. France comes in at roughly 7%, making the DACH + France region over half the customer base. No single industry exceeds 7%: Business Consulting leads at 6.49%, Construction at 4.97%, Retail at 3.49%. The flat distribution means 1and1 has no vertical specialization. And therefore no industry-specific switching costs. Customers can leave without losing specialized features, which partly explains the high churn we observe.

Sales Signal: Horizontal positioning cuts both ways. Competitors selling vertical-specific solutions (healthcare hosting, ecommerce platforms) can peel off customers with targeted messaging that 1and1 can't match. The Germany-heavy distribution also means localized messaging in German is essential for prospecting into this base.

Migration Patterns

The migration ratios reveal the direction of travel. 13,251 companies left for Cloudflare (a 3.6:1 loss ratio), 2,178 moved to Hostinger (12.3:1), and 2,510 chose Squarespace (4.6:1). Only GoDaddy shows net inflows to 1and1. A sign that the platform retains customers who prefer traditional hosting but can't compete for those wanting modern infrastructure. The Cloudflare exodus is the most significant: over 13,000 companies chose a CDN-first platform over traditional shared hosting, reflecting a broader market shift toward edge computing and performance-optimized delivery.

Sales Signal: The 13,251 companies that migrated to Cloudflare chose performance over loyalty. If you sell hosting, CDN, or website performance tools, the remaining 1and1 customer base contains companies that haven't yet made that jump, but the trend line suggests many will. Position your solution as the migration path they'll eventually take anyway.

"13,251 companies left 1and1 for Cloudflare at a 3.6:1 loss ratio, the single largest hosting migration pattern in our European dataset." - Mehmet Suleyman, CEO at TechnologyChecker.io

Technology Ecosystem

The tech stack analysis shows 95.49% of 1and1 customers also use IONOS products (DNS, email, hosting infrastructure). This tight bundling creates real vendor lock-in, customers who want to mix best-of-breed services can't easily do so within the IONOS ecosystem. On the positive side, SPF adoption runs at 93.48% and SSL by Default at 62.75%, showing the platform handles security fundamentals well. Apache (68.52%) and PHP (22.87%) usage reflects a traditional LAMP stack customer base, not the modern JAMstack or containerized deployments that newer hosting platforms target.

Sales Signal: If you're selling migration services, know that 1and1 customers are likely running Apache/PHP stacks on IONOS infrastructure with bundled DNS and email. Your migration playbook should account for the full IONOS bundle, not just hosting, but DNS, email, and SSL certificate provisioning.

G2 Review Signals

G2 review data for 1and1 is limited in volume, but directional. Users highlight ease of use and affordable pricing as standout features, while dashboard clutter surfaces as the most common criticism. The low review volume itself is telling. It suggests a customer base that doesn't actively evaluate alternatives or participate in review platforms, consistent with the micro-business, non-technical profile we see in our enrichment data. Our migration data provides stronger signals than G2 here: the 3.6:1 loss to Cloudflare and 12.3:1 loss to Hostinger tell you more about customer satisfaction than a handful of reviews ever could.

Sales Signal: Don't rely on G2 sentiment for 1and1 competitive positioning, the review volume is too low. Instead, use migration pattern data as your proxy for satisfaction: the directional losses to Cloudflare and Hostinger are the clearest indicators of where customer expectations aren't being met.

Key Takeaways

1. High churn, legacy base. 417,355 former customers vs. 387,287 active, more sites have left 1and1 than currently use it, signaling structural decline.

2. Micro-business dominated. 91.9% have 1-10 employees, with only 38 enterprises. This is a consumer-grade hosting platform by customer profile.

3. Germany-first distribution. 39.3% of customers are German, reflecting the platform's origins, competitors need German-language messaging to prospect effectively here.

4. IONOS lock-in is real. 95.49% run bundled IONOS products, creating multi-product switching costs that slow migration but don't prevent it.

5. Cloudflare is the primary migration destination. 13,251 companies switched at a 3.6:1 loss ratio, performance and modern CDN capabilities are pulling customers away.

Sales Applications

Outreach template: "Hi [Name], I noticed [Company] runs on 1and1/IONOS hosting with Apache. Our data shows 13,251 companies migrated from 1and1 to modern CDN-first platforms last year. And most saw [performance improvement]. Can I show you what [similar company] achieved by switching?"

Targeting strategy: Filter TechnologyChecker.io for 1and1 + Germany + Business Consulting/Construction + 1-50 employees to reach the core ICP: German micro-businesses running traditional LAMP stacks. For competitive displacement, filter 1and1 + no Cloudflare to find companies that haven't yet adopted CDN performance.

Competitive angle: The 2,178 companies that left for Hostinger at a 12.3:1 ratio chose pricing as the primary driver. If your platform offers competitive European hosting prices with better performance than 1and1, these price-sensitive micro-businesses are your highest-conversion segment.

Access the full dataset of 62,130 enriched companies and 387,287 total domains using 1and1 on TechnologyChecker.io for advanced prospecting and competitive intelligence.