Best Cheap VPS Hosting: Server Prices per GB RAM Compared

How cheap can a VPS server get before the price stops being honest? Judged per gigabyte of RAM, the cheapest confirmed standing VPS hosting price on the vendor pages we read is about 1.50 euro per GB at Hetzner and just over one dollar per GB at OVHcloud. The $2.50 headline plans that everyone quotes are 512 MB boxes, so they cost $5 per GB or more. Cheap is about what each euro or dollar buys, not about the smallest number on the page, and that is how we rank the providers below.

Original content from computingforgeeks.com - post 8076

Every row shows the price in the currency the provider actually bills, euro or dollar, without converting. It also says whether IPv4 and VAT are inside that number. We went through every pricing page again on 2 November 2026, and the tables below are what those pages showed that day, so open the provider page before you pay. Links to Vultr and Cloudways are affiliate links; we earn a commission if you buy through them.

How we picked

Every number on this page comes from the pricing page of the provider itself, read on 2 November 2026. Where a page hid a figure, we say so instead of filling the gap from a coupon site. The Vultr pricing page sits behind a bot check, so its rows come from the public Vultr plans API at api.vultr.com/v2/plans. That API returns the same plan IDs, monthly prices and locations that the order form uses.

The Contabo site answered every browser we tried with a security check. Its row is therefore a price band carried over from our September 2026 read, and it is marked as not reconfirmed. One note is first hand: the server that delivers ComputingForGeeks itself sits in a Hetzner data center. Everything else is read straight off the price pages.

Price per GB of RAM is the listed monthly price divided by the RAM in the plan. We did not convert euro to dollars, because the rate moves every day and EU buyers are billed in euro anyway, so compare euro rows with euro rows. The tax column matters more than it looks. Hetzner, Cloudways and Scaleway quote prices before VAT or sales tax, which means an EU consumer pays between 17 and 27 percent more at checkout, depending on the country. A VAT-registered business in another EU country is reverse-charged instead and sees no VAT on the invoice. Each row in the table records the same five things, so you can compare like with like:

• Listed price in the currency the provider bills
• Whether that price is before or after VAT or sales tax
• Billing term, including any prepay the price needs
• Whether a public IPv4 address is included
• Price per GB of RAM, the number we rank on

Cheap VPS server prices at a glance

The table lists the entry plan most buyers would actually order at each provider. Where the cheapest plan is too small to be useful, a second row shows the next one up. Read the IPv4 and tax columns before the price column, because they decide what lands on your card.

Provider and plan	Listed price	Currency and tax basis	Billing term	IPv4	vCPU / RAM / disk	Traffic	Per GB RAM
Cloudzy 1 GB VPS	$3.48/mo promo ($6.95 list)	USD, tax not stated	Hourly, monthly or yearly; promo depth varies by cycle	IPv4 and IPv6 included	1 / 1 GB DDR5 / 25 GB NVMe	1 TB	$3.48 promo
Hetzner Cloud CX23	€5.99/mo	EUR, excl. VAT	Hourly, €0.0096/h, monthly cap	Included in the €5.99 (IPv6 free)	2 / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe	20 TB (EU)	€1.50
Hetzner Cloud CAX11 (Arm)	€6.49/mo	EUR, excl. VAT	Hourly, €0.0104/h, monthly cap	Included in the €6.49	2 / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe	20 TB (EU)	€1.62
Contabo Cloud VPS (entry)	about €4.40 to €5.50/mo (not reconfirmed)	EUR, tax basis not read	€5.50 monthly, about €4.40 on 24 months	Not read	4 / 8 GB / 75 GB NVMe or 100 GB SSD	Up to 32 TB at 200 Mbit/s	about €0.55 to €0.69
UltaHost VPS Basic	€4.85/mo or $5.52/mo (by region)	EUR or USD, tax not stated	24 month term	1 dedicated IPv4 included	1 / 1 GB DDR5 / 30 GB NVMe	Not stated	€4.85 or $5.52
OVHcloud VPS-1	from $4.54/mo	USD, tax not stated	Configurator defaults to 12 months upfront	1 IPv4 included	2 / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe	Unlimited at 500 Mbit/s	$1.14
IONOS VPS S+	$2/mo for 3 months (struck price $6)	USD, sales tax may apply	1 year term	1 IPv4 included	1 / 2 GB / 60 GB NVMe	Unlimited	$1.00 promo, $3.00 at $6
RackNerd 1 GB KVM special	$21.99/yr ($1.83/mo)	USD, tax not stated	Annual prepay	1 dedicated IPv4 included	1 / 1 GB / 20 GB SSD	3 TB	$1.83
RackNerd 4 GB KVM special	$59.99/yr ($5.00/mo)	USD, tax not stated	Annual prepay	Included	4 GB (CPU and disk on specials page)	See specials page	$1.25
Hostinger KVM 1	$6.49/mo intro, $11.99/mo renewal	USD, tax not stated	24 months, $155.76 upfront	Dedicated IP included	1 / 4 GB / 50 GB NVMe	4 TB	$1.62 intro, $3.00 renewal
Kamatera (entry config)	from $4/mo	USD, tax not stated	Monthly or hourly, no contract	Not stated	1 / 1 GB / 20 GB NVMe	5 TB	about $4
Hostwinds unmanaged Linux	$4.99/mo	USD, tax not stated	Monthly	Not stated	1 / 1 GB / 30 GB SSD	1 TB	$4.99
Vultr Regular, IPv6 only	$2.50/mo	USD, tax not read	Hourly, monthly cap	None (IPv6 only)	1 / 512 MB / 10 GB SSD	512 GB	$5.00
Vultr Regular 1 GB	$5/mo	USD, tax not read	Hourly, monthly cap	Included	1 / 1 GB / 25 GB SSD	1 TB	$5.00
Akamai (Linode) Nanode 1 GB	$5/mo	USD, tax not stated	Hourly, $0.0075/h, monthly cap	Not stated	1 / 1 GB / 25 GB	1 TB	$5.00
DigitalOcean Basic 1 GiB	$6/mo	USD, tax not stated	Per second, monthly cap	Not stated	1 / 1 GiB / 25 GiB SSD	1,000 GiB	$6.00
Cloudways DigitalOcean Micro	about $11 to $14/mo (see note)	USD, excl. taxes	Hourly, billed monthly	Managed platform	1 / 1 to 2 GB / 25 to 50 GB	1 to 2 TB	$5.50 to $14.00

Two rows need a footnote you would not guess from the table. Hetzner listed both CX23 and CAX11 as “currently unavailable” in its EU locations on 2 November. That is a capacity problem rather than a price change, so you may have to retry later or pick another location. The Vultr $2.50 plan was offered in only two locations according to the plans API, against 31 for the $5 plan, so the headline price is not something you can deploy wherever you like.

Price per GB of RAM: which cheap VPS server is really cheapest

If you are billed in euro, the Hetzner CX23 is the cheapest confirmed price per GB of RAM at €1.50. Contabo would beat it at roughly €0.55 to €0.69 if its September price still holds. If you are billed in dollars, the OVHcloud VPS-1 at $1.14 per GB and the RackNerd 4 GB annual plan at $1.25 per GB lead the confirmed standing prices, with only the three month IONOS promo below them. Here is how the field sorts once you divide by RAM:

• Under €1 per GB: Contabo (band, not reconfirmed)
• €1.50 to €1.62 per GB: Hetzner CX23 and CAX11
• $1 to $2 per GB: OVHcloud, RackNerd, Hostinger intro, IONOS promo
• $3 to $4 per GB: Cloudzy on its current promo, Hostinger and IONOS after the promo ends
• $4 to $6 per GB: Kamatera, Hostwinds, Vultr, Akamai, DigitalOcean
• $5.50 to $14 per GB: Cloudways, which is managed hosting

The big US clouds price their 1 GB plans at $5 to $6, and you pay for the global footprint, the API and the hourly billing rather than for memory. The cheapest dollars per gigabyte come from providers that sell 4 GB or more for about five dollars. In exchange they usually want a long prepay (RackNerd, Hostinger, IONOS) or offer fewer extras (OVHcloud). Hetzner is the exception, because it gets close to that ratio while still billing by the hour.

Watch the promo rows before you sort by the last column. The Hostinger figure of $1.62 per GB holds only for a $155.76 payment covering 24 months, and it turns into $3.00 per GB on renewal. The IONOS $1.00 per GB lasts for three months of a one year term. If you will keep the server longer than the promo, use the renewal figure in your comparison.

Cheap cloud server picks with hourly billing

A cheap cloud server is one you can create, use for an afternoon and delete, paying only for the hours it ran. For that pattern the cheapest per GB is the Hetzner CX23 at €0.0096 an hour, capped at €5.99 a month. The cheapest dollar-billed option with a wide choice of regions is the Vultr $5 plan. These providers bill by the hour or second with a monthly cap:

• Hetzner Cloud: €0.0096/h for CX23, excl. VAT
• Cloudzy: hourly billing on every plan, 1 GB from $3.48/mo on the current promo
• Vultr: $5/mo cap for 1 GB, in 31 locations
• Akamai (Linode): $0.0075/h for the Nanode
• DigitalOcean: per-second billing, $6/mo cap for 1 GiB
• Scaleway: hourly, prices before tax, IPv4 and storage extra

Hourly billing is what you want for CI runners, short lab builds and anything you script with Terraform or OpenTofu, because a server that lives for three hours costs cents. The long-prepay providers (RackNerd, Hostinger, IONOS, UltaHost) are the opposite case. They are cheap per month only if the box stays up for the whole term, so pick by how long the server will exist first and by price second.

Cheap unmanaged VPS vs cheap managed VPS

Almost all of the cheap money is in unmanaged VPS hosting, which is why two cheap VPS prices can differ by a factor of two or three. An unmanaged VPS hands you a bare Linux box and root access. Everything after that is yours: updates, the firewall, the web server, TLS, backups and the reboot at 3 a.m. when something wedges. Vultr, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Akamai, OVHcloud, Contabo, RackNerd, Hostwinds and Kamatera are unmanaged by default.

A managed VPS costs more because a team runs the operating system layer for you: security patches, server-level caching, staging and automated backups. Cloudways is the clean example here. In the $14 read its entry plan is a 1 GB DigitalOcean droplet that costs $6 when you rent it direct, with the management folded into the difference, so you are paying for hours you do not spend patching rather than for more hardware. The comparison of shared and managed WordPress hosting covers the same trade-off for site owners.

Pick unmanaged if you are comfortable in a terminal, want the lowest bill, or are learning Linux on purpose. Pick managed if the server exists to run a business site and your time is worth more than the markup. Hostinger sits in between, because you keep root while its hPanel and assistant soften the learning curve. If you want a panel on an unmanaged box instead, our guide to installing the Plesk control panel shows what that adds.

UltaHost: affordable managed VPS hosting

UltaHost is an option for buyers who want managed VPS hosting at an entry-level price. Its VPS Basic plan includes 1 CPU core, 1 GB of DDR5 RAM, 30 GB of NVMe storage, a dedicated IPv4 address and free SSL. On 2 November 2026 the page showed €4.85 a month to European visitors and $5.52 a month in dollars, both on a 24 month term. The price you see depends on where you browse from.

UltaHost VDS hosting may suit users who want managed server support and NVMe storage without handling all server maintenance themselves. At $5.52 per GB of RAM it is not the cheapest memory on this page, so the reason to choose it is the management rather than the ratio. Check the current price and plan terms before ordering, since the listed rate is tied to the two year billing period.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026 VPS deals

Black Friday falls on 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday on 30 November. Of the provider pages we read on 2 November, three ran a sitewide sale, and two tied it to Black Friday (Hostinger by name, Cloudways through its BFCM coupon):

• Cloudways: 30% off for 3 months on all plans, coupon BFCM802
• Hostinger: “up to 70% off” Black Friday sale, KVM 1 at $6.49/mo on 24 months
• UltaHost: 40% off flash sale on all hosting, not labelled Black Friday

The Cloudways coupon is the only one that changes a monthly bill directly. It takes 30% off the entry plan for the first three months, so a $14 plan bills $9.80 until the discount ends. IONOS runs its standing $2 for three months promo on the VPS S+, which is not tied to Black Friday, and Akamai shows a “US$100 in credits” offer. The pricing pages of RackNerd, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, OVHcloud, Kamatera, Hostwinds and Scaleway showed no Black Friday VPS offer when we read them, and the RackNerd Black Friday address simply redirected to the regular specials page.

If RackNerd adds a holiday special, it will show up on that specials page, so check it again in the last week of the month. If you are shopping for hardware too, our Black Friday networking deals and Black Friday GPU deals track those categories through the sale weekend.

1. Cloudzy: cheap NVMe VPS with hourly billing and an MCP server

Cloudzy is a VPS hosting provider offering affordable cloud servers for developers, AI-driven workflows, and businesses looking for reliable infrastructure without expensive long-term commitments. Its VPS plans feature AMD EPYC processors, DDR5 RAM, NVMe SSD storage, and high-speed networking, making them suitable for hosting websites, deploying applications, running development environments, and automation workloads.

Cloudzy’s entry-level VPS starts at $2.48 per month with the current 50% discount and includes 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB NVMe storage, and 1 TB of monthly transfer. Users requiring additional resources can choose the 1 GB RAM plan at $3.48 per month or the 2 GB plan at $7.48 per month. These are promotional prices, so users should check the latest pricing and billing terms before purchasing.

Cloudzy supports hourly, monthly, and annual billing, allowing users to scale their infrastructure based on their needs. Its VPS plans include dedicated IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, full root access, KVM virtualization, and DDoS protection. With multiple server locations across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, users can deploy their servers closer to their target audience.

For developers and teams working with automation and AI-assisted workflows, Cloudzy also provides a command-line interface (CLI) and a built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. These tools allow users to manage VPS instances, snapshots, networking, and other cloud resources directly from the terminal or supported AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code.

Key features:

• VPS hosting starting at $2.48/month with the current discount
• AMD EPYC CPUs, DDR5 RAM, and NVMe SSD storage
• Hourly, monthly, and annual billing options
• IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
• Full root access and KVM virtualization
• CLI and MCP server for automated and AI-assisted VPS management
• Global server locations
• 99.95% uptime SLA
• 24/7 support and a 14-day money-back guarantee

VPS plans and pricing

2. Vultr: cheap cloud VPS in the most locations

Vultr is the cheapest way to get a cloud VM with hourly billing in a wide choice of regions, as long as you order the right plan. Its plans API lists a $2.50 IPv6-only plan and a $3.50 plan with IPv4. Both are 512 MB instances with 10 GB of SSD and 512 GB of transfer, offered in only two locations and one location respectively. The first plan most people should order is the $5 one, with 1 vCPU, 1 GB of RAM, 25 GB of SSD and 1 TB of transfer in 31 locations.

This one fits you if you want a cloud VM you can create by the hour, place near your users and delete without a contract. Skip it if RAM per dollar is what you care about, because $5 per GB is about four times what the OVHcloud and RackNerd dollar rows charge. NVMe on Vultr starts with the $6 High Frequency plan (1 vCPU, 1 GB, 32 GB NVMe, 1 TB), which is still cheap but is not the headline number. Check the live price on the Vultr pricing page (paid link) before you order.

3. Hetzner Cloud: best price per GB with hourly billing

Nothing else on this list gives you as much for the money while still billing by the hour. The entry CX23 plan runs €5.99 a month excl. VAT, which is the €5.49 server plus about half a euro for its primary IPv4 address. That gets you 2 vCPU, 4 GB of RAM, 40 GB of NVMe and 20 TB of traffic in the EU regions. The Arm-based CAX11 has the same 2 core and 4 GB shape for €6.49, which is useful if your workload runs happily on Arm.

The June 2026 price adjustment is the change that matters: it lifted the CX23 base from €3.99 to €5.49 on 15 June. The primary IPv4 has been a separate charge for longer, and you can drop it to run IPv6 only, but most public services still need it. The old CPX11 is now sold only in the US, and the EU AMD plans start at CPX02, €6.49 for just 1 GB, so treat Intel CX or Arm CAX as the value picks. Hetzner also shows dollar prices if you switch currency (CX23 at $6.49 excl. IPv4), but we compare its euro list here.

Hetzner suits value hunters who want quality hardware and huge bandwidth. Look elsewhere for a cheap US location, because CX23 and CAX11 are sold only in Nuremberg and Helsinki and the cheapest US plan is CPX11 at €17.99 with 1 TB of traffic, or if you want someone to manage the server, because Hetzner is firmly unmanaged. Details are on the Hetzner Cloud pricing page.

4. Contabo: most RAM per euro

Contabo sells the biggest numbers in the budget tier. In September 2026 its entry Cloud VPS gave you 4 vCPU, 8 GB of RAM and a choice of 75 GB NVMe or 100 GB SSD for about €5.50 month to month, or about €4.40 on a 24 month term. That works out to €0.55 to €0.69 per GB, and no other provider here matches it. We could not reconfirm the price on 2 November because the Contabo site blocked the read, so treat the figure as a band and check it before ordering.

The catches are real. The cores are shared, so performance can vary with what neighbouring customers run, and data centers outside Germany carry a location surcharge. Contabo also applies a one-time setup fee on new 1 month and 6 month orders, which you avoid by choosing a 12 or 24 month term. It suits builders who want the most RAM per euro for self-hosting, media or lab work and can live with variable performance. The current tiers are on the Contabo VPS page.

5. RackNerd: cheapest annual KVM

When people in the low-end hosting community say “cheapest VPS”, they usually mean RackNerd. The current specials page lists a 1 GB KVM plan with 1 vCPU, 20 GB of SSD, 3 TB of transfer and a dedicated IPv4 for $21.99 a year, which works out to $1.83 a month. The larger specials are better value per gigabyte: $35.99 a year for 2 GB, $59.99 for 4 GB and $119.99 for 8 GB. That puts the 4 GB and 8 GB plans at $1.25 per GB per month.

Reach for RackNerd if you want a KVM box with a dedicated IP for pocket change, whether that is a side project, a VPN endpoint, a small bot or a place to learn. It is the wrong choice when a year of prepay is out of reach, or when you need hand-held support or want a managed panel, because this is a do-it-yourself, ticket-based service. The specials page does not state the renewal price, so confirm it in the order summary. The live deals are on the RackNerd specials page, and they change often.

6. Cloudways: best cheap managed VPS

Cloudways is the answer to the “cheap managed VPS” search. It runs managed hosting on top of servers from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud, and takes over patching, server-level caching, staging and automated backups. The cheapest plan is the DigitalOcean Micro, but the pricing page gave two answers on 2 November 2026: a rendered read showed $14 a month for 1 vCPU, 1 GB and 25 GB, while the static copy still listed $11 for 2 GB and 50 GB. Treat the entry price as $11 to $14 and confirm it on the page, which also notes that listed prices exclude applicable taxes.

The $14 read is a markup of about $8 over the matching 1 GB droplet bought direct, and the difference is the management. The Black Friday coupon BFCM802 takes 30% off for the first three months, which brings a $14 plan to $9.80 until the discount ends. Cloudways suits freelancers, agencies and business owners running WordPress, Laravel or PHP apps who want a server without server administration. If you already manage Linux comfortably, the markup buys you very little. Start a trial from the Cloudways pricing page (paid link).

7. DigitalOcean: best for developers

DigitalOcean earned its following with the clearest control panel in the business and documentation that taught a generation of developers to run a server. Its Basic droplet starts at $4 a month for 512 MiB of RAM, 1 vCPU, 10 GiB of SSD and 500 GiB of transfer. The $6 droplet doubles the RAM to 1 GiB with 25 GiB of SSD and 1,000 GiB of transfer. Billing is per second with a monthly cap, so short-lived droplets cost almost nothing.

It suits developers who value a clean interface, an API, one-click apps and good tutorials, and who will grow into managed databases and Kubernetes later. For the lowest bill it is a poor fit, because $6 per GB is at the expensive end of this page. The entry droplets are also SSD rather than NVMe, which only appears on the pricier Premium tiers. Current droplet pricing is on the DigitalOcean pricing page.

8. OVHcloud: cheapest dollar per GB

OVHcloud is the dollar-billed value pick. Its VPS-1 gives you 2 vCores, 4 GB of RAM and 40 GB of NVMe from $4.54 a month with unlimited traffic at 500 Mbit/s, which is $1.14 per GB of RAM, and one IPv4 address is included. The US page does not name the commitment behind that “from” price, but its configure link defaults to 12 months paid upfront, so compare it with the RackNerd annual plans rather than with monthly clouds. Details are on the OVHcloud VPS page.

9. Akamai (Linode): a predictable 1 GB box

Akamai keeps the Nanode 1 GB at $5 a month, or $0.0075 an hour, for 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB of storage and 1 TB of transfer, with overage at $0.005 per GB. Linode now trades as Akamai Cloud. Its pricing page does not state whether the Nanode disk is NVMe, so treat it as SSD class unless the order screen says otherwise. See the Akamai Linode pricing.

10. Kamatera: free trial before you pay

Kamatera is the pick when you want to try before you pay. Servers start at $4 a month, and the first sample configuration is 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 20 GB of NVMe and 5 TB of transfer. There is a 30 day free trial covering services worth up to $100 on one server. Everything is configurable, so the price climbs quickly once you spec a real workload. See Kamatera pricing.

11. Hostinger, IONOS, Hostwinds and Scaleway

Hostinger targets beginners with an NVMe KVM plan, the hPanel and 24/7 chat. KVM 1 gives you 1 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB of NVMe and 4 TB for $6.49 a month, but only as a $155.76 payment for 24 months, and it renews at $11.99 a month. IONOS advertises its VPS S+ (1 vCore, 2 GB, 60 GB NVMe, IPv4 included) at $2 a month for the first three months of a one year term. The struck-through price is $6, so never treat the promo as the standing rate.

Hostwinds sells an unmanaged 1 GB Linux VPS with 30 GB of SSD for $4.99 a month. Scaleway lists very low hourly prices on its smallest instances. Those prices are before tax and exclude the public IPv4 and storage, so price the whole server before you compare it with the rows above.

Cheap virtual private server hidden costs

The listed price is where the maths starts. On a cheap virtual private server, these are the lines that most often push the real bill above the headline:

• IPv4 address: about €0.50 of the Hetzner €5.99, missing on the Vultr $2.50 plan
• VAT or sales tax: 17 to 27 percent on EU bills quoted excl. VAT
• Backups and snapshots: a separate line item on unmanaged hosts
• Egress overage: $0.005 per GB at Akamai, billed per TB at Hetzner
• Setup fees and prepay: Contabo short terms, RackNerd and Hostinger upfront
• Renewal jumps: Hostinger $6.49 to $11.99, IONOS after three months

Add these to the table row before you decide. A €5.99 Hetzner server billed to a German company becomes about €7.13 with 19 percent VAT. A $2.50 Vultr plan with no IPv4 is useless if your users or your monitoring cannot reach it over IPv6. Backups are the line people forget until they need one, so price them in from the first day.

Matching a cheap VPS to the workload

Work backward from the job rather than the price. Most workloads land on one of these:

• Small site or learning Linux: Vultr or DigitalOcean at $5 to $6
• Most hardware per euro with hourly billing: Hetzner CX23
• Most RAM per euro on a long term: Contabo
• VPN endpoint or side project for pocket change: RackNerd yearly KVM
• Business site you never want to patch: Cloudways

For the RackNerd route, our guide to setting up a VPN on any VPS takes it from there. If the workload is small and none of this appeals, a spare mini PC at home may do the job for the cost of electricity, which we cover in the guide to the best mini PC for a homelab and Proxmox. Whichever way you go, read the renewal price, add IPv4 and tax to the headline, and divide by the RAM before you compare.

Once your server is up, choosing a free web hosting control panel, running your own DNS server and migrating a WordPress site with zero downtime are the usual next jobs to put on it.