TL;DR: Vultr pricing starts at $5 a month for a 1 GB Regular Performance server, and $20 buys 4 GB with 3 TB of bandwidth. Automatic backups add 20%, so a typical 4 GB app server costs $24 a month. That's a little under DigitalOcean's $28.80 for the same server with backups.
- Pick Vultr Regular Performance if you want a cheap server outside Europe: it's $4 under a DigitalOcean Droplet at 4 GB and runs in 31 cities.
- Pick High Performance if you push a lot of traffic: at 16 GB it includes 8 TB of bandwidth, against 5 TB on Regular, which makes it the cheaper plan past about 9 TB a month.
- Pick Hetzner or Netcup if your users are in Europe and the bill matters most: 4 GB costs $7 to $9.25 there.
- Watch for the 20% backup charge, the hourly bandwidth allowance and stopped servers, which Vultr keeps billing.
- Get push-to-deploy on a Vultr server with Ployz, which I build: preview environments and zero-downtime deploys, free on your own servers.
Vultr is a cloud provider that rents virtual servers by the hour in 33 locations, from $2.50 a month for an IPv6-only server to dedicated-CPU and GPU machines.
| RAM | Regular Performance | High Performance | Bandwidth included (Regular / High) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | $5 | $6 | 1 TB / 2 TB |
| 2 GB | $10 | $12 | 2 TB / 3 TB |
| 4 GB | $20 | $24 | 3 TB / 5 TB |
| 8 GB | $40 | $48 | 4 TB / 6 TB |
| 16 GB | $80 | $96 | 5 TB / 8 TB |
Prices are per month. Every account also gets 2 TB of bandwidth, and backups add 20%. Most web apps with a database fit the 2 GB or 4 GB Regular plan.
What would your server cost on Vultr?
Pick the app closest to yours, or customize the RAM, traffic and backups. Each row picks the cheapest plan with enough RAM. Ployz is free on all of them.
- Vultr Regular plan
- Regular 4 GB, 80 GB disk included
- Vultr bandwidth included (plan + 2 TB account allowance)
- 5 TB
- Vultr High Performance plan
- High Performance 4 GB
- Vultr Regular Performance$24/mo
Smallest Regular plan with the RAM, and the disk it includes ($5 to $80, 1.5x in São Paulo), backups +20%, overage at $0.01/GB past the plan's bandwidth plus 2 TB per account. Ployz on it is free.
- Vultr High Performance$29/mo
Smallest High Performance plan with the RAM, and the disk it includes ($6 to $96, 1.5x in São Paulo), NVMe and more bandwidth, same backup and overage rules.
- DigitalOcean Droplet$29/mo
Smallest Basic Droplet with the RAM, and the disk it includes ($6 to $96), weekly backups +20%, overage at $0.01/GiB. No São Paulo region.
- Your own server + Ployz (Hetzner, EU only)$7/mo
Hetzner CX23 to CX53 ($6.49 to $34.99) plus about $0.56 (€0.50) IPv4, 20 TB traffic included, Germany and Finland only.
- Your own server + Ployz (Netcup)$9/mo
Netcup VPS 500 to VPS 4000 (€8.26 to €45.36 listed price, 12-month term), traffic included, Europe, Manassas (US) or Singapore.
What does a real app cost on Vultr?
A small app costs $12 a month on Vultr with backups, a medium one $24 and a large one about $115. These are the calculator's three apps:
- Small: 2 GB of RAM, 100 GB of outbound traffic.
- Medium: 4 GB of RAM, 1 TB of outbound traffic.
- Large: 16 GB of RAM, 10,000 GB (about 10 TB) of outbound traffic.
Each row is the cheapest plan with enough RAM, using the disk it includes (40 GB or more on every plan here). Automatic backups are on where the provider sells them.
| Line | Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vultr Regular Performance | $10 (2 GB) | $20 (4 GB) | $80 (16 GB) |
| Backups (20%) | $2 | $4 | $16 |
| Bandwidth overage at $0.01/GB | $0 | $0 | $28.32 |
| Vultr Regular total | $12 | $24 | $124.32 |
| Vultr High Performance total | $14.40 | $28.80 | $115.20 |
| DigitalOcean Droplet total | $14.40 | $28.80 | $155.20 |
| Hetzner + Ployz (EU only) | $7.05 (CX23) | $7.05 (CX23) | $19.05 (CX43) |
| Netcup + Ployz | $9.25 (VPS 500) | $9.25 (VPS 500) | $30.15 (VPS 2000) |
The large app is where the plan line matters. Regular's 16 GB plan includes 5 TB (5,120 GB), so 10,000 GB of traffic runs 2,832 GB past it even with the 2 TB every account gets. High Performance includes 8 TB, which covers it with the account's 2 TB. So the "faster" plan is about $9 cheaper here.
The Hetzner and Netcup rows have no backups, so they aren't a like-for-like comparison. Hetzner sells backups as an add-on, and a pg_dump copied to object storage costs pennies. Hetzner's CX servers are in Germany and Finland only, and Netcup's are in Europe, Manassas in the US and Singapore. Outside those, Vultr and DigitalOcean are the cheap options.
How much does each Vultr plan cost?
Vultr sells five lines of cloud server, and Regular Performance at $5 to $80 covers most apps. All prices below are from Vultr's public plan API. The bandwidth column is each server's monthly allowance before the 2 TB every account gets.
Regular Performance
Regular Performance runs on shared Intel CPUs with SSD storage. It's the cheapest line and the one I'd start on.
| RAM | vCPU | SSD | Bandwidth | $/month | $/hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 1 TB | $5 | $0.007 |
| 2 GB | 1 | 55 GB | 2 TB | $10 | $0.014 |
| 2 GB | 2 | 65 GB | 3 TB | $15 | $0.021 |
| 4 GB | 2 | 80 GB | 3 TB | $20 | $0.027 |
| 8 GB | 4 | 160 GB | 4 TB | $40 | $0.055 |
| 16 GB | 6 | 320 GB | 5 TB | $80 | $0.11 |
| 32 GB | 8 | 640 GB | 6 TB | $160 | $0.219 |
| 64 GB | 16 | 1,280 GB | 10 TB | $320 | $0.438 |
| 96 GB | 24 | 1,600 GB | 15 TB | $640 | $0.877 |
There are also two 512 MB plans. One is $3.50 and only offered in New Jersey. The other is $2.50, IPv6 only, in New Jersey and Atlanta. Neither has enough RAM to build an app on the server.
High Performance
High Performance runs on AMD or Intel CPUs with NVMe storage, at the same price for either. It costs 20% more than Regular and includes more bandwidth at every size.
| RAM | vCPU | NVMe | Bandwidth | $/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 2 TB | $6 |
| 2 GB | 1 | 50 GB | 3 TB | $12 |
| 2 GB | 2 | 60 GB | 4 TB | $18 |
| 4 GB | 2 | 100 GB | 5 TB | $24 |
| 8 GB | 4 | 180 GB | 6 TB | $48 |
| 12 GB | 4 | 260 GB | 7 TB | $72 |
| 16 GB | 8 | 350 GB | 8 TB | $96 |
| 24 GB | 12 | 500 GB | 12 TB | $144 |
High Frequency
High Frequency runs on CPUs clocked above 3 GHz with NVMe storage, at High Performance prices. It gives you more disk and less bandwidth: the 4 GB plan has 128 GB of disk and 3 TB, for $24. It goes up to 58 GB of RAM for $320.
Optimized Cloud Compute and VX1
Optimized Cloud Compute is Vultr's dedicated-CPU line on AMD. VX1 is its newest AMD line. Both start where the cheaper plans get expensive.
| Plan | vCPU | RAM | Disk | Bandwidth | $/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Optimized, CPU | 1 | 2 GB | 25 GB | 4 TB | $28 |
| Optimized, general purpose | 1 | 4 GB | 30 GB | 4 TB | $30 |
| Optimized, memory | 1 | 8 GB | 50 GB | 5 TB | $40 |
| VX1 | 2 | 8 GB | none (boots from block storage, billed extra) | 5 TB | $43.80 |
| VX1 with 120 GB local disk | 2 | 8 GB | 120 GB | 5 TB | $55.48 |
VX1 is Vultr's newest line and runs in only 9 to 11 locations so far. Optimized's smaller plans run in nearly every location. For a web app with a database, I'd only move here when a shared CPU is the bottleneck.
Is there a free plan?
Yes, but you can't count on getting it. Vultr's API lists a free plan with 1 vCPU, 512 MB of RAM and a 10 GB disk in Seattle, Frankfurt and Miami. It has no bandwidth of its own, so it runs on the 2 TB every account gets. Vultr launched it in 2023 as early access, granted to people who applied, and I couldn't confirm how access works today.
What changes the Vultr bill?
Four things: bandwidth, backups, how long a server exists and where it runs.
Bandwidth
Every account gets 2 TB of outbound bandwidth a month, on top of each server's own allowance. Past that, Vultr charges $0.01 per GB (overage docs). Inbound traffic isn't metered.
The catch is how the allowance arrives. Vultr's bandwidth docs say each server's allowance is "allocated hourly" across a 672-hour month. Overage applies if your traffic "exceeds the currently allocated bandwidth at any time during the month". So a traffic spike in the first week can cost you even if your monthly total fits.
| Monthly traffic | Regular 4 GB (5 TB with the account's 2 TB) | High Performance 4 GB (7 TB) | DigitalOcean 4 GiB (4 TB) | Hetzner CX23 (20 TB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 GB | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 5,000 GB | $0 | $0 | about $10 | $0 |
| 10,000 GB | about $49 | about $28 | about $60 | $0 |
The 2 TB account allowance is one per account, not per server. I've counted it once here, so with several servers it's a smaller share of the total.
Backups and snapshots
Automatic backups cost 20% of the server's price, so $4 on a $20 server. They cover the server's own disk and, per the backups FAQ, not attached block storage.
From Vultr's billing docs:
| Option | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic backups | +20% of the server's hourly or monthly price | backups |
| Snapshots | $0.05 per GB a month for each stored snapshot | snapshots |
A backup is an image of the whole disk, so it catches your Postgres data. An image of a running database isn't the same as a clean dump, though. If you run Postgres with Ployz, you can also keep a mirror of it on a second server and sync it when you ask.
Hourly billing and stopped servers
Vultr bills every server by the hour, with a one-hour minimum. Cloud servers are capped at 672 hours a month, so a server that runs all month costs its monthly price and no more. The billing docs cover both rules.
The same docs say a server is billed "regardless of whether it is powered on or off". Stopping a server doesn't stop the bill. To stop paying, take a snapshot and destroy it.
Location
São Paulo costs 1.5 times the normal price on every plan sold there. A 4 GB Regular server is $30 a month there instead of $20. Vultr's plan API lists no surcharge for any other location.
What do Vultr's other products cost?
A load balancer starts at $10 a month, and a reserved IP is $3. I couldn't check the rest, because Vultr's product pages sit behind a Cloudflare check that blocked every fetch.
| Product | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Load balancer | from $10 a month per instance, varies by region | docs |
| Reserved IP | $0.004 an hour, $3 a month | docs |
| Snapshots | $0.05 per GB a month | docs |
| Managed databases, block storage, object storage, Kubernetes | not verified | vultr.com/pricing |
Vultr's Postgres FAQ does say what the managed database tiers include. Every plan is backed up automatically. Point-in-time recovery covers 30 days on Premium, 14 on Business and 2 on Startup, and the Hobbyist tier has none.
Is Vultr cheaper than DigitalOcean or Hetzner?
Vultr is cheaper than DigitalOcean at every size, and more expensive than Hetzner and Netcup wherever those two have servers.
| Server | vCPU / RAM / disk | Monthly | Regions | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vultr Regular 4 GB | 2 / 4 GB / 80 GB | $20 | 31 cities | Vultr API |
| Vultr High Performance 4 GB | 2 / 4 GB / 100 GB | $24 | 31 to 32 cities | Vultr API |
| DigitalOcean Basic 4 GiB | 2 / 4 GiB / 80 GiB | $24 | every DigitalOcean region | DigitalOcean |
| Hetzner CX23 | 2 / 4 GB / 40 GB | $6.49 + €0.50 IPv4 | Germany, Finland | price list, IPv4 |
| Netcup VPS 500 | 2 / 4 GB / 64 GB | €8.26 listed, €9.50 incl. 19% VAT, 12-month term | Europe; Manassas (US); Singapore | Netcup |
Against DigitalOcean the gap is small: $20 against $24 at 4 GB. Vultr's 4 GB server includes 1 TB less bandwidth, but on a single server the account's 2 TB more than makes up for it. I priced DigitalOcean's whole range in DigitalOcean pricing.
Against Hetzner the gap is large. Hetzner's 4 GB server is about a third of Vultr's price and includes 20 TB of traffic. But Hetzner's CX line is Europe only, and its US servers cost more than Vultr: 4 GB is $37.49 there. Hetzner pricing has the full list, and the cheapest VPS ranks every provider by price per GB of RAM.
Is a Vultr server cheaper than a PaaS?
Yes, by a wide margin. Railway charges $10 per GB of RAM a month, so 4 GB costs $40 before CPU, storage and egress at $0.05 per GB. The same 4 GB on Vultr is $20, with 3 TB of traffic included. Railway pricing has the full bill.
What a PaaS adds is the deploy workflow: push to GitHub, get a build, HTTPS and preview environments. I've paid for that convenience myself, about $600 for my first month on Laravel Cloud and then $500+ a month on Railway, most of it for a busy database. Today one €80 dedicated server runs everything.
Which should you pick?
| If you… | Pick |
|---|---|
| Want a cheap server in the US, Asia or Latin America | Vultr Regular Performance, $20 for 4 GB |
| Push several TB of traffic a month | Vultr High Performance, which includes more bandwidth per dollar |
| Want the lowest bill and your users are in Europe | Hetzner or Netcup, $7 to $30 with Ployz |
| Want managed Postgres with point-in-time recovery | Vultr Managed Databases on the Startup tier or above |
| Want a PaaS deploy workflow on a Vultr server | Any Vultr plan with 2 GB or more, plus Ployz |
I think Vultr's best case is location. It's in 33 places, from Johannesburg to Osaka, at the same price everywhere except São Paulo. If your users are in Europe, it's hard to justify paying more than twice what Hetzner or Netcup charge.
Where Ployz fits
A Vultr server gives you compute and nothing else. Ployz, which I build, adds the workflow you'd get from a PaaS:
ployz up --server root@your-vultr-serverThat installs Ployz over SSH, builds the current directory and gives it an HTTPS address. Node, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Rust, Java and Elixir apps need no Dockerfile. Builds run on the server, so pick a plan with 2 GB of RAM or more.
- Push to deploy: connect a GitHub repo and every push builds on your server, with no registry to run.
- Preview environments: every pull request gets its own HTTPS address on your servers, at no cost beyond the RAM it uses.
- Zero-downtime deploys: with a health check set, a new version has to pass it before the old one stops.
- One-click Postgres, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB, with a sealed generated password and a
DATABASE_URLyour app can reference. - More than one server: add a second Vultr server with one command, and services reach each other over an encrypted network. Every server serves HTTPS itself, so you don't need Vultr's $10 load balancer.
Databases get a mirror on another of your servers, synced when you ask. If the first server dies, you restore from the mirror, or move the database there with seconds of downtime. Replicas on your other servers keep serving when one goes down. It doesn't create servers for you; you rent the Vultr server first.
It's free on your own servers, custom domains included, and every service gets a free ployz.app address. Start free.
FAQ
Is Vultr free?
Vultr has a free plan with 512 MB of RAM, but access has been by application, not open to everyone. The cheapest server anyone can deploy is $2.50 a month, IPv6 only, and the cheapest with IPv4 in most cities is $5.
Does Vultr charge for a stopped server?
Yes. Vultr bills a server whether it's powered on or off. Snapshot it and destroy it to stop paying, and the snapshot then costs $0.05 per GB a month.
How much bandwidth does Vultr include?
Every account gets 2 TB a month, plus each server's own allowance of 1 TB to 15 TB. Past that, outbound traffic costs $0.01 per GB. The server allowance builds up hour by hour, so a spike early in the month can go over it.
Is Vultr cheaper than DigitalOcean?
Yes, slightly. A 4 GB Regular Performance server is $20 against $24 for a 4 GiB Droplet. Backups add 20% on both, which buys weekly backups on DigitalOcean. Vultr's High Performance plans match Droplet prices with more bandwidth.
What's the difference between Regular and High Performance?
High Performance uses NVMe disks instead of SSDs and costs 20% more. It also includes more bandwidth at every size: 5 TB on the 4 GB plan, against 3 TB on Regular.
Does Vultr bill hourly or monthly?
Hourly, with a one-hour minimum and a cap at 672 hours a month. A server that runs all month costs its monthly price.
How I checked
I checked every price on 2026-10-08. Vultr's pricing page returned a Cloudflare check to every request I tried, so the plan prices come from Vultr's own public plan API (api.vultr.com/v2/plans) and the billing rules from Vultr's docs, linked next to each number. That's why managed databases, block storage and object storage have no price here: neither the API nor the docs I could reach listed one. DigitalOcean, Hetzner and Netcup prices come from their own pricing pages. Euro prices are converted at the ECB rate of about $1.12 (1.1177 on 7 October 2026). The three example apps are my own sizing. I build Ployz, so weigh the "Where Ployz fits" section with that in mind; the Vultr numbers don't depend on it.
Run your app on a Vultr server or any Linux box with Ployz, free: get started.