How Much Does a VPS Cost in 2026?

A VPS costs between roughly €4 and €60 a month in Europe for the range most businesses actually buy: €4–6 for a small 2–4 GB instance, €10–16 for an 8–16 GB production server, and €30–60 for 24–32 GB. Below that range you are usually buying a container rather than a virtual machine; above it, a dedicated server becomes the better purchase.

What you pay, tier by tier

Tier	Typical spec	Monthly	Per hour	What it runs
Entry	2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 40 GB SSD	€4	€0.0056	VPN, small site, bot, monitoring agent
Small	4 GB · 2 vCPU · 80 GB	€6	€0.0083	WordPress with real traffic, staging, small API
Standard	8 GB · 2 vCPU · 120 GB	€10	€0.0139	App plus its own database, small shop
Mid	16 GB · 4 vCPU · 160 GB	€16	€0.0222	Multi-container stacks, busier databases
Large	24 GB · 6 vCPU · 200 GB	€30	€0.0417	Production with concurrency, CI runners
Largest	32 GB · 8 vCPU · 300 GB	€58	€0.0806	The ceiling before bare metal wins

Those are our own list prices, and every one includes full root access, KVM isolation, DDoS protection and unmetered 1 Gbps traffic in any of twelve locations. They are shown here because a comparison needs at least one set of real, checkable numbers — prices elsewhere vary, and the useful exercise is comparing what is included, not just the headline figure.

The five things that actually move the price

1. RAM. The dominant factor at every tier, and the one that fails hardest when you run out.
2. vCPU count, and whether the cores are shared or dedicated. "Dedicated vCPU" plans typically cost two to four times a shared-core plan of the same size.
3. Storage type and size. NVMe commands a premium over SATA SSD; whether it is worth paying depends entirely on your access pattern — see SSD versus NVMe.
4. Bandwidth model. A metered plan with 20 TB included and per-GB overage is a different product from an unmetered port, even at the same monthly price.
5. Virtualisation type. KVM costs more to provide than container-based virtualisation, and gives you your own kernel, working Docker and genuine isolation.

The costs that are not on the pricing page

This is where a €4 plan becomes a €12 plan. Check each before comparing providers:

• Bandwidth overage. Per-GB charges after a quota. On a metered plan, attack traffic can be billable.
• Additional IPv4 addresses. Increasingly a separate line item everywhere, as address scarcity bites.
• Backups and snapshots. Frequently a percentage of the plan price, and frequently assumed to be included.
• Managed support. Often exceeds the server cost — see managed versus unmanaged.
• Control panel licences. A commercial panel can cost more per month than the server.
• Setup fees and minimum terms. Both quietly convert an hourly price into a commitment.
• VAT. Consumer prices in the EU usually include it; business prices usually do not. Compare like with like.

Ours are unmetered with no overage billing, no setup fee and no minimum term, which is a deliberate choice — but the general point stands regardless of provider: compare the total, not the headline.

Hourly pricing, and when it is genuinely cheaper

An hourly rate only saves money if the server does not run continuously. On a capped plan — where hourly billing stops at the monthly price — an always-on instance costs exactly the monthly figure, so the flexibility is free rather than a discount.

Where it changes the arithmetic:

• Weekday development environment, 12 hours × 22 days = 264 hours. On the 16 GB tier that is €5.86 instead of €16.
• CI runners, four instances × 25 minutes × 40 runs = 67 hours. On the 24 GB tier, €2.79 instead of €120.
• Seasonal capacity for eleven days rather than a month.

Hourly versus monthly billing works these through in full, including where hourly billing saves you nothing.

How much should you actually spend?

If you are running	Budget
Personal project, VPN, small static site	€4/mo
Business website or blog with caching	€6/mo
SaaS application with its own database	€10–16/mo
WooCommerce or a membership site	€16–30/mo
Production with redundancy (2–3 instances)	€20–48/mo total
Sustained heavy compute	Compare against bare metal from €209/mo

Size memory for your peak and add roughly 30%. Choosing the right VPS plan covers how to arrive at that number from your own workload rather than from a table.

When a VPS stops being the cheapest option

Two directions. Downwards: if you need no root access, no custom software and no isolation, shared hosting is cheaper — and there are only five real reasons to leave it. Upwards: once you are running four or more large instances that could live on one machine, or need more than 32 GB in a single address space, a dedicated server delivers more per euro. Ours start at €209/month for 16 physical cores and 128 GB of ECC memory; VPS versus dedicated servers has the crossover arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a VPS cost per month?

Between about €4 and €60 for the range most businesses buy. A small 2 GB instance is €4, a typical production server with 8 GB is around €10, and 32 GB is €58.

Why are some VPS plans €1 a month?

Usually container-based virtualisation rather than KVM, heavily oversubscribed hosts, metered bandwidth, or an introductory rate that renews much higher. Read what happens at renewal and check the virtualisation type.

Is a more expensive VPS faster?

Within one provider, higher tiers give more RAM and cores, so yes for workloads that use them. Across providers, price correlates poorly with performance — oversubscription, storage type and network quality vary enormously at the same price point.

What does a VPS cost per hour?

From €0.0056 for a 2 GB instance to €0.0806 for 32 GB on our plans, capped at the monthly price. A day of the largest plan is €1.93.

Are there hidden fees?

Frequently, elsewhere: bandwidth overage, extra IPv4, backups, setup fees. Ask for the total monthly cost including everything you need, not the plan price.

Work out your own figure

The VPS cost calculator compares plans against your requirements, and the plans themselves list what is included at each tier. Because billing is hourly, testing a size before committing to it costs a few cents — which is a better way to answer "how much do I need to spend" than any pricing table, including this one.