Cloudways Pricing (2026)

Cloudways pricing starts at $14 a month for a 1 GB DigitalOcean Premium server, billed monthly with no prepayment and no renewal increase. Most small sites end up paying about $14 to $18 a month once backup storage and email are added. The price depends on three choices: the cloud provider, the server size, and the paid add-ons you switch on. If you are choosing between DigitalOcean’s two server types, our Cloudways Standard vs Premium comparison shows the $3 to $11 monthly gap.

Prices were checked on October 19, 2026 on the official Cloudways pricing page, for each cloud provider and for the Autonomous plans. All Cloudways prices exclude tax.

Cloudways pricing by cloud provider

Cloudways Flexible rents you a managed server from one of five cloud providers. Every server allows unlimited websites, and the price is the same every month.

The three smaller clouds are where the value is. A 1 GB server costs $14 on DigitalOcean, Vultr or Linode, against $20.56 on AWS and $37.33 for the smallest Google Cloud server. The bandwidth gap is even bigger: the DigitalOcean server includes 1 TB of transfer, while the entry AWS and Google Cloud servers list 2 GB and 1 GB. For a content site or a small store, AWS and Google Cloud make sense only if you need that specific infrastructure. To see the same servers priced without Cloudways on top, read our Cloudways vs DigitalOcean breakdown.

Cloudways also bills by the hour: the $14 DigitalOcean Premium server is $0.0208 an hour. A test server you delete after 10 days costs about $5, not a full month.

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Black Friday: code BFCM802 gives 80% off Cloudways for 2 months (up to $200 off a month), until November 30.

What costs extra on Cloudways

The server price covers the hosting, a server firewall, Redis, staging and the free migration of your first website. Object Cache Pro is included free only on servers of 4 GB and above. Several things people expect from regular web hosting are paid add-ons:

Email is the add-on that catches most people. Two mailboxes add $36 a year, which is more than two months of the $14 server. If you only need a mailbox, our Namecheap email hosting review shows one from $14.88 a year.

What you will really pay: three example bills

These examples use the listed prices above. Backup storage is an estimate, since it depends on how big your sites and backups are.

The middle row is the most common setup for niche and affiliate sites. Because Cloudways allows unlimited websites on one server, adding a fourth or fifth small site costs nothing extra until the 1 GB of RAM runs short. At that point the next size up, DigitalOcean Premium 2 GB, costs $28 a month, double the 1 GB price. Our Cloudways review covers how far a 1 GB server goes and what independent tests measured. If you host client sites, our list of the best hosting for agencies compares Cloudways with agency plans from Hostinger and SiteGround.

Cloudways Autonomous pricing

Autonomous is a separate, fully managed product for busy WordPress sites that need autoscaling. It is priced per plan rather than per server:

• Growth, $99 a month: 1 website, 20 GB of disk, 150 GB of bandwidth and 1 baseline server, with Cloudflare Enterprise included.
• Scale, $199 a month: 1 website, 50 GB of disk, 250 GB of bandwidth and 2 baseline servers.

Usage above the plan is billed on top: $1 per GB of extra disk, $0.04 per GB of extra bandwidth and $0.07 an hour for each extra autoscaling server. For one store with heavy traffic spikes, that can be cheaper than a large fixed server. For several small sites, Flexible is the far cheaper choice, because Autonomous Growth covers a single website for $99 a month. To estimate that usage first, see our guide to website bandwidth needs.

Is Cloudways worth the price?

Cloudways costs more than budget shared hosting, but you pay nothing upfront and the price never jumps at renewal. Hostinger Unlimited, for comparison, costs $167.52 for 48 months, all paid on day one, and then renews at $16.99 a month. Over four years, the $14 Cloudways server costs $672, or $504.48 more. Our Cloudways vs Hostinger comparison shows where that extra money goes.

• Cloudways fits: several sites on one server, people who refuse to prepay, and sites that need staging or a server they can resize.
• Cloudways does not fit: one small first site on a tight budget, or anyone who wants email included. A shared plan costs less there.

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Verdict on Cloudways pricing

Cloudways pricing is fair and predictable if you pick DigitalOcean, Vultr or Linode: $14 a month for a 1 GB server that hosts several sites, with no renewal increase. Budget about $3 to $4 a month more for backups and email. Skip AWS and Google Cloud unless you need them, and choose Autonomous only for one high-traffic WordPress site. For cheaper options, see our list of Cloudways alternatives.

Cloudways pricing FAQ

Does Cloudways have a free trial?

Yes. Cloudways Flexible has a 3-day free trial with no credit card required, and Autonomous lists a 3-day trial at $0. There is no money-back guarantee once you start paying, so use the trial to test your site. Our Cloudways free trial guide walks you through what to test in those 3 days.

Does Cloudways charge per website?

Not on Flexible. Every server lists unlimited websites, so five sites on a $14 server cost $2.80 each per month. Autonomous is different: its Growth and Scale plans each include one website.

Does the Cloudways price go up after the first year?

No. There is no intro price, so month 48 costs the same as month 1. The bill changes only if you resize the server, add paid add-ons or use more backup storage. Prices also exclude tax, which is added at checkout.

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