What Cloudways can do for you‍

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform offering one-click application deployment and streamlined integration with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean. The DigitalOcean-owned solution is particularly suited for agency, ecommerce, SMB, blog, publishing, and multisite hosting. Additional features include developer-focused cloud hosting with built-in Git and Composer functionality. The Cloudways cost is extremely flexible and scalable, providing small and large organizations with ample options. Customer stories suggest this is one of the crowning features, as businesses can efficiently choose subscription plans depending on the memory and processing power required.

Cloudways pricing structures and tiers‍

Cloudways pricing is pleasingly transparent, offering a comprehensive breakdown of how much you can expect to pay depending on the RAM, processor cores, storage, and bandwidth required. The cost also varies depending on the cloud provider: DigitalOcean, AWS, or Google Cloud. All Cloudways plans have the following built-in features:

• 24/7/365 Support
• Free SSL
• Free Migration
• Unlimited Applications
• Team Management
• Dedicated Firewalls
• 24/7 Real-time Monitoring
• Automated Backups
• Staging Environment
• Optimised Cache
• Auto Healing
• Regular Security Patching
• HTTP/2 Enabled Servers
• SSH and SFTP Access

Where each plan differs, however, is the processing power and memory driving these features. Cloudways pricing is impressively scalable, with dozens of separately priced configurations for DigitalOcean (which offers Standard and Premium versions), Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. Let’s outline a few examples for each cloud provider to help you understand the prospective Cloudways cost for your business requirements:

Cloudways pricing – DigitalOcean

While organizations may leverage Cloudways with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, the seamless integration with DigitalOcean offers simplified dashboards and slightly better ease of use. Cloudways pricing using DigitalOcean is also cheaper and more flexible than AWS and Google Cloud. Moreover, the maximum storage is over 1000GB more on the most comprehensive tiers. The subscriptions are split into eleven Standard (for typical all-purpose workloads) and eight Premium (AI-powered Intel Xeon 2nd Generation Scalable processors) tiers.

Standard

The Standard DigitalOcean packages can actually have a higher monthly cost, with more RAM, cores, storage, and bandwidth than the maximum Premium package. Larger organizations may want to consider opting out of the more powerful processors in favor of the higher computing statistics, although this will also mean slower performance.Here are a few examples at either end of the spectrum:  

• $11/month – 1GB RAM, 1 Core CPU, 25GB Storage, 1TB Bandwidth
• $149/month – 16GB RAM, 8 Core CPU, 320GB Storage, 6TB Bandwidth
• $421/month – 64GB RAM, 16 Core CPU, 1280GB Storage, 9TB Bandwidth
• $1056/month –192GB RAM, 32 Core CPU, 3840GB Storage, 12TB Bandwidth

Premium

Premium Cloudways pricing for the DigitalOcean service is slightly more expensive statistics-wise, but the Intel Xeon 2nd Generation processors leverage AI and multi-core mesh architecture to deliver significantly higher performance. Check below for five of the eight potential options, running from cheapest to most expensive:

• $14/month – 1GB RAM, 1 Core CPU, 25GB Storage, 1TB Bandwidth
• $99/month – 8GB RAM, 4 Core CPU, 160GB Storage, 5TB Bandwidth
• $279/month – 32GB RAM, 8 Core CPU, 640GB Storage, 7TB Bandwidth
• $487/month – 64GB RAM, 16 Core CPU, 1280GB Storage, 9TB Bandwidth

Cloudways pricing – Amazon Web Services

Cloudways pricing tiers for AWS offer the most cores out of the three cloud providers, going up to 96 for the most expensive plan. It’s also potentially the most expensive, although this is offset by the highest potential RAM (384GB) and increased versatility. Vendor lock-in doesn’t have to be as much of an issue, as AWS supports a much wider range of services. Organizations running larger SaaS stacks that are already integrated with the AWS ecosystem will prefer this Cloudways price option. The only downside is the much smaller 20GB storage and 2TB bandwidth compared to DigitalOcean – worth keeping in mind. Cloudways lists eighteen individual plans, we’ve selected five below to give you an idea of the cheapest and most expensive tiers:

• $38.56/month – 2GB RAM, 2 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2 TB Bandwidth
• $412.81/month – 16GB RAM, 8 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2 TB Bandwidth
• $1407.88/month – 72GB RAM, 36 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2 TB Bandwidth
• $3569.98/month – 384GB RAM, 96 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2 TB Bandwidth

Cloudways pricing – Google Cloud

Cloudways pricing for Google Cloud is more cost-effective than AWS for organizations prioritizing RAM size. The cloud provider is also a more robust and well-stocked option than DigitalOcean, so the Google Cloud plans can offer a nice middle ground. If you require more powerful computing than the most expensive DigitalOcean plan and want to pay slightly less for more RAM than AWS, Google Cloud is the best Cloudways pricing option. Of course, this also depends on your pre-existing cloud architecture and what fits best. Like AWS, the Google Cloud tiers only have 20GB storage and 2TB bandwidth. Here are five of the eighteen tiers to illuminate a rough pricing range:

• $37.45/month – 1.75GB RAM, 1 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2TB Bandwidth
• $241.62/month – 15GB RAM, 4 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2TB Bandwidth
• $1218.36/month – 120GB RAM, 30 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2TB Bandwidth
• $2133.05/month – 240GB RAM, 48 Core CPU, 20GB Storage, 2TB Bandwidth

Additional Cloudways costs to consider‍

One Cloudways pricing add-on to consider is the Cloudflare Enterprise integration. This can enhance website performance by up to 30%, drive faster WordPress loading times, improve website security, and several other advantages. The costs are as follows:

• <5 domains – $4.99/month per domain
• 5-9 domains – $3.99/month per domain
• 10-24 domains – $2.99/month per domain
• 25+ domains – $1.99/month per domain

Other than this, bear in mind how your requirements might change as your organization scales operations as this will also increase costs.

Other vendors offering Cloud Management as a Service‍

Cloudways pricing is extremely flexible and scalable, but some customer stories suggest the smaller cloud provider pool and emphasis on managed services can create potential issues. Here are three alternative vendors to consider

Cloudways pricing vs Hostinger

Hostinger pricing is much less expensive than Cloudways, but the overall functionality is also much more restricted. The vendor is a great alternative for smaller businesses with less complex needs and cloud experience. There are three main tiers, with regular discounts up to 75% off. We’ll list the standard prices to avoid any confusion:

• Premium – $11.99/month (can go as low as $2.99)
• Business – $13.99/month (can go as low as $3.99)
• Cloud StartUp – $24.99/month (can go as low as $9.99)

Cloudways pricing vs Kinsta

Kinsta pricing starts slightly cheaper than Cloudways and also has a free static site hosting option. However, the cost can potentially scale higher depending on your requirements.The vendor specializes in WordPress management, so it could be a better choice for organizations primarily using this website development solution. Hootsuite and Tripadvisor are two such examples. Calculating the Kinsta cost depends on how many databases, web applications, and WordPress sites you need. Here are some rough guidelines:

• WordPress sites – from $30 to $563/month
• Web applications – starts from $8/month (depends on dozens of variables)
• Databases – from $18 to $3250/month

Cloudways pricing vs Plesk

Plesk pricing is generally much cheaper than Cloudways. The vendor also has a much more restrictive tool set, so it won’t be as suitable for organizations using multiple cloud applications. It can, however, be a great alternative for smaller businesses or individuals requiring simple web hosting solutions. Costs start from $14.13/month up to custom enterprise pricing plans at a $250/month minimum.

Cloudways pricing – the Vertice verdict‍

Cloudways excels with its user-friendly approach to managed cloud hosting. The vendor offers one-click application deployment on popular platforms like AWS and Google Cloud, also integrating particularly well with DigitalOcean – a favorite among startups. Organizations looking to eliminate complex server setup will enjoy the frictionless approach, with the managed service also handling vital tasks like security and backups. The ease of use comes at a cost, however. Cloudways pricing scales with resource usage, potentially becoming expensive for resource-intensive applications. The Vertice platform can help here – we use our unique pricing benchmarks as leverage to negotiate directly with vendors and get the best deal. Check out our SaaS Purchasing and Cloud Cost Optimization products for more details.