Fixed.net Review: The Ultimate in NOT Doing It Yourself? [2024]

Fixed.net Does It for You

Sometimes, you’d much rather run your business than your website, and that’s fair. Oh, you can pick out a template, put in your content, and write a blog post or three every month, but managing all the little technical things about a website can get tedious.

And this is coming from a guy who used to do just that for a living.

Enter Fixed.net, the host that is clearly designed for people who’d rather have others take care of the work that goes into web hosting. So long as your website is WordPress-based, you’ll hardly have to lift a finger.

At least that’s the theory. Is Fixed.net’s all-inclusive service really that good? We tried it ourselves to find out. And honestly? It’s a pretty solid service, though you should read on to see if it’s right for you.

All About Convenience

Fixed.net’s status as a web host is almost a technicality, but in a good way. While not the subject of this review, the actual hosting is pretty great in my experience. All monthly plans include hosting, SSL, email, site monitoring, malware scanning, unlimited bandwidth, and automatic offsite backups.

All of that adds up to a pretty decent hosting experience that, honestly, you could get for a lower price elsewhere. Let’s talk about why we’re really here.

Specialized Managed WordPress Hosting

This is the big selling feature. The tech team can perform pretty much any WordPress-related task you need, including: updates and maintenance (with a big emphasis on security), installing plugins and themes, troubleshooting, optimizing your website for loading speed, and more.

1

Notes: the team can install other content management systems, but WordPress and the WP-based WooCommerce are the only ones that are actively supported. Also the cheapest plan (called “Care”) offers a limited number of tasks per month. On the Unlimited plan and higher, you can ask the support team to perform as many tasks as you want.

Get Tasks Done on Any Host

Although Fixed.net’s hosting is good, you may have any number of reasons to put your website elsewhere: perhaps there’s a host that has specific features you need, or maybe you need a virtual or dedicated private server. Whatever the reason, it won’t stop the support team from fixing any site you give them access to.

Just keep in mind that each plan is charged on a per-site basis. That is, you can add as many sites as you want to your dashboard for free, but Fixed.net won’t do anything with them until you pay for that specific site.

One-Off Tasks

You can hire Fixed.net to go into your website and perform just one task, and it can be anything from the list above. All of the other usual caveats and limitations apply.

This is the best option if you mostly handle your own website, but occasionally run into a bug or problem you don’t have the knowledge to resolve.

Fixed.net Features at a Glance

Fixed.net: Almost Too Easy To Use?

I’m technical. I’m used to some things being automated, and doing other things myself. Having to ask someone else for every single thing I wanted was… confusing for me. Actual newbie webmasters will find the service quite convenient, and I do recommend it if you just need to get a WordPress site up and running.

Creating a New Account with Fixed.net

There’s no free domain name with any of the hosting plans, but there are also no hidden charges in the simple sign-up form. Just enter some basic info to sign up, and you’ll be ready to go.

Fixed.net accepts all major credit and debit cards via Stripe. No other payment methods are available, but Stripe is functional world-wide.

Connecting a Domain Name and Installing WordPress

I expected WordPress to be installed automatically – I had to ask for the install, and for the nameservers so I could point my domain name to the server. The process was otherwise dead simple, and at the end I was sent to a link for the final step of the WP install process so I could create my admin account.

A Simple Control Panel Experience

Fixed.net makes it easy to manage your tasks and your hosting in two simple web panels. The first of these is designed to make communication with the support team as streamlined as possible.

The second control panel is for managing your actual website, if you’re hosting with Fixed.net. Note that I specifically had to ask for the credentials required to access this panel.

Free Website Migrations

Well, Fixed.net does everything else, so why not this, right? If your WordPress website is hosted elsewhere, and you want it hosted where you get your tech support, it’s free. Hard to argue with that.

A Reasonably Detailed Knowledge Base

It won’t tell you how to run a whole server, but there’s a handy knowledge base that covers how to get the most of the support on offer, as well as various site management topics. If you’re interested in learning a bit about taking care of your own websites, it’s a good place to start.

I Have No Complaints About the Speed

My test site presented no issues in the speed and snappiness department. Everything loaded quickly and without issue, even though my favorite test theme is intentionally unoptimized. This is no surprise, as Fixed.net’s servers offer caching, gzip compression, SSD storage, and a range of PHP and WordPress-focused optimizations.

Fixed.net can also manage your hosting on a major cloud service like AWS or Google Cloud, or you can pay for the most expensive plan to get your site on a dedicated server.

Speaking of servers, the data centers are located in: London, Toronto, USA, Europe, Singapore and Sydney, and potentially others if you ask nicely. This is all backed up by a very bold 100% uptime guarantee.

Unfortunately, loading speed optimization of your content and your WordPress installation is included in the most expensive plan only.

The Support Team Is Helpful, but Could Be Faster

The support team is the linchpin of Fixed.net’s entire service, so you’d expect them to be good. And they’re actually pretty great! The team is available via the task system, live chat, and phone on a 24/7 schedule.

Tasks/Tickets

The “Tasks” system is really just a classic support ticket system, but even with the new name, it works. I initially asked for a theme install, then realized I had to ask them to install WordPress and everything.

Response time varied between 1-3 hours, and getting my website up took all day, but they did everything I asked, and were helpful overall.

Live Chat

The agent responded in minutes, and re-opened a previous task to give me my actual site’s control panel info. And yes, on mobile, that button in the lower right corner is always in the way.

Phone

When I called, the phone support’s on-hold system timed out and asked me to leave a message, but they called me back only a few minutes later. This makes me really glad I got a dedicated Skype number.

But then, I asked them to enable gzip compression on my site… and I was told to open a task on my account. Oh well.

Fair Prices for a High-End Service

Fixed.net’s pricing is laid out clearly and simply with no “gotchas”, and the prices are great considering you can pay for someone else to do everything, except build a custom design and create your content. Getting a one-time task wouldn’t be out of the question for most commercial website owners, and the monthly rates go down a bit if you pay annually.

If you want to have Fixed.net host and/or manage multiple sites for you, it’s best to pay for as many as you can at once. Why? You can get a “bulk discount” ranging from 10% to 30% for up to ten websites. Bigger discounts can be discussed for 20 sites or more.

The cheapest monthly plan would suffice for most regular WordPress users, while the Unlimited plan’s primary benefit is the ability to request an unlimited number of monthly tasks, which might be of interest to beginners.

Again, Fixed.net accepts all major credit cards via Stripe, and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if anything goes terribly wrong.