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Best VPS with unmetered bandwidth in 2026: the honest ranking
Some prices quoted in this guide are out of date. It is being rebuilt on our price index; for current prices use the comparison pages, which show when each price was checked.
"Unmetered bandwidth" is one of the most misleading marketing terms in hosting. Contabo and OVHcloud both advertise "unmetered" and both throttle traffic under sustained load — meaning what they sell you is not what you receive if you actually try to move terabytes. Hetzner's 20 TB per plan is quantified, generous, and the honest answer.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.
The honest ranking
| # | Provider | Plan | Price | Bandwidth allowance | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hetzner | CX22 | $4.60/mo | 20 TB, then €1/TB | Every Hetzner cloud plan gets 20 TB |
| 2 | Hetzner | Any | any | 20 TB | Same allowance at every plan size |
| 3 | Vultr | Regular 8 GB | $40/mo | 4 TB, then $0.01/GB | Cheap overage |
| 4 | DigitalOcean | Basic 4 GB | $24/mo | 4 TB, then $0.01/GB | Cheap overage |
| 5 | Akamai/Linode | Linode 4 GB | $24/mo | 4 TB, then $0.01/GB | Cheap overage |
| 6 | OVHcloud | VPS-1+ | $4.54+ | "unmetered" but port-limited | 250 Mbps to 1 Gbps port |
| 7 | Contabo | any | $7.79+ | "unmetered" but throttled | ~200 Mbps sustained ceiling |
| 8 | UpCloud | any | any | metered from first GB | Least friendly bandwidth pricing |
| 9 | AWS Lightsail | any | any | 1-5 TB, then $0.09/GB (US) | Dangerous overage rate |
The one clear winner
Hetzner CX22 at $4.60/mo includes 20 TB of monthly outbound bandwidth. At a €1/TB overage rate after that. This is the single best bandwidth deal in the cloud VPS market, and it's not a promotional offer — it's the standard allowance on every Hetzner cloud plan.
The 20 TB doesn't scale down at the entry tier: you get 20 TB on the $4.60/mo CX22 and 20 TB on the $28/mo CX52. Hetzner does not use "bandwidth" as a differentiator between plan tiers.
What "unmetered" actually means at OVHcloud and Contabo
OVHcloud publishes port speeds:
- VPS-1: 250 Mbps
- VPS-2: 500 Mbps
- VPS-3+: 1 Gbps
Your theoretical maximum monthly transfer is (port speed × 86400 seconds × 30 days / 8 bits) minus real-world overhead. VPS-1 at 250 Mbps runs to ~80 TB/month in theory, ~40-60 TB in practice. But you cannot exceed the port speed, so "unmetered" here really means "unbilled below your port limit."
Contabo does not publish port speeds. Their acceptable-use policy allows them to throttle sustained heavy usage. Community reports place the practical sustained ceiling around 200 Mbps under Contabo's discretionary shaping. You can burst higher.
Real bandwidth scenarios
Blog with 100k monthly visits and 500 KB avg page weight:
- ~50 GB/mo. Every provider on this list handles this trivially.
Podcast serving 20k downloads of 40 MB episodes:
- ~800 GB/mo. Any provider fine.
Video site serving 10k downloads of 1 GB videos:
- ~10 TB/mo. Only Hetzner (20 TB included) and OVHcloud (port-limited, but fine at this rate) handle without overage.
Game distribution serving 1000 downloads of 50 GB game builds:
- ~50 TB/mo. Hetzner overage is ~30 × €1 = €30 extra. DigitalOcean overage is 30,000 GB × $0.01 = $300 extra. AWS Lightsail overage would be $2,700+. Only Hetzner is economically sane.
When "unmetered" is a red flag
If a host advertises "unmetered" without specifying:
- The port speed (Mbps or Gbps).
- The AUP throttling threshold.
...assume both are unfavorable. Read the AUP carefully.
Which one you should actually pick
- Bandwidth-heavy workload, cost matters → Hetzner CX22 at $4.60/mo. Not close.
- Bandwidth-heavy workload, need a specific region Hetzner doesn't cover → DigitalOcean or Vultr with cheap $0.01/GB overage.
- Sustained high-throughput workload (video streaming, mirror serving) → OVHcloud VPS-3+ for the 1 Gbps port. Or dedicated hardware.
- Avoid entirely → AWS Lightsail if you can't strictly cap bandwidth in front. UpCloud if you value predictable bandwidth costs.
Related guides
- Cheapest VPS with 4 TB monthly transfer — the shape-specific version.
- Cheapest VPS under $10 in 2026 — Hetzner CX22 in wider context.
- How to calculate cloud hosting cost — bandwidth as a line item.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.