Table of Contents
- Every US plan at or under $10
- The three strings: term, port, billing unit
- What two years costs on each of these plans
- InterServer: $3, $6 and $9 with no strings on the price
- Contabo: the most RAM, on a slower port
- Vultr and DigitalOcean: paying for the platform
- OVHcloud: the other 4 GB plan without strings
- Hostinger: the term price and the renewal price
- The $6 group and the $9 group, side by side
- Picks by workload
- When this band stops being the right one
- FAQ
- Sources
Every US plan at or under $10
Monthly price as shown on each provider's page or public API on the same day (September 2026). Where a price is a term or introductory rate, the renewal or the term is in the last column.
| Provider, plan | Monthly | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer | Port | Billing and strings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| InterServer, 1 slice | $3 | 1 | 2 GB | 40 GB SSD | 2 TB | 10 Gbps shared | Monthly only, no refund |
| Vultr, vc2-1c-1gb | $5 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | Shared | Hourly, 8 US regions |
| Vultr, vhf-1c-1gb | $6 | 1 | 1 GB | 32 GB NVMe (High Frequency) | 1 TB | Shared | Hourly; single-thread speed is the point |
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-1 | $5.35 | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB NVMe | Unlimited | 500 Mbps | Monthly; $4.54 on a 12-month term; daily backup included |
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-2 | $8.50 | 4 | 8 GB | 75 GB NVMe | Unlimited | 500 Mbps | 12-month term; $10.00 monthly; daily backup included |
| DigitalOcean, Basic 1 GB | $6 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | Shared | Per-second |
| InterServer, 2 slices | $6 | 1 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | 10 Gbps shared | Monthly only, no refund |
| Vultr, vhp-1c-1gb-amd | $6 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB (API disk type AMDHIGHPERF) | 2 TB | Shared | Hourly; High Performance line |
| Hostinger, KVM 1 | $6.49 | 1 | 4 GB | 50 GB NVMe | 4 TB | Shared | 24-month term, renews at $11.99 |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 4 | $6.60 | 4 | 8 GB | 100 GB SSD | Unlimited | 200 Mbit/s | Intro price for 24 months |
| Hostinger, KVM 2 | $8.99 | 2 | 8 GB | 100 GB NVMe | 8 TB | Shared | 24-month term, renews at $14.99 |
| InterServer, 3 slices | $9 | 2 | 6 GB | 120 GB SSD | 6 TB | 10 Gbps shared | Monthly only, no refund |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 6 | $9 | 6 | 12 GB | 200 GB SSD | Unlimited | 300 Mbit/s | Intro price for 24 months |
| Vultr, vc2-1c-2gb | $10 | 1 | 2 GB | 55 GB SSD | 2 TB | Shared | Hourly, 8 US regions |
Vultr's plans API lists every Vultr size in this table in eight of its nine US regions: New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Silicon Valley and Miami. Honolulu, the ninth, is not offered on these sizes; the API returns it for its Optimized Cloud Compute line. Contabo's plans are published as euro list prices with a dollar price alongside (its own price data pairs Cloud VPS 4 at €5.50 and $6.60), and the dollar figures here follow that pairing.
Hetzner does not appear: its cheapest US plan is $20.49. Its German and Finnish plans (CX23 at $6.49, CX33 at $9.99) would qualify on price but not on location, and were marked not available when we looked; the Hetzner review has both catalogs.
The three strings: term, port, billing unit
Every plan in the table has one of three strings attached, and the choice between them is the whole decision.
- A term. Hostinger's $6.49 and $8.99 are 24-month prices; they renew at $11.99 and $14.99. Contabo's $6.60 and $9 are introductory prices for the first 24 months. You get a lot of hardware, and you are committing to it.
- A slow port. Contabo's entry plans run on 200 and 300 Mbit/s ports. For a website that is rarely the limit; for backups, media or anything that moves large files, it is.
- A billing unit of one month. InterServer bills month to month with no refund and no hourly option. The price is the price, with no term, but a server that lives two hours costs a month.
Vultr and DigitalOcean have none of these strings and correspondingly the least hardware per dollar: $10 at Vultr buys the 2 GB that InterServer sells for $3. The premium is for hourly billing, the API, snapshots and regions, and it is only worth paying if you use them.
What two years costs on each of these plans
Every string in the table above is a statement about time: a 24-month introductory price, a 24-month term, or a meter that runs monthly with no end date. The Monthly column therefore prices the first period rather than the purchase. This is the same list priced across two years, at the figures read for this page.
| Plan | Months 1 to 24 | Month 25 onward | Two-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| InterServer, 2 slices | $6 a month | $6 a month | $144 |
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-1 paid monthly | $5.35 a month | $5.35 a month | $128.40 |
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-1 paid 12 months at a time | $4.54 a month | $4.54 a month | $108.96 |
| Hostinger, KVM 1 | $6.49 a month | $11.99 a month | $155.76, then $143.88 a year |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 4 | $6.60, introductory | not printed | $158.40, then unpriced |
| Vultr, vc2-1c-1gb | $5 a month, billed hourly | $5 a month, billed hourly | $120 |
| InterServer, 3 slices | $9 a month | $9 a month | $216 |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 6 | $9.00, introductory | not printed | $216, then unpriced |
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-2 paid 12 months at a time | $8.50 a month | $8.50 a month | $204 |
| Hostinger, KVM 2 | $8.99 a month | $14.99 a month | $215.76, then $179.88 a year |
Three readings come out of that table. The flat prices first: InterServer and OVHcloud print one number that does not change with the calendar, so their two-year total is the monthly price multiplied by 24 and their third year costs the same as their first. OVHcloud's 2027 VPS-1 on 12-month terms has the lowest two-year total in the table at $108.96, and InterServer's $6 slice costs $35 more across the same period for one core instead of two, in three US cities instead of two, with no term at all.
Then the printed renewal. Hostinger's term price is real money: two years of KVM 1 at $6.49 is $155.76, against $144 for InterServer's flat $6. The two lists separate in the third year, which Hostinger prices at $143.88 against InterServer's $72, and the gap repeats every year after that. A 24-month price is a window rather than a rate, and Hostinger prints both numbers, which is what makes it a fair offer to measure against a flat one.
And the unprinted renewal. Contabo publishes an introductory price and no renewal figure on the US plan page, so the month-25 cost is not something a reader can calculate from the provider's own page. That is a different kind of exposure from Hostinger's: with Hostinger the third year is arithmetic you can do before ordering, and with Contabo it is a number you have to ask for. Nothing here says the renewal is punitive. It says the figure is not published, so the two-year total is the only one this page can stand behind.
Who each of those shapes suits depends on how long the workload is likely to stay where it is. One person running one box is usually safe with a term: a VPN endpoint, a name server or a monitoring probe does not change shape, and the term price buys real hardware for the money. A small team is the case where the flat price earns its premium, because a term is a bet that a workload stays put, and a team that might resize in six months pays for time it will not use. A business should settle two things in writing before the order rather than after: what the renewal costs, and which currency the account is held in. Contabo's settings panel states it plainly, "your account will be fixed to the currency you choose when ordering", and its US page publishes euro list prices with a dollar price alongside, so a card in a third currency settles at whatever the bank's rate is on the day the charge lands.
InterServer: $3, $6 and $9 with no strings on the price
InterServer's slice grid puts three plans under $10: one slice at $3 (1 core, 2 GB, 40 GB, 2 TB), two at $6 (1 core, 4 GB, 80 GB, 4 TB) and three at $9 (2 cores, 6 GB, 120 GB, 6 TB), all on a shared 10 Gbps port in New York City, Los Angeles or Dallas (September 2026). The rate on the page is the monthly rate, the grid is linear, and slices can be added later without repricing.
The $6 plan is the one to start with for anything with a database: 4 GB covers PHP-FPM, MariaDB and an object cache with room left. The $9 plan is the first with two cores and suits a small Docker host or a WooCommerce store. What you give up is written on InterServer's own FAQ: no trial, no refund, no hourly billing, no API or snapshots advertised. The InterServer review covers ordering, slice sizing and the setup checklist.
Contabo: the most RAM, on a slower port
Contabo's Cloud VPS 4 (4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB SSD) at $6.60 and Cloud VPS 6 (6 vCPU, 12 GB, 200 GB SSD) at $9 are the largest servers under $10 by a wide margin. The prices are introductory for the first 24 months and the ports are 200 and 300 Mbit/s. If your workload is memory-bound and your traffic modest, nothing else here comes close; if you serve large files or need the price to stay flat past two years, read the Contabo review first.
Vultr and DigitalOcean: paying for the platform
Vultr's $5 (1 GB) and $10 (2 GB) plans and DigitalOcean's $6 (1 GB) plan buy the least memory on this page and the most platform: hourly or per-second billing, APIs, snapshots, block storage, load balancers and, at Vultr, eight US regions for the sizes on this page. They are the right choice for anything you create and destroy from code, and for a region InterServer and Contabo do not serve. For a server that simply runs all month, they are the expensive way to get 1 or 2 GB.
OVHcloud: the other 4 GB plan without strings
OVHcloud VPS-1 is $5.35 a month with no commitment for 2 vCores, 4 GB, 40 GB NVMe and unlimited traffic on a 500 Mbps port, in Vint Hill, Virginia or Hillsboro, Oregon, with anti-DDoS and a daily system-disk backup included; a 12-month term brings it to $4.54 (September 2026, OVHcloud's US public catalog). Against InterServer's $6 two-slice plan it has a second core, faster storage and the backup, and costs less; against it, OVHcloud has no 2 GB size, no hourly billing, no stated refund, only the two coastal locations, and snapshots as a paid option. If your users are on either coast and 4 GB is the target, it is the better buy; if you need Dallas, New York City or a $3 starting point, InterServer is. The OVHcloud review prices every option.
Hostinger: the term price and the renewal price
Hostinger KVM 1 at $6.49 (1 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB NVMe, 4 TB) and KVM 2 at $8.99 (2 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB NVMe, 8 TB) look like the best hardware on the page until the second line of the price: both are 24-month term prices that renew at $11.99 and $14.99. Over two years KVM 1 costs about the same as InterServer's $6 plan; from year three it costs twice as much. If you are certain about two years and want NVMe with a modern panel, it is a fair deal; if you are not, the monthly plans are safer.
The $6 group and the $9 group, side by side
These two tables are the shortlist rather than the full list: the five plans a buyer is most likely to weigh against each other around $6 a month, and the five around $9. The full set, including the sizes at $3 and $5, is in the table above. Inside each group the hardware is not what separates the plans; what the price includes is.
| The $6 group | RAM and cores | Storage | Billing | What comes with it | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-1 · $5.35 | 4 GB, 2 vCores | 40 GB NVMe | Monthly, or a 12-month term at $4.54 | Daily backup of the previous 24 hours, anti-DDoS, 500 Mbps port | Two US locations, Vint Hill VA and Hillsboro OR; snapshots are a paid add-on |
| DigitalOcean, Basic · $6 | 1 GB, 1 vCPU | 25 GB SSD | Per-second | Full API, snapshots at $0.06/GB a month, backups at 20% or 30% of the Droplet price | A quarter of the memory of everything else in this group |
| InterServer, 2 slices · $6 | 4 GB, 1 core | 80 GB SSD | Monthly, no term | 10 Gbps shared port, 4 TB transfer, New York City, Los Angeles or Dallas | Its VPS and FAQ pages advertise no snapshot feature and no API; no refund window |
| Hostinger, KVM 1 · $6.49 | 4 GB, 1 vCPU | 50 GB NVMe | 24-month term | Weekly backups and manual snapshots included, public API, 1 Gbps port, 30-day money-back guarantee | Renews at $11.99 |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 4 · $6.60 | 8 GB, 4 vCPU | 100 GB SSD | Introductory for 24 months | 1 snapshot included, unlimited traffic | 200 Mbit/s port; euro list price; renewal not printed |
| The $9 group | RAM and cores | Storage | Billing | What comes with it | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OVHcloud, 2027 VPS-2 · $8.50 | 8 GB, 4 vCores | 75 GB NVMe | 12-month term; $10.00 monthly | Daily backup included, anti-DDoS, 500 Mbps port | Two US locations; snapshots are a paid add-on |
| Hostinger, KVM 2 · $8.99 | 8 GB, 2 vCPU | 100 GB NVMe | 24-month term | Weekly backups, manual snapshots, public API, 8 TB transfer | Renews at $14.99 |
| InterServer, 3 slices · $9 | 6 GB, 2 cores | 120 GB SSD | Monthly, no term | 10 Gbps shared port, 6 TB transfer, three US cities | No snapshot feature and no API advertised; no refund window |
| Contabo, Cloud VPS 6 · $9.00 | 12 GB, 6 vCPU | 200 GB SSD | Introductory for 24 months | 2 snapshots included, unlimited traffic | 300 Mbit/s port; euro list price; renewal not printed |
| Vultr, vc2-1c-2gb · $10 | 2 GB, 1 vCPU | 55 GB SSD | Hourly | Full API, snapshots and backups as platform features, eight US regions | The least memory in the group by a factor of four |
The $6 group is not close on memory for the same money: Contabo's $6.60 buys 8 GB, the three plans around it buy 4 GB, and DigitalOcean's $6 buys 1 GB. What separates the rest is what arrives with the plan. Hostinger at $6.49 is the only one in the group that includes backups, snapshots and an API, and it is also the only one whose second two years cost roughly double. OVHcloud at $5.35 includes a daily backup and a second core on a 500 Mbps port and takes a month at a time, in two locations. InterServer's $6 slice has the largest transfer allowance in the group and, like OVHcloud, asks nothing of you beyond the current month. Take it when the server has to sit in Dallas and be droppable in any month.
The $9 group repeats the shape with a wider spread. Contabo's $9 buys 12 GB against 8 GB for the next entry, and includes two snapshots, which is the one place on this page where the snapshot question answers itself. OVHcloud and Hostinger both include a backup, on a 12-month and a 24-month term respectively. InterServer is the only plan in the group with no term and no renewal figure at all, OVHcloud is the one other plan you can walk away from at the end of a month, at $10.00 rather than the $8.50 term price, and Vultr is the only one that can be deleted after an afternoon and billed for the afternoon.
Picks by workload
- WordPress or a PHP app with a database: InterServer 2 slices, $6, or OVHcloud VPS-1, $5.35, if Virginia or Oregon is the right coast.
- Docker host, WooCommerce, small Postgres: InterServer 3 slices, $9, or Contabo Cloud VPS 6, $9, if you want 12 GB and can live with the port.
- Static site, bot, VPN: InterServer 1 slice, $3; see the cheapest VPS page for the sub-$4 options.
- Anything you automate or tear down: Vultr $5 or $10.
- A city InterServer does not cover: Vultr's regions or the US datacenter guide.
When this band stops being the right one
Two directions out of it, and one sideways.
- Down, to the sub-$4 plans. If the machine is a VPN endpoint, a bot or a backup target rather than a website, the cheapest VPS page covers the plans below this band: RackNerd's annual 512 MB box and Vultr's IPv6-only instance, with what each of those two leaves out.
- Up, to $12 to $15. Each step buys back the item the $6 to $9 plans ran out of, which is usually memory. InterServer's 4-slice plan is $12 for 2 cores, 8 GB, 160 GB and 8 TB. OVHcloud's 2027 VPS-3 is $14.50 monthly or $12.32 on a 12-month term. DigitalOcean's 2 GiB Droplet is $12. Hostinger's KVM 4 is $12.99 on a 24-month term and renews at $28.99, which is the steepest renewal on this page and worth reading twice.
- Sideways, to a provider that is not here. The InterServer alternatives page covers what to move to and why, and the provider reviews price the ones that did not make this table. A provider is missing from this page when it has no US datacenter, or no plan at or under $10.