Cloudways hosting: what it really costs over three years

The short version

• Cheapest plan for one WordPress site: Micro on a DigitalOcean server, $14 a month billed monthly (charged by the hour, $0.0208 an hour, up to that monthly cap). It has 1 GB of RAM, 25 GB of storage and unlimited websites.
• 3-year cost: $504 ($14 × 36 months). Add $54 if you want one Cloudways email mailbox, for $558.
• What renews: nothing jumps. There is no intro price, so month 37 costs the same $14 at today’s price. Off-site backup storage is billed on top by the gigabyte.
• Who it is for: people comfortable with a little technical work who want their own cloud server without running it themselves.

Cloudways is managed cloud web hosting. You rent a server from a cloud company, here DigitalOcean, and Cloudways sets up and maintains the server software for you. DigitalOcean completed its $350M purchase of Cloudways in 2022 and now calls it “a fully managed cloud hosting platform.” We have not used Cloudways ourselves. Everything here comes from the pages of Cloudways and DigitalOcean.

What the cheapest plan really costs over three years

Many hosts sell a low first term and a higher renewal. Cloudways does not. It bills monthly, after the fact (“in arrears”), for the hours your server ran. There is no 36-month prepay and no intro discount, so both ways of counting give the same answer.

The arithmetic:

• Micro: $14 × 36 = $504.
• Small: $28 × 36 = $1,008.
• One Rackspace mailbox: $1.50 × 36 = $54, so Micro plus email is $558.

Two costs sit outside these totals. Off-site backup storage is $0.033 per GB per server, and it depends on how big your site is and how long you keep backups. And no domain is included. The pricing page does not list domain registration, so Verisign’s November 1, 2026 .com price rise lands on your registrar bill. Compare those in our best domain registrars guide.

These prices are for DigitalOcean servers only. Cloudways also offers Vultr, Linode (Akamai), AWS and Google Cloud, and prices those clouds differently. Check the pricing page if you want one of them.

The plans in one table

There is no intro price, so the renewal price is the same list price. Monthly transfer is 1 TB on Micro, 2 TB on Small and 4 TB on Medium. On DigitalOcean, Linode and Vultr, Cloudways says each plan has a monthly cap “you won’t be charged above.” AWS and Google Cloud have no cap.

“Unlimited websites” does not mean unlimited room. Every site shares the server’s memory and storage, so a busy site may need Small or larger.

What is included

• SSL: free Let’s Encrypt certificates.
• Backups: automatic off-site server backups. A Cloudways help article (dated 2014) says you can set them from every hour to every 7 days, daily by default, and keep them 1 to 4 weeks. Storage costs $0.033 per GB, rounded up in $0.50 steps. You can restore the whole site, or just the files or the database. No restore charge is listed.
• Email: not included. Rackspace mailboxes are an add-on at $1.50 per mailbox a month. See email hosting.
• Site migration: Cloudways’ engineers move your first website free. DigitalOcean’s page also lists a free WP Migrator plugin for WordPress sites.
• CDN: a Cloudflare Enterprise add-on from $4.99 per domain a month. We did not find a free CDN on the pages we checked.
• Staging: free staging copies, pushed live with one click.
• Support: 24/7 live chat and tickets on every plan. The Advanced Support add-on is listed at “$100/mo or 10% of your invoice.”

Watch the add-on billing. Cloudways says add-ons such as DNS Made Easy ($0.50 a month per domain) are charged for the full month when you turn them on, even if you delete them the same day.

The uptime promise

We found no uptime promise. The pricing page, DigitalOcean’s Cloudways page and Cloudways’ service level agreement (SLA) give no uptime percentage. DigitalOcean’s terms, which cover cloudways.com, say it does not warrant the service will be “available at any particular time.”

The SLA Cloudways does publish is about support response, not uptime. On the Standard tier, it aims to start work on high-priority issues within 3 hours and normal ones within 12 hours. If it misses that, you get a credit of 5% of your fee for each hour missed, on your next invoice, up to that month’s fees. Credits “will not be paid in cash,” and the SLA covers Cloudways’ own platform, not the cloud providers’ servers.

Leaving later

• Full backup: yes. Turn on Local Backups, then copy the backup (web files and database) to your computer over SFTP or SSH. Only the latest local backup is kept.
• Cancellation fee: none mentioned. You stop paying by deleting the server; you pay for the hours it ran.
• Refunds: no money-back guarantee was found. DigitalOcean’s terms say fees “are non-refundable,” and Cloudways’ billing article says “no refunds for unused hours.” The 3-day free trial, with no card needed, is the way to try it first.
• Data after you delete a server: Cloudways keeps backups 14 days, then they are gone. The terms make backups your job, so keep your own copy.
• Domain: none is included, so there is nothing to transfer out. Your domain stays at your registrar.

Planning the move itself? See moving your website.

Who it is right for, and who should look elsewhere

Right for:

• People with one or several WordPress sites who want a cloud server, free staging and a free first migration, without managing the server.
• Anyone who wants the same plan price every month instead of a cheap first term and a big renewal.
• Owners who like paying monthly with no long contract.

Look elsewhere if:

• You want email and a domain in one bill with your hosting.
• You want a written uptime promise with credits, or a money-back window.
• You want a fixed bill. Backup storage and add-ons change the total each month.

Not sure what a whole site costs? Try our website cost calculator, or read what a website costs.

Sources

Cloudways: pricing, monthly vs hourly billing, Support SLA, server backups, off-site backup charges, restore, download a backup, backups of a deleted server. DigitalOcean: Cloudways, Terms of Service, acquisition of Cloudways.