How Ionos.com Forced Our Product to Rebrand: A Cautionary Tale
A developer's nightmare that turned into an expensive lesson about domain management
The Setup: Switching from the Devil You Know
Hello, i'am Val and i'm CTO and co-founder of etasko.com Like many developers, I thought I was making a smart business decision when I decided to switch from GoDaddy to Ionos.com. GoDaddy had been reliable, but Ionos promised better pricing and features.
Mistake #1: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I registered our main product domain with Ionos and set up everything for what would become our SaaS platform. Everything seemed fine at first – until I noticed something peculiar. Ionos charged a recurring $5 monthly fee just for... existing? I'd never seen any domain registrar charge a monthly fee simply for storing your domains, but I paid it anyway, thinking it was some kind of premium service.
Spoiler alert: It wasn't worth it.
The Calm Before the Storm
For months, everything went smoothly. We launched our SaaS, started gaining users, and even acquired our first paying customers. The product was growing organically – no massive ad campaigns yet, just steady improvement and word-of-mouth growth. We were in that sweet spot every startup dreams of: real traction with real users.
Our corporate card expired during this busy period, and we updated it everywhere... except Ionos.
Mistake #2: Not updating payment information across ALL services.
I had registered the domain for just one year and had been manually renewing it annually instead of setting up auto-renewal.
Mistake #3: Manual renewals are a ticking time bomb.
The Day Everything Went Dark
Then came the email that would change everything: "Your domain registration expires in 24 hours."
One email. Twenty-four hours. That's all the notice I got before our entire business could go offline.
Did I see this email in time? Of course not. It was buried in my inbox somewhere between customer support tickets and marketing newsletters.
The next day, our "super-mega SaaS" simply stopped responding. Users started getting 404 errors. Our website was gone. Our email was down. Our entire digital presence had vanished overnight.
The Kafkaesque Support Experience
When we finally realized what happened, panic set in. We rushed to renew the domain, but here's where Ionos really showed their true colors:
They had deleted my entire account.
Not suspended. Not locked. Deleted. Why? Because I hadn't paid that mysterious $5 fee for two whole days. Two days! For a fee that I still don't understand the purpose of.
With no account, I couldn't log in. With no login, I couldn't renew the domain. It was a perfect catch-22.
Getting support was like trying to reach someone in a bunker during an apocalypse:
- Called their phone number: endless queue with hold music from hell
- Tried their website: no support form anywhere
- Desperation mode: started emailing random support addresses
Finally, support@ionos.com responded. Small miracle.
But this is where the story gets even more absurd. After exchanging several emails explaining my situation, they asked me to pay $5 via PayPal to restore my account access. Fair enough, I thought – maybe this was their way of verifying identity or covering administrative costs.
I paid the $5 immediately.
Then came their next response: "We've removed your account and you need to create a new one, pay again, and then ask support to move your expired domain to the new account."
Wait, what? Pay again? Create a new account? I had just paid to restore the old one!
But here's the real kicker: while I was jumping through these bureaucratic hoops, they had already released my domain for public sale. Anyone in the world could buy it. They weren't holding it for me during the "recovery" process – they just threw it to the wolves.
So there I was, racing against random domain squatters and speculators while simultaneously trying to navigate Ionos's labyrinthine support process. Every minute I spent creating new accounts and arguing with support was another minute my domain could be snatched up by someone else.
At that point, I made the executive decision that would define our company's future: forget the old domain. It was time to rebrand completely.
The 10-Day Blackout and Phoenix Rising
The rebranding process took time – precious time during which our web app remained completely down. For 10 long days, our SaaS was dark. No user access, no new signups, no revenue. Just an empty void where our product used to be.
But sometimes you have to burn everything down to build something better.
On day 10, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of Ionos's bureaucratic nightmare, our new brand emerged: etasko.com
The most nerve-wracking part wasn't the technical migration – thankfully, we had been religious about data backups, so all customer data and application state were preserved. The real challenge was reaching out to every single customer to explain what had happened and guide them to our new home.
I crafted what was probably the most embarrassing email of my entrepreneurial career: "Hi, remember us? We're the SaaS that disappeared for 10 days because our domain registrar decided to play hardball with a $5 fee..."
Miraculously, most customers returned. They understood that technical issues happen, and our transparency about the situation actually strengthened some relationships. Crisis management done right can build trust rather than destroy it.
As for our old domain? It's still sitting there for sale, waiting for someone else to claim it. Maybe someone will have better luck with it than we did. I decided not to buy it back – sometimes you have to let go of the past to embrace the future.
The Aftermath: Forced Rebranding
By the time we got through to support and resolved the account deletion issue, it was too late. Our domain had entered the redemption period, and getting it back would cost significantly more than the original registration fee.
But the real damage wasn't financial – it was operational:
- Lost users: People couldn't access our service for days
- Broken integrations: API endpoints were down
- Email disruption: All our corporate communications went dark
- SEO impact: Our search rankings plummeted overnight
- Customer trust: Explaining to paying customers why our service disappeared was humiliating
We were forced to rebrand completely. New domain, new email addresses, new business cards, new everything. What should have been a $15 domain renewal became a $10,000+ rebranding exercise when you factor in:
- Design costs for new branding
- Legal costs for trademark updates
- Marketing costs to rebuild recognition
- Development time to update all references
- Lost revenue during downtime
The Lessons Learned (The Hard Way)
1. Domain Management is Critical Infrastructure
Treat your domain like the critical infrastructure it is. One small mistake can bring down your entire business.
2. Auto-Renewal is Non-Negotiable
Never, ever rely on manual domain renewals. Set up auto-renewal and sleep better at night.
3. Payment Method Redundancy
Keep backup payment methods and set up alerts when cards are about to expire.
4. Multi-Year Registrations
Register domains for multiple years. It's cheaper and reduces the frequency of potential failures.
5. Choose Registrars Wisely
Stick with well-established registrars that don't have mysterious fees and actually provide real customer support.
6. Monitor Everything
Set up monitoring for your domain expiration dates across multiple channels – email, Slack, calendar reminders, whatever it takes.
The Silver Lining
Our forced rebranding actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The new brand was stronger, more memorable, and better aligned with our product vision. Sometimes the universe forces you to make changes you should have made anyway.
But that doesn't make the experience any less painful or expensive.
Final Thoughts
Ionos.com taught me that in the world of domain registration, boring reliability beats flashy features every time. The $5 monthly fee that I never understood? It was apparently the cost of having your account deleted without warning when your card expires.
Now I'm back with a boring, reliable registrar that doesn't charge mysterious fees and actually has human beings answering their support phones.
Sometimes the devil you know really is better than the devil you don't.
TL;DR: Switched to Ionos, they charged mysterious monthly fees, deleted my account when my card expired, forced complete rebranding of our growing SaaS. Lesson learned: stick with reliable, boring registrars and always use auto-renewal.
Have you had similar experiences with domain registrars? Share your horror stories in the comments below.