Disclosure: we may earn a commission or referral reward from CloudCone, Contabo, DigitalOcean (account credit, not cash), Hostwinds, InterServer, RackNerd, VPSDime and Vultr if you sign up through our links. It does not change the price you pay. Every other provider pays us nothing.
Price study · 44 providers · read 14 Oct 2026
The lowest price a VPS provider prints is not always the one you pay
At three of the five sizes we compare, from 1 GB to 16 GB, the lowest price a provider prints is not the cheapest server you can rent month to month. Before you compare, add the IPv4 fee, look past the intro price, check the term and make sure the plan is in stock. Read on 14 Oct 2026: Scaleway STARDUST1-S costs $0.90 a month with a 10 GB disk and $4.98 with a public IPv4 address. Of the 221 plans we track, the cheapest with 1 GB or more that you can rent by the month is Webdock VPS Essential at $2.41, ex VAT.
Cheapest at each size: the printed price and the price you pay
Each size means at least that much RAM, read 14 Oct 2026. The printed price is the lowest number on the provider's page (for Scaleway, the instance plus its disk, which it prices separately). What it costs you is the regular monthly price, plus the IPv4 address where it is billed on top. The last two columns count only the 209 plans you can order.
| Size | Lowest printed price | What it costs you | Cheapest you can order | Cheapest month to month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | $0.90 Scaleway STARDUST1-S, 1 vCPU / 1 GB EUR 0.80, with a 10 GB disk, plus $4.08 IPv4, ex VAT | $4.98 with the IPv4 address | $2.33 CloudCone SSD VPS 1, 2 vCPU / 1 GB 12-month term | $2.41 Webdock VPS Essential, 1 vCPU / 2 GB EUR 2.15, ex VAT |
| 2 GB | $2 IONOS VPS S+, 1 vCPU / 2 GB for the first 3 months, 12-month term | $6 from month 4, 12-month term | $2.41 Webdock VPS Essential, 1 vCPU / 2 GB EUR 2.15, ex VAT | Same plan |
| 4 GB | $5 VPSDime Linux 4GB, 2 vCPU / 4 GB | Same | Same plan | Same plan |
| 8 GB | $6.60 Contabo Cloud VPS 4, 4 vCPU / 8 GB ex VAT | Same | Same plan | Same plan |
| 16 GB | $12.99 Hostinger KVM 4, 4 vCPU / 16 GB 24-month term, ex VAT | $12.99 for 24 months, paid up front, then $28.99 | Same plan | $15 HostHatch NVMe 16 GB, 4 vCPU / 16 GB |
Every plan at each size, ranked: 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB.
Which providers charge extra for the IPv4 address
One of the 44 server providers we track bills the public IPv4 address on top of the price it prints: Scaleway at EUR 3.65 a month ($4.08 at the ECB rate of 13 Oct 2026). Hetzner bills the address as a separate line of $0.60 a month and netcup takes EUR 0.50 ($0.56) off if you go without one, but the prices on both providers' own pages include it, so what they print is what you pay. Every other provider includes one in the price. Vultr Regular 512MB (IPv6 only) is the one plan we track with no IPv4 address at all; it is in no ranking here.
The fee matters most on the cheapest plans. On Scaleway STARDUST1-S the address is 82% of the monthly bill.
- Scaleway STARDUST1-S82%
- Scaleway DEV1-S33%
- Scaleway DEV1-M18%
- Scaleway DEV1-L10%
- Scaleway DEV1-XL7%
Scaleway
Scaleway's STARDUST1-S costs EUR 0.80 ($0.90) a month with a 10 GB local disk, the most this type takes (Scaleway's page prices the instance and the disk separately), the lowest price on any plan we track. IPv6 is included; a public IPv4 address is EUR 3.65 ($4.08) on top, so the server costs $4.98, ex VAT. For less than $4.98, you can order 13 other plans with 1 GB or more from 11 providers; the cheapest is CloudCone SSD VPS 1 at $2.33 on a 12-month term.
Which prices are intro prices
Four providers we track show a lower price for the first months of a plan: DreamHost for 3 months, IONOS for 3, Liquid Web for 2 and Hosting.com for the first month. We rank every plan on what it costs after that.
IONOS VPS S+ is the lowest printed price at 2 GB: $2 a month for 3 months, then $6, on a 12-month term. Twelve months come to $60, an average of $5 a month. Webdock VPS Essential, at $2.41 ex VAT with no term, comes to $28.92 over the same 12 months.
IONOS VPS M+ shows $5 at 4 GB, the same as VPSDime Linux 4GB, but on a 12-month term. From the fourth month it is $14: $141 over the first year against VPSDime's $60.
Every intro price we read, with its regular price and first-year cost, is on the deals page.
Which prices need a 12- or 24-month term
Three providers we track print a monthly price that holds only on a longer term: CloudCone and IONOS (12 months), and Hostinger (24 months). You sign up for more months of it, and at Hostinger the price renews higher when the term ends.
- 1 GB: CloudCone SSD VPS 1 is $2.33 a month on a 12-month term. With no term, Webdock VPS Essential costs $0.08 more, at $2.41, ex VAT.
- 16 GB: Hostinger KVM 4 is $12.99 a month on a 24-month term, paid up front, then renews at $28.99, ex VAT. With no term, HostHatch NVMe 16 GB costs $2.01 more, at $15.
At 1 GB the term saves $0.08 a month; month to month costs almost nothing extra.
Which cheap plans are sold out
On 14 Oct 2026, 11 plans at 5 providers show as sold out on the provider's own page, so they are in no ranking here. None of them would be the cheapest at any of the five sizes.
At Hetzner and BuyVM, the cheapest plan listed is one you cannot order: Hetzner CX23 at $7.09 and BuyVM Slice 512 at $2 (12-month term). Their cheapest plans in stock are CPX02 at $8.09 and Slice 2048 at $7.
We read stock every day; a plan returns to the rankings on the day it is back.
What VAT and location can add
Thirteen of the 44 providers print prices without VAT: Alwyzon, Aruba Cloud, Cherry Servers, Civo, Contabo, Exoscale, Hetzner, Hostinger, LiteServer, netcup, Scaleway, Virtono and Webdock. Whether you pay VAT depends on where you live and whether you buy as a business, not on the plan, so we label those prices ex VAT and rank them as printed. Where the server sits can move the price further: netcup charges 89% to 125% more in Singapore and Contabo 48% to 59% more in Japan. Every price on this page is for the provider's cheapest location; the country and city pages use the local price, and What a VPS costs lists every surcharge we track.
Questions
- Does Hetzner include an IPv4 address?
- Yes, in the prices it prints. Hetzner bills a public IPv4 address as a separate line of $0.60 a month, but the prices on its own pages include it, read 14 Oct 2026. The cheapest Hetzner server you can order, CPX02 (1 vCPU / 1 GB), is $8.09 a month with the address, ex VAT, or $7.49 with IPv6 only.
- How much is an IPv4 address on Scaleway?
- EUR 3.65 a month, $4.08 at the ECB rate of 13 Oct 2026, on top of the instance. On STARDUST1-S, which costs $0.90 with a 10 GB disk, the address is 82% of the $4.98 bill.
- What is the cheapest VPS with an IPv4 address included?
- Counting the address, the cheapest server we track that you can order on 14 Oct 2026 is CloudCone SSD VPS 1, 2 vCPU / 1 GB, at $2.33 a month on a 12-month term. Month to month it is Webdock VPS Essential, 1 vCPU / 2 GB, at EUR 2.15 ($2.41 at the ECB rate of 13 Oct 2026), ex VAT. Both include the address in the price.
- Is the IONOS $2 VPS really $2 a month?
- Only for the first 3 months. After that VPS S+ is $6 a month on a 12-month term, so the first year costs $60.
- Why are some prices shown without VAT?
- Because 13 of the 44 providers print them that way. Whether you pay VAT depends on where you live and whether you buy as a business, not on the plan, so we keep the provider's price, say ex VAT next to it, and rank it as printed.
How we worked this out
We took every plan from the 44 server providers we track, 221 in all, each read from the provider's own page or price API. This page uses the prices read on 14 Oct 2026; the CSV gives the date each plan was last read. A size means at least that much RAM, so a bigger plan counts when it costs less. The printed price is the lowest number the provider shows for a plan: the intro or sale price where there is one. The price you pay is the regular monthly price plus a separately billed IPv4 address. Hetzner and netcup print their prices with the IPv4 address, so for them the two are the same. Scaleway prices the instance and its disk separately; we count the largest local disk each type takes. Plans shown as sold out, plans without an IPv4 address and prices we have not re-read for 7 days are in no ranking. Euro prices are converted at the ECB rate of 13 Oct 2026. When two plans cost the same, the one without a catch ranks first, then the one with more RAM, then more vCPU. Which providers pay us plays no part.
First published 14 Oct 2026. The numbers change when the providers' prices do; we read them every day. Download every plan with both prices as CSV (CC BY 4.0), or see the full dataset, the methodology and the dated change log.
Read next: What a VPS costs, the cheapest VPS overall, VPS deals today, VPS prices a year on.
All figures are the providers' own published list prices in USD, on-demand monthly. The index was last refreshed 2026-10-14, and every row shows the date its own price was read. Nothing here is live or negotiated pricing. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Some prices exclude VAT or need a commitment; the plan notes say which. Check the provider's pricing page before you commit.