Cloudways is one of the best-managed Cloud hosting platforms on the internet with a cost that is relatively low compared to what it offers.
They provide servers from third-party leading hosting providers and each one offers a different pricing module.
Key Takeaways:
- Cloudways is one of the best hosting providers with a lot of features.
- The cheapest plan still costs $11/month: a 1 GB DigitalOcean Standard server.
- You can create unlimited websites and apps on each server you create without additional cost.
- Billing is pay-as-you-go. Servers are billed by the hour, so you only pay for the time a server is running.
- Cloudways pricing is much lower than managed WordPress hosts such as WP Engine and Kinsta.
What Is Cloudways?
Cloudways is a managed hosting provider that provides scalable, high-performance cloud hosting solutions with many hosting pricing modules.
It offers you the freedom of managing your own server infrastructure while taking care of all the complexities involved in running and securing it. Read Cloudways review.
A quick bit of background: DigitalOcean bought Cloudways in September 2022, and Cloudways now sells two products. Cloudways Flexible is the classic server-based hosting this article covers. Cloudways Autonomous is a separate autoscaling WordPress product that starts at $99 per month, and we cover it in our Cloudways Autonomous (formerly Autoscale) guide.
Cloudways Pricing
Cloudways pricing is flat and transparent: you only pay for the server size you pick.
It is also a pay-as-you-go system. Servers are billed by the hour, so you are only charged for the hours a server runs, and the monthly prices below are what a server costs if it runs the whole month.
When you sign up for the first time, Cloudways gives you a 3-day free trial (no credit card needed) to create a server and see how you like the platform.
Cloudways provides servers from 5 cloud providers: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode (now part of Akamai Cloud), AWS, and Google Cloud. Prices vary from one provider to another, and you can create as many servers as you want on any of them. The prices below were checked on the Cloudways pricing page in October 2026; the screenshots are from our earlier look at the page, so a few numbers in them are out of date.
Read: Create and Install a Server on Cloudways
DigitalOcean Pricing on Cloudways:
For DigitalOcean, Cloudways now lists several server types: Basic, General Purpose, CPU Optimized, Standard, and Premium. General Purpose and CPU Optimized are bigger servers for busy stores and apps, so for most small sites the choice comes down to the Standard plans and the Premium plans (the default Basic tab currently shows the same $14 1 GB NVMe server as Premium).
The two plan types provide the same amount of resources, but the Premium plans run on newer Intel Xeon Scalable processors with faster NVMe SSDs and network speeds up to 10 Gbps, while Standard uses older Intel CPUs, regular SSDs, and up to 2 Gbps.
The cheapest Standard server on Cloudways by DigitalOcean is the Micro plan, with 1 GB RAM, 1 Core processor, 25 GB SSD storage space, and 1 TB Bandwidth. The next size up, Small, has 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD and 2 TB Bandwidth for $24 a month.
This plan costs $11 per month in the standard option.
The smallest Premium server on DigitalOcean (1 GB RAM, 1 Core, 25 GB NVMe SSD and 1 TB Bandwidth) costs $14 per month.
Vultr Pricing on Cloudways:
Same as DigitalOcean, Vultr has 2 server options you can choose from with different pricing, the Standard plan, and the High-Frequency plan.
The two plans have the same resources except the High-Frequency plan is more expensive.
Also, the Standard is powered by previous generation Intel CPUs and regular SSD while the High-Frequency is powered by 3GHz+ Intel Xeon CPUs and the faster NVMe SSD.
The cheapest Vultr plan costs $14 per month on the Standard package and $16 per month on the High Frequency package.
The 1 GB plan comes with resources of 1 GB RAM, 1 Core processor, 25 GB SSD storage space for the standard and 32 GB NVMe SSD storage space for the high-frequency, and 1 TB Bandwidth.
Linode Pricing on Cloudways:
Linode (now sold by Akamai as Akamai Cloud, although Cloudways still calls it Linode) has the same entry price as Vultr. For small sites there are only Standard plans with regular SSD disks; the General Purpose and CPU Optimized options start at bigger, pricier sizes.
Linode’s cheapest plan is 1 GB and it costs $14 per month, and for this amount of money, you get a server with 1 GB RAM, 1 Core processor, 25 GB SSD storage space, and 1 TB Bandwidth.
AWS Pricing on Cloudways:
Amazon Web Services “AWS” is one of the most powerful web hosting networks in the world. Many big-name companies are trusting AWS to host their platforms with them.
On the other hand, AWS is more expensive than the previous ones, and you get more vCPUs but less storage space and much less bandwidth.
The cheapest plan on AWS costs $20.56/month and offers 1 GB RAM, 2 vCPU processors, 20 GB storage space, and 2 GB bandwidth.
Google Cloud Pricing on Cloudways:
The Google Cloud Platform “GCP” is also one of the most famous and most powerful hosting solutions, but it requires more knowledge to configure the servers on its platform.
So, if you are a beginner and you want to host your web application on the Google Cloud Platform, Cloudways made it easy for you to do so.
Google Cloud pricing on Cloudways is in the same premium range as AWS, and actually a bit higher for the entry plan.
The cheapest plan on GCP costs $37.33/month and offers 1.7 GB RAM, a shared vCPU, 20 GB storage space, and 1 GB bandwidth.
Cloudways vs. Kinsta vs. WP Engine Pricing
When you think that there is shared hosting that offers to host unlimited websites for only $5 every month, you would think that Cloudways is expensive.
But here is the catch, the shared hosting servers will not provide the flexibility, performance, speed, customization, server access, and features that the managed hosting offer.
Also, that $5 price will not last forever, you will be charged the full amount once your plan has expired and want to renew it.
So, why not compare Cloudways with other managed hosts, WP Engine and Kinsta, on price? Here we are comparing the cheapest plan of the three (prices checked October 2026). For a deeper look, see our Cloudways vs WP Engine comparison.
| Comparison | Cloudways | WP Engine | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | $11/mo | $28/mo (billed annually) | $35/mo ($30 billed annually) |
| storage | 25 GB | 10 GB | 15 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 75 GB | 15 GB (+125 GB CDN) |
| Visits per Month | Unlimited | 25,000/mo | 75,000/mo (estimated) |
| Multisites | Free | Additional cost | Higher plans |
| Unlimited Sites | Yes | No | No |
| Money-back guarantee | Pay as you go | 60 days | 30 days |
Conclusion
I once hosted 11 different low-traffic WordPress and PHP sites on the 1 GB plan on a DigitalOcean server, and they ran fine with no issues.
Cloudways offers lots of features and great performance and security with unlimited websites for as low as $11 a month.
So, if you plan to build many websites with a top-notch hosting provider or want to host your website with a Cloud hosting service as a beginner, Cloudways is the place to go.
Read also:
Install WordPress on Cloudways.
Install PHP on Cloudways.
Cloudways Autonomous (formerly Autoscale).
