iPage vs SubHub: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

iPage and SubHub both offer unique strengths, catering to different types of users and website needs.

• 
  iPage (Overall Grade: 6.1/10)
  
  is a versatile website builder and hosting platform, ideal for small businesses and personal projects. It excels in providing a wide variety of templates, comprehensive hosting services, and robust security features. iPage is particularly strong in offering affordable pricing plans and extensive marketing tools, making it a solid choice for users looking for a cost-effective and user-friendly solution.
• 
  SubHub (Overall Grade: 5.6/10)
  
  is tailored for content creators and entrepreneurs aiming to build and manage membership sites. It offers specialized tools for subscription models, member access management, and content monetization. SubHub stands out for its ease of use, customizable membership templates, and effective product testing options. It is an excellent choice for those focused on creating a community and monetizing content without needing advanced technical skills.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: iPage and SubHub cater to different ecommerce needs. iPage is better for small to medium-sized businesses, while SubHub excels for content creators and membership sites.

• 
  iPage
  
  : iPage offers a range of ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. With tools like inventory management, coupon codes, and PayPal integration, it provides a solid foundation for online stores. However, when comparing iPage vs SubHub, iPage may lack advanced customization options and specialized ecommerce functionalities.
• 
  SubHub
  
  : SubHub is designed for content creators and entrepreneurs who want to monetize their content through membership sites. It supports the sale of physical goods, digital products, and pay-per-view content. While it may not offer as many ecommerce-specific templates as iPage, it excels in product page customization and payment processing options.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When comparing iPage vs SubHub for informational business websites, both platforms score equally at 7.2, but they cater to different needs. iPage is more versatile with a broader range of templates and customization options, while SubHub excels in ease of use and features tailored for membership sites.

• 
  iPage
  
  : iPage is a user-friendly web hosting and site builder platform that offers a wide variety of templates and a drag-and-drop builder, making it suitable for small businesses and personal projects. It provides comprehensive services including hosting, domain registration, and e-commerce solutions. iPage’s strength lies in its flexibility and customization options, making it a good choice for those who want more control over their website’s design and functionality.
• 
  SubHub
  
  : SubHub is designed specifically for creating and managing membership sites, offering tools tailored for content creators and entrepreneurs. It simplifies the process of setting up subscription models, managing member access, and providing exclusive content. SubHub’s platform is easy to use, making it ideal for those looking to start or grow their membership-based business. While it may not offer as many design options as iPage, its focus on membership features makes it a strong contender for those specific needs.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: iPage.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers a wider variety of templates and designs, and more customization flexibility, iPage is the preferred choice.

iPage offers a wide variety of templates and designs, catering to users with diverse needs and preferences. With hundreds of options available, ranging from simple and elegant to complex and dynamic, users can easily find a template that suits their specific project or business requirements. These templates are also customizable, allowing for a high degree of personalization in terms of layout, color schemes, and functionality.

Compared to iPage, SubHub website builder offers a variety of customizable membership website templates designed to cater to different needs and themes, including fitness, yoga, relationship, ministry, learning, craft, wellness, business, and modern living, among others. There are 14 specifically themed templates available, each designed to help users jump-start the design of their membership website homepages. These templates are fully customizable, allowing users to modify layouts, add or remove sections, and tailor content to fit their brand, ensuring flexibility in the design process.

🏆 Winner: SubHub

. With a score of 7.7, SubHub slightly edges out iPage, which scored 7.6. SubHub’s platform is designed specifically for ease of use, making it an ideal choice for those looking to start or grow their membership-based business. iPage, while also user-friendly, is more suited for individuals and small businesses seeking an affordable and straightforward solution to establish their online presence.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Tie

. Both iPage and SubHub offer a variety of learning resources to help users effectively build and manage their websites. iPage provides a comprehensive knowledge base, video tutorials, and step-by-step guides, while SubHub offers video guides, tutorials, and a comprehensive FAQ section.

iPage and SubHub both offer ecommerce features, but they cater to different needs. iPage is more suited for small to medium-sized businesses looking to establish an online store with features like inventory management, coupon codes, and PayPal integration. SubHub, on the other hand, is designed for content creators and entrepreneurs who aim to build a community and monetize their content. It supports the sale of physical goods, digital products, and pay-per-view content.

iPage ecommerce features:

• Inventory Management and Tracking
• Coupon Codes and Promotions
• SEO Tools
• PayPal Integration

SubHub ecommerce features:

• Paypal and Stripe integration
• Physical and Digital product listings
• Pay-per view products

Ecommerce themes & templates

iPage offers a variety of ecommerce-specific templates designed to cater to online stores and businesses. These templates are integrated with features such as shopping carts, product catalogs, and payment processing options to facilitate online transactions. However, the exact number of ecommerce templates available can vary, and users might find some limitations in terms of customization and advanced ecommerce functionalities compared to specialized ecommerce platforms. On the other hand, SubHub does not offer ecommerce specific templates.

Product page customization

iPage’s website builder offers a range of ecommerce product page customization options, allowing users to design their storefronts with various templates, adjust layouts, and incorporate multimedia elements like images and videos to showcase products. Users can also edit product descriptions, manage inventory, and set up different payment options. However, limitations may include less flexibility in advanced customization or coding for those who require unique, highly tailored functionalities beyond the provided templates and settings.

SubHub offers a range of product page customization options, allowing for the addition of physical items, digital downloads, and pay-per-view content. Features include the ability to manage product variants, upload images, and set visibility preferences. Users can also implement SEO strategies through meta tags and manage tax settings. Additional functionalities include member-specific discounts, image carousels, and individualized shipping costs.

Payment processing

iPage supports several payment options for eCommerce, including major gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and others, catering to a wide range of currencies and countries. iPage does not charge commissions for transactions, commissions are charged by the gateways themselves. While iPage offers flexibility in online payment processing, it does not explicitly mention integrated POS capabilities for in-person transactions. For billing and subscription payments, iPage accepts credit cards, PayPal, and check or money order, offering diverse payment methods for its users.

SubHub website builder supports two main payment gateways: Stripe and PayPal. These integrations allow for secure payment processing for subscriptions and store items using debit or credit cards. The platform itself does not charge commissions on transactions.

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Winner: SubHub

. SubHub, with a score of 6.9, offers a user-friendly website builder tailored for creating and managing membership sites. Its features encompass customizable templates, diverse content publishing options, and flexible subscription plans with seamless integration for recurring revenue through payment processors. Additionally, SubHub supports online course creation, provides marketing tools like landing page builders, and offers detailed analytics for monitoring website metrics.

iPage’s editor, scoring 6.8, is designed for ease of use, catering to both beginners and those with some web design experience. It offers a drag-and-drop interface, allowing users to easily add, remove, and customize elements on their web pages without needing to code. Users can choose from a variety of templates that are responsive and customizable to fit their brand or personal style. Additionally, the editor includes features for adding social media links, integrating e-commerce functionalities, and optimizing for search engines, making it a versatile tool for creating a wide range of websites.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: iPage

. Both iPage and SubHub do not have a dedicated mobile editor app. However, they allow users to manage some content on their websites using the mobile browser version. It’s important to note that it’s not possible to change the layout and design of the website on mobile for both platforms. Despite these limitations, iPage has a slightly better mobile editor score (5.0) compared to SubHub (4.0), making it the winner in this category.

Overall Result

:

SubHub Wins

. SubHub scores 7.0, significantly higher than iPage’s 2.5. SubHub offers a 14-day free trial, during which users can test all premium features. iPage, on the other hand, does not offer a free trial, but allows users to test all features during a 30-day refundable period. However, it’s worth noting that neither platform offers a free version.

iPage offers a more affordable range of plans compared to SubHub, with a higher price score of 7.3 against SubHub’s 6.8.

iPage also offers a significant discount of up to 80% for annual subscriptions, while SubHub offers a 15% discount on annual billing. Neither platform offers an enterprise plan.

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Winner: iPage

iPage offers a range of affordable hosting services including shared, WordPress, and VPS hosting, with unlimited storage and bandwidth for various website needs. However, its performance speed and scalability features may not meet the expectations of all users, particularly those with high-traffic sites. SubHub, on the other hand, offers managed cloud hosting with storage limitations depending on the plan and daily backups. However, it does not provide uptime statistics or guarantees, and does not disclose the locations of its data centers.

🏆 Winner: iPage

Both iPage and SubHub have strategies in place for website speed optimization, but iPage takes the lead with a more comprehensive approach and better performance metrics.

iPage, a user-friendly web hosting and site builder platform, offers a comprehensive approach to website speed optimization. It focuses on web server optimizations, caching, CDN, database optimization, and SEO optimization. The average load time for iPage is 2.6 seconds, and the average PageSpeed score is 72/100. iPage also emphasizes improvements in Core Web Vitals, specifically LCP, FID, and CLS.

On the other hand, SubHub, a website builder designed specifically for creating and managing membership sites, focuses on image optimization, caching, and mobile-optimized design for speed optimization. However, SubHub does not provide specific information on their load times, PageSpeed scores, or Core Web Vital improvements, making it difficult to assess their performance in these areas.

🏆 Winner: iPage.

iPage scores 6.3, offering a variety of plugins and extensions that enhance the functionality of websites. These include advanced SEO tools, e-commerce capabilities, and social media integrations. On the other hand, SubHub, with a score of 5.7, provides a set of built-in features and limited third-party integrations, primarily with MailChimp, Google Analytics, and payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. While SubHub is designed for simplicity and integrated functionalities, iPage offers more flexibility and customization options with its plugins and extensions.

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Overall Winner: iPage

. iPage stands out for its comprehensive marketing tools, including SEO, email marketing, blogging, social media integration, analytics and reporting, and ads and promotions. SubHub, while strong in SEO, email marketing, and blogging, lacks social media integration.

🏆 Winner: iPage

. In the iPage vs SubHub comparison, iPage takes the lead with its 24/7 customer support availability. iPage offers round-the-clock assistance through phone, email, and live chat, ensuring that users can get help whenever they need it. This level of availability is particularly beneficial for users who may encounter issues outside of regular business hours.

SubHub, on the other hand, provides customer support primarily through email and a support portal. While SubHub’s support system is responsive and includes an FAQ section for quick answers, it lacks the immediacy of 24/7 live support. This can be a limitation for users who require urgent assistance.

Overall, iPage’s comprehensive and always-available support system makes it the better choice for users who prioritize accessible and immediate customer support.

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Winner: iPage

. iPage takes the lead in security with a score of 7.5, compared to SubHub’s 4.0. iPage offers robust security measures including Domain Privacy Protection and SiteLock, a comprehensive security suite designed to protect websites from malware, spam, and hackers. SiteLock scans websites for vulnerabilities and threats, and automatically removes malware. Additionally, iPage offers SSL certificates, which encrypt data transmitted between the user’s browser and the website, ensuring that sensitive information is securely transmitted.

SubHub, on the other hand, does not disclose any specific information about the website security measures it provides. While it does emphasize compliance with GDPR and CCPA regulations in its privacy policy, the lack of disclosed security measures for websites is a concern.

🏆 Winner: iPage

. iPage, with a score of 3.0, offers an AI-powered website builder, making it easy for users to create and customize their websites without needing extensive technical knowledge. However, it lacks AI content generation tools and does not offer advanced AI-driven design tools. On the other hand, SubHub does not have any AI capabilities.

🏆 Winner: SubHub

. iPage’s website builder offers very limited multi-user functionality and access levels compared to more sophisticated website builder platforms. On the other hand, SubHub allows multiple user accounts, however the platform does not specify the number of accounts that are supported.

iPage User Roles and Access Levels:

iPage does not provide specific user roles and access levels.

SubHub User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

User Feedback

User feedback on SubHub presents a mix of positive and negative experiences, emphasizing the platform’s feature-rich environment and customizable templates. Users appreciate the flexibility and the quality of customer service, highlighting the platform’s continual updates and support as key benefits. However, some users express dissatisfaction with aspects such as the platform’s interface, lack of community features, and service fees for ticket resale. Concerns were also raised about the custom design service and mobile-friendly solutions taking longer than expected.

In the comparison of iPage vs SubHub, iPage’s user feedback is not available on G2, making it challenging to provide a direct comparison. However, iPage’s general description highlights its user-friendly approach, comprehensive services, and recent partnership with Bluehost, which may appeal to small businesses and personal projects looking for a unified hosting and site-building solution.

FAQ