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Cloudways pricing decoded in 2026: base plan + add-ons breakdown
Some prices quoted in this guide are out of date.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.
Cloudways prices are transparent but layered. The base plan is one line; the useful add-ons are another; the real monthly cost for a functioning WordPress site is a sum. This guide names every price and shows you the total for the most common configurations.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.
Base plan pricing (managed layer on top of a cloud VPS)
You pick the underlying cloud provider. DigitalOcean is the default.
DigitalOcean-based
| Plan | Price | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DO 1 GB | $14/mo | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | 1 TB |
| DO 2 GB | $28/mo | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB | 2 TB |
| DO 4 GB | $54/mo | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB | 4 TB |
| DO 8 GB | $99/mo | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB | 5 TB |
Compare to DO direct: DO Basic 1 GB is $6, Cloudways DO 1 GB is $14. The $8 difference is the managed premium (stack management, staging, backups, SSL, support, one-click PHP updates).
Vultr-based (High Frequency)
| Plan | Price | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vultr HF 2 GB | $30/mo | 1 | 2 GB | 64 GB | 2 TB |
Cloudways on Vultr HF is a good pick for CPU-bound WordPress workloads (WooCommerce, membership sites) because Vultr HF has better single-thread CPU than DO Basic.
AWS, GCP, Linode
Available. Priced higher than DO. Rarely the right pick unless you have a specific reason.
Add-ons
Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
$5/mo. Real Cloudflare Enterprise (Argo routing, better cache hit rates, DDoS Advanced). Meaningful upgrade over free Cloudflare for content-heavy sites.
Object Cache Pro (Redis)
$10/mo. The commercial version of redis-cache with better invalidation, more accurate hit rates, and support. Essential for WooCommerce and membership sites; nice-to-have for regular WordPress.
Elasticsearch
$10/mo. For search-heavy sites (large product catalogs, member directories).
Application-level add-ons
- SafeUpdates (auto-test plugin updates before applying): included in most plans.
- Bot Protection (block bad bots at edge): $5/mo.
- Automated database backups off-server: included.
Total monthly cost by workload
Personal blog (10k monthly visits)
- Base: Cloudways DO 1 GB: $14/mo
- Add-ons: none needed
- Total: $14/mo
Business site or growing WordPress (50k monthly visits)
- Base: Cloudways DO 2 GB: $28/mo
- Cloudflare Enterprise: $5/mo
- Total: $33/mo
WooCommerce store (real revenue)
- Base: Cloudways DO 2 GB: $28/mo
- Cloudflare Enterprise: $5/mo
- Object Cache Pro: $10/mo
- Total: $43/mo
This is the sweet spot for small-to-mid WooCommerce.
High-traffic content site (200k+ monthly visits)
- Base: Cloudways DO 4 GB: $54/mo
- Cloudflare Enterprise: $5/mo
- Object Cache Pro: $10/mo
- Total: $69/mo
Approximately half the price of a similar tier on Kinsta.
The multi-site advantage
Cloudways prices per server, not per site. A single Cloudways DO 2 GB server can host 3-5 small WordPress sites, sharing the underlying resources. Effective per-site cost: $6-10/mo.
Kinsta prices per site. Ten small sites on Kinsta is 10 × Starter = $350/mo. Ten small sites on Cloudways is 1-2 servers = $28-50/mo. 7-12x cheaper.
This is the strongest single reason for an agency to pick Cloudways.
Where the pricing gets less friendly
Vultr and Linode base plans are more expensive than DO on Cloudways. DO is the value default.
Managed database is not built in. MySQL runs on the same box. If you want isolated managed database, you're using another provider.
High-traffic plans get expensive. Cloudways DO 32 GB at ~$400/mo is real cash. At that scale, evaluate Kinsta Enterprise or self-managed on Hetzner CCX.
What you're paying for above the raw DO price
- Nginx, Apache and PHP-FPM tuned for WordPress.
- MariaDB / MySQL tuned for WP query patterns.
- Varnish full-page cache.
- Redis on the box.
- SSL provisioning and renewal.
- Automated backups (daily) with easy restore.
- One-click staging environment.
- PHP version upgrades with a click.
- Support chat (competent but not as fast as Kinsta).
- Server monitoring and auto-restart of broken services.
For a technical operator, some of these are worth $8-30/mo. For a non-technical founder, all of them are.
Which plan you should actually pick
- New WordPress site, low budget → DO 1 GB at $14/mo.
- Real production single site → DO 2 GB at $28/mo + Cloudflare Enterprise.
- WooCommerce with real revenue → DO 2 GB + CF Enterprise + Object Cache Pro at $43/mo.
- Multi-site agency, 5+ small sites → DO 2 GB or DO 4 GB at $28-54/mo total. Excellent value.
- High traffic single site with spikes → consider Kinsta Pro at $70/mo — auto-scaling and included CFE.
Related guides
- Cloudways vs Kinsta 2026 — the direct comparison.
- Best managed WordPress hosting in 2026 — the wider survey.
- Cloudways to Kinsta migration — if you're outgrowing Cloudways.
- Cloudways to DigitalOcean direct — if you want to drop the managed premium.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.