In the Cloudways vs Hostinger choice, Hostinger is far cheaper, and Cloudways’ advantage is a monthly bill that never rises. Hostinger Cloud Startup costs $383.52 for 48 months, paid upfront, and gives you 4 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM. Cloudways’ DigitalOcean Premium 1 GB server costs $672 over the same 48 months, with 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM, billed monthly with no renewal increase. Pick Hostinger if you want the most resources and extras for the lowest total. Pick Cloudways if you refuse to prepay, want staging on every server, or want a price that never jumps at renewal.
Prices were checked on October 18, 2026 on Hostinger’s US pricing page and Cloudways’ DigitalOcean pricing page. Speed and uptime figures come from Gizmodo’s head-to-head test and Kripesh Adwani’s long-term monitoring, with periods listed in the table below.
| Question | Hostinger | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting type | Shared and cloud plans | Managed cloud server |
| Cheapest unlimited-site plan | $167.52 for 48 months | $14/mo ($672 over 48 months) |
| Paid upfront | All 48 months | Nothing, billed monthly |
| Renewal | Rises ($16.99 to $25.99/mo) | Same price every month |
| Free email and domain | Yes, for the first year | No |
| Money-back | 30 days | No, 3-day free trial |
| Best for | Lowest four-year cost | No commitment, no renewal jump |
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Cloudways vs Hostinger pricing: the real cost
The two hosts sell in opposite ways. Hostinger shows its lowest price only on a 48-month term, paid in one go, and the price rises at renewal. Cloudways counts your server by the hour, charges once a month, and keeps the same rate for as long as the server runs.
| Plan | Intro price | Billing term | Paid upfront | Renewal price | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Premium | $2.49/mo | 48 months prepaid | $119.52 | $10.99/mo | Official |
| Hostinger Unlimited | $3.49/mo | 48 months prepaid | $167.52 | $16.99/mo | Official |
| Hostinger Cloud Startup | $7.99/mo | 48 months prepaid | $383.52 | $25.99/mo | Official |
| Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium 1 GB | $14/mo | Monthly, billed hourly | $0 | $14/mo | Official |
| Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium 4 GB | $54/mo | Monthly, billed hourly | $0 | $54/mo | Official |
The four-year cost
Assumptions: Hostinger is one 48-month prepaid term; Cloudways runs all 48 months at the listed rate; no add-ons or tax; the per-site column assumes five small sites, except Premium, which allows three.
| Plan | Four-year total | Average per month | Year 5 cost | Websites | Per site over 4 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Premium | $119.52 | $2.49 | $131.88 | 3 | $39.84 (3 sites) |
| Hostinger Unlimited | $167.52 | $3.49 | $203.88 | Unlimited | $33.50 |
| Hostinger Cloud Startup | $383.52 | $7.99 | $311.88 | Unlimited | $76.70 |
| Cloudways Premium 1 GB | $672 | $14 | $168 | Unlimited | $134.40 |
| Cloudways Premium 4 GB | $2,592 | $54 | $648 | Unlimited | $518.40 |
Over four years, Hostinger wins on price at every level. Its Unlimited plan costs $504.48 less than the Cloudways Premium 1 GB server. The trade-off is cash flow and commitment: Hostinger asks for the full $167.52 or $383.52 on day one, while Cloudways can be stopped in any month. From year five, the yearly bill changes: Hostinger Unlimited renews at $203.88 a year, more than the $168 for the Cloudways Premium 1 GB server. Because Hostinger saved you $504.48 in the first four years, though, its total stays lower for many years after that.
What you get for the money
Server resources
This is the biggest gap between the two. Hostinger lists Cloud Startup with 4 CPU cores, 4 GB of RAM and 100 GB of NVMe storage. To get 4 GB of RAM on Cloudways, you need the DigitalOcean Premium 4 GB server at $54 a month, which has 2 cores, 80 GB of storage and costs $2,592 over four years. That is more than six times the Cloud Startup price. Even Hostinger Unlimited, at 2 cores and 3 GB of RAM, has more listed resources than the $14 Cloudways server with 1 vCPU and 1 GB.
Websites and storage
Both Hostinger Unlimited and every Cloudways server allow unlimited websites. Hostinger Premium stops at 3 sites, so a fourth site means moving to Unlimited for $48 more over four years. On storage, Unlimited gives 50 GB and Cloud Startup 100 GB, against 25 GB on the Cloudways 1 GB servers. If your sites use many images, Cloudways’ smallest server fills up first.
Backups and staging
Hostinger includes weekly backups on Premium, daily backups on Unlimited, and daily plus on-demand backups on Cloud Startup, all in the price. Cloudways bills off-site backup storage at $0.033 per GB per server, so 10 GB of backups adds $15.84 over four years. Staging works the other way around. Cloudways includes staging and cloning on every server, even the $14 one. Hostinger’s pricing page lists staging as a general feature but does not tie it to a specific plan, so check the plan details before you buy if staging matters to you. Our guide on how to create a WordPress staging site shows why it is worth having.
Email, domain and refunds
Hostinger includes free email and a free domain for the first year on all three plans, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. Cloudways includes neither: email is a Rackspace add-on at $1.50 per mailbox per month, and there is no money-back guarantee, only a 3-day trial without a credit card. Two mailboxes on Cloudways add $144 over four years. On Hostinger, email is free in year one, and the pricing page does not list the price after that. Our Cloudways pricing guide lists every add-on price. Our guide to the Cloudways free trial explains how to get the most out of those 3 days.
Growing later and choosing a server
Cloudways lists vertical scaling on its pricing page, so you can move a server up to a bigger size as traffic grows. Because billing is hourly, the bigger server costs only for the hours it runs. Going from the Premium 1 GB to the Premium 2 GB server doubles the bill from $14 to $28 a month. Hostinger’s plans are fixed, so growing means moving from Premium to Unlimited or Cloud Startup, on a new prepaid term.
Cloudways also lets you pick the cloud behind your server and its data center. That choice affects speed for your visitors. In published Cloudways tests, a DigitalOcean server measured from the US answered in 200 ms (BloggersPassion), while a server in Singapore took 3.66 seconds to load a page for US visitors (Kripesh Adwani). For a US audience, a US data center is the first setting to get right.
Setup is different too. Cloudways says it has its own dashboard, “eliminating the need for cPanel”: you create a server first, then add each WordPress site to it. I run my own sites on Namecheap shared hosting, where I add domains in cPanel and install WordPress with a one-click installer. If that kind of panel is what you know, expect a short learning curve on Cloudways.
Speed, uptime and support
| Source and period | Setup | Metric | Hostinger | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gizmodo, GTmetrix from Vancouver, page updated February 2026 | Hostinger Cloud Startup vs Cloudways DigitalOcean Micro, both US data centers | TTFB | 291 ms | 331 ms |
| Gizmodo, same test | Same | Fully loaded time | 733 ms | 1.1 s |
| Gizmodo, Loader | Same | Average response time | 592 ms | 322 ms |
| Gizmodo, Pingdom, 3 months | Same | Uptime | 100% | 99.98% |
| Kripesh Adwani, Better Uptime, last 365 days, updated October 2026 | Hostinger Business shared, New York; Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard, Singapore | Uptime | 99.96% | 99.99% |
The speed results point in different directions. In Gizmodo’s GTmetrix run, Hostinger Cloud Startup had the lower TTFB and loaded the full page in 733 ms against 1.1 seconds. In the same article’s Loader test, Cloudways answered in 322 ms against 592 ms. With one tool favoring each host, neither is a clear speed winner. Uptime is close: every result here is 99.96% or higher, which leaves a gap of under 20 minutes a month at most.
On support, Hostinger lists 24/7 live chat, plus an AI chat assistant, and its contact page does not list a phone line or a general support email. Cloudways lists 24/7 live chat and tickets, and sells a faster Advance Support add-on at $100 a month. That add-on costs more per month than any Hostinger plan here at renewal.
Who should pick which
- Several affiliate or niche sites, lowest total: Hostinger Unlimited. Five sites cost $33.50 each over four years, against $134.40 each on the Cloudways Premium 1 GB server.
- A growing store that needs RAM: Hostinger Cloud Startup. It lists 4 GB of RAM for $383.52 over four years, while 4 GB on Cloudways costs $2,592.
- You do not want to prepay: Cloudways. You pay $0 upfront and can stop in any month, while Hostinger’s lowest prices need all 48 months paid at once.
- You need staging on a small budget: Cloudways. Staging is included on the $14 Premium 1 GB server.
- You want a price that never rises: Cloudways. The Premium 1 GB server stays at $14 a month, while Hostinger Unlimited goes from $3.49 to $16.99 at renewal.
One thing would change this advice: if Hostinger’s checkout shows a renewal discount or a different term, rerun the year-five math with that price.
For the full details on each host, see our Hostinger review and our Cloudways review. If neither fits, our list of Cloudways alternatives compares more options.
Final recommendation
For most readers, the Cloudways vs Hostinger answer is Hostinger. Unlimited costs $167.52 for four years, and Cloud Startup gives you four times Cloudways’ entry-level RAM for $383.52, with email, a free domain and a 30-day refund window included. Choose Cloudways instead if monthly billing without prepayment matters more than the total, if you want staging on a cheap server, or if you want a bill that never jumps at renewal.
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Cloudways vs Hostinger FAQ
Is Hostinger Cloud the same as Cloudways?
No. Hostinger Cloud Startup is a fixed plan from Hostinger with a set amount of resources. On Cloudways, you choose the cloud provider behind your server, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, and then pick a server size.
Can I pay Hostinger monthly like Cloudways?
The $3.49 and $7.99 prices on Hostinger’s pricing page are for the 48-month term, paid upfront. If you choose a shorter term at checkout, check the monthly price shown there before you pay.
Which one renews at a higher price?
Hostinger. Cloud Startup goes from $7.99 to $25.99 a month at renewal, more than three times the intro price. Our Hostinger renewal price guide shows the full jump for every plan. Cloudways’ server prices stay the same.
Do I need to buy a domain separately?
On Hostinger, no: all three plans include a free domain for the first year, after which it renews at the normal domain price. On Cloudways, yes. Tom’s Guide notes that Cloudways does not sell domain names, so you buy and renew the domain at a registrar.
Can I move from Cloudways to Hostinger, or the other way?
Cloudways moves your first website from any host for free. For the other direction, or for extra sites, our guide on how to move a WordPress site to a new host covers the manual steps.