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Vultr pricing explained (2026): every plan, cost per vCPU and the add-ons
Some prices quoted in this guide are out of date.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.
Vultr's price list looks simple until you start comparing it to everyone else. Then the questions start. Is High Frequency worth the extra dollar? Why does the price per core stop falling? What else ends up on the invoice? Here's the plain version.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.
The short answer
Vultr starts at $5 a month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM, and scales in a straight line: roughly $5 per GB of RAM and $10 per vCPU from 2 GB upward. It's cheaper than DigitalOcean at every shape we track and far more expensive than Hetzner. The best value on the list is the $6 High Frequency 1GB. Budget extra for backups if the server matters.
Every Vultr plan we track
| Plan | Price | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer | $/vCPU | $/GB RAM | $/GB storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular 1GB | $5 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | $5.00 | $5.00 | $0.20 |
| High Frequency 1GB | $6 | 1 | 1 GB | 32 GB NVMe | 1 TB | $6.00 | $6.00 | $0.19 |
| Regular 2GB | $10 | 1 | 2 GB | 55 GB SSD | 2 TB | $10.00 | $5.00 | $0.18 |
| Regular 4GB | $20 | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 3 TB | $10.00 | $5.00 | $0.25 |
| Regular 8GB | $40 | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 4 TB | $10.00 | $5.00 | $0.25 |
All vCPUs here are shared. The unit costs are simple division of the monthly list price; they're the same figures our comparison table uses.
What the numbers say
There's no volume discount. From Regular 2GB to Regular 8GB, cost per GB of RAM stays at exactly $5 and cost per vCPU stays at $10. Doubling the server doubles the price. That's tidy and predictable, but it means bigger Vultr boxes never get relatively cheaper. Some rivals do get cheaper as you go up; Vultr doesn't.
The 1 GB plans are the cheapest cores. At $5 and $6, the two 1 GB plans give you a vCPU for half what it costs at 2 GB and above. If your workload is CPU-light and fits in 1 GB, a couple of small instances can beat one bigger one.
High Frequency is the pick at the bottom. For one more dollar than Regular 1GB you get faster clocks and NVMe instead of standard SSD, plus 7 GB more storage. Per GB of storage, it's actually slightly cheaper. For a small app, API or bot, this is the plan we'd start on.
Regular 2GB is a RAM plan, not a CPU plan. It doubles memory and storage over Regular 1GB but keeps one vCPU. That's right for something like a small database or WordPress with a few plugins, where memory runs out before CPU does.
How Vultr's pricing stacks up
| Shape | Vultr | DigitalOcean | Akamai (Linode) | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $5 | $6 | $5 | n/a |
| 1 vCPU / 2 GB | $10 | $12 | $12 | n/a |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $20 | $24 | $24 | $4.60 (CX22) |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $40 | $48 | $48 | $7.60 (CX32) |
Against DigitalOcean and Linode, Vultr is cheaper at every shape from 2 GB up and level or cheaper at the bottom. Against Hetzner it isn't close: Hetzner's CX22 gives you the 4 GB / 2 vCPU shape for less than a quarter of the price, with 20 TB of transfer. What you pay Vultr for is its 32 regions against Hetzner's six.
Hourly billing and the monthly cap
Vultr meters by the hour and caps each instance at its monthly list price. Two practical consequences:
- Short-lived servers are cheap. Spin up a Regular 8GB for a two-hour load test and you pay for two hours, not $40.
- Destroy, don't stop. On most clouds, including Vultr, a powered-off instance still reserves its resources and keeps billing. If you're done with a server, snapshot it if you need to and destroy it.
The add-ons that change the bill
The plan price covers the instance. These are extra, and Vultr publishes the current rates on its pricing page:
- Automatic backups. An optional paid add-on, priced relative to the instance. If the server holds anything you can't rebuild from a repo, turn it on or run your own off-site backups. Our backup guide covers the do-it-yourself route.
- Snapshots. Point-in-time images you take manually. Handy before risky changes; they cost storage while you keep them.
- Block storage. Extra volumes you attach when the plan's disk isn't enough. Cheaper than jumping a whole plan size if you only need disk.
- Bandwidth beyond the allowance. Each plan includes transfer (1 TB to 4 TB on our list). In the Vultr console, transfer allowances are pooled across your instances, so one busy server can use another's unused allowance. Go past the pool and you pay for the overage.
- IPv4. Some of the cheapest plans are IPv6-only in certain regions. Check the region before you deploy if you need a public IPv4 address.
Which Vultr plan to pick
- Discord bot, small API, personal project: High Frequency 1GB at $6.
- Small WordPress site or a single app plus its database: Regular 2GB at $10.
- A real production app with some traffic: Regular 4GB at $20.
- Several services on one box, or a busy database: Regular 8GB at $40. At this point, check whether Hetzner's region list covers your users, because the CX32 is $7.60.
If you're unsure, start one size smaller than you think. Hourly billing makes it cheap to resize later. Our right-sizing guide walks through how to tell when you've outgrown a plan.
When Vultr's pricing isn't the right fit
If your users are in Europe or on the US East Coast and price per core matters most, Hetzner wins comfortably. If you need managed databases and a deep tutorial library, DigitalOcean costs a few dollars more and gives you both. Vultr's pricing makes the most sense when its region map is doing work for you.
Related guides
- Vultr review 2026: the full picture, beyond price.
- The Vultr $300 credit explained: what new accounts can test for free.
- vCPU vs CPU explained: what "shared vCPU" actually means.
- Unmetered bandwidth explained: why transfer allowances matter.
Prices as of 2026-09-22.