Table of Contents
- Terms, renewals and refunds, provider by provider
- Pricing three years, not one month
- The renewal price is the price
- What hourly billing actually buys
- Refund windows: what makes a term safe
- The "price lock" claim
- Committed-use discounts on the clouds
- When to pay monthly, when to pay for a term
- What this page could not verify
- FAQ
- Sources
Terms, renewals and refunds, provider by provider
| Provider | Billing terms offered | Price at the term (2 GB class unless noted) | Renewal | Refund window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OVHcloud | Monthly, 6-month, 12-month | VPS-1 $5.35 monthly, $5.08 on 6 months, $4.54 on 12 months (15% off) | No separate renewal price in the catalog; the 12-month rate is the only one listed | Not stated on pages read |
| Hostinger | 24-month (the only term printed) | KVM 1 $6.49; KVM 2 $8.99; KVM 4 $12.99; KVM 8 $25.99 | KVM 1 $11.99; KVM 2 $14.99; KVM 4 $28.99; KVM 8 $49.99 | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Contabo | Monthly to multi-year; introductory price for 24 months | Cloud VPS 4 $6.60 introductory; setup fee shrinks with a longer prepayment | Shown at checkout | 14-day withdrawal right for consumers |
| ScalaHosting | Terms in a configurator | "Starting From $29.95 /mo" managed, "$19.95 /mo" cloud VPS (longest-term figures) | Configurator | Anytime refund of prepaid, unused service |
| RackNerd | Annual-only entry plan; monthly above | 512 MB $26.99 a year; 1 GB $17.99 a month list | List prices; promotions vary | Case by case; none by default |
| BuyVM | Annual-only entry plan; monthly above | 512 MB $24 a year; 1 GB $3.50 a month | Same | 3 days, card and PayPal only |
| InterServer | Monthly only | $3 per slice, no term | Same | None; no trial |
| Hostwinds | Monthly printed | Unmanaged 2 GB $9.99 | Same | Not stated on pages read |
| Vultr | Hourly, capped at the monthly figure | vc2-1c-2gb $10 | Same | Not readable by this site's tools |
| Linode | Hourly, capped monthly | Linode 2GB $12 | Same | Not stated on pages read |
| DigitalOcean | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped monthly | Basic 2 GiB $12 | Same | Not stated on pages read |
| AWS Lightsail | Hourly, capped at the bundle price; prorated on deletion | 2 GB bundle $12 | Same | Not stated on pages read |
| Hetzner | Hourly, capped monthly | CPX11 US $20.49 | Same for existing servers; new orders at current price | Not stated on pages read |
| Google Cloud | Per second; committed-use discounts | Metered; "up to 30%" sustained-use discount automatic; committed use up to 55% (70% memory-optimized) on 1- or 3-year terms | n/a | $300 credit, 90 days |
Every figure in the table is from the source cited on that provider's review: OVHcloud's US order catalog API, Hostinger's VPS page (which prints "Renews at $11.99/mo for 2 years" under the $6.49 card), Contabo's VPS page and terms, ScalaHosting's product pages, RackNerd's plan pages and terms, BuyVM's plan page and terms, InterServer's VPS page and FAQ, and the hourly providers' pricing pages and APIs. An earlier version of this article carried a "provider savings breakdown" with percentages and a preference for one billing model; it has been replaced with the sourced table and the method below.
Pricing three years, not one month
The number to compare is what a server costs over the time you will actually keep it, and for most production servers that is years. Three worked examples at 4 GB, from the table:
| Plan | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Three-year total | Averaged per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger KVM 1 (4 GB), 24-month then renewal | 12 x $6.49 = $77.88 | 12 x $6.49 = $77.88 | 12 x $11.99 = $143.88 | $299.64 | $8.32 |
| OVHcloud VPS-1 (4 GB), 12-month renewed twice at the catalog rate | 12 x $4.54 = $54.48 | $54.48 | $54.48 | $163.44 | $4.54 |
| OVHcloud VPS-1, monthly | 12 x $5.35 = $64.20 | $64.20 | $64.20 | $192.60 | $5.35 |
| InterServer 2 slices (4 GB), monthly | 12 x $6 = $72 | $72 | $72 | $216 | $6 |
| Vultr vc2-2c-4gb (4 GB), hourly, always on | 12 x $20 = $240 | $240 | $240 | $720 | $20 |
Read across, not down. Hostinger's card says $6.49 and its three-year average is $8.32, still the cheapest 4 GB NVMe server with a 30-day guarantee, but 28 percent above the card. OVHcloud's 12-month term saves $29.16 over three years against paying monthly if its 12-month rate holds at renewal, which its catalog gives no reason to doubt but does not state. InterServer's $6 is a monthly price with nothing to renew into. Vultr's $20 buys hourly billing, an API and nine regions, and no term would change it. Do the same arithmetic for any plan you are considering: the provider's own renewal line, times the months after the term, plus the term price times the term.
The renewal price is the price
Two providers on this site print an introductory price and a renewal price side by side, and both deserve credit for printing it: Hostinger's VPS page shows the list figure struck through, the term price, and "Renews at $11.99/mo for 2 years" under KVM 1 (KVM 2 $14.99, KVM 4 $28.99, KVM 8 $49.99); Contabo's page marks its Cloud VPS prices as introductory for 24 months and shows the renewal at checkout. The habit this page recommends is to write the renewal price into your own spreadsheet as the plan's price, and treat the term price as a one-time credit. Where a provider prints no renewal price at all (OVHcloud's catalog lists one 12-month rate; the hourly providers have no term), the listed figure is the price until the provider says otherwise.
What hourly billing actually buys
Vultr, Linode, DigitalOcean, Lightsail, Hetzner and Kamatera bill by the hour or second and cap the month at the plan price; DigitalOcean's FAQ says Droplets are "billed on a per-second basis, with a 60-second minimum", Lightsail's says "we charge you the fixed hourly price, up to the maximum monthly plan cost", and Google Cloud's pricing page says "After 1 minute, your instance is billed on a per-second basis". For a server that runs all month, that is the monthly figure, and there is no discount for it. What it buys is the freedom to resize, snapshot, move region or destroy without a term, and the ability to run a server for a day for cents. If your workload is a build box, a test environment, a batch job or a proof of concept, hourly is cheaper than any term; if it is a website that never turns off, hourly costs the same as monthly and the term discounts elsewhere are the only way to pay less.
Refund windows: what makes a term safe
A term discount is safe to take when you can get out of it. From the terms and pages read for the reviews: Hostinger prints a 30-day money-back guarantee on its VPS page, which turns its 24-month term into a 30-day trial. ScalaHosting names an anytime refund of prepaid, unused service. Contabo's terms give consumers (not businesses) a 14-day right of withdrawal. BuyVM refunds within 3 days for card and PayPal payments. RackNerd's terms say refunds "are issued on a case-by-case basis since by default no refunds are provided", and InterServer's FAQ states no trial and no money-back guarantee. Vultr's terms pages did not load for this site's tools. The rule that follows: prepay a year only where the refund window covers your first real test of the server, or where the provider is one you have already run.
The "price lock" claim
The previous version of this article told readers InterServer would lock their price for life. InterServer's VPS page and FAQ, as read in September 2026, contain no such statement for VPS, and this site does not make it. What InterServer's page does say is that billing is monthly with no term and no refund, at $3 a slice; that is a no-commitment promise, not a price guarantee. If you rely on a price lock from any provider, find it in that provider's terms and keep a copy; a banner is not a contract.
Committed-use discounts on the clouds
The hyperscalers sell the term discount in a different shape: you commit to spend or to a machine type for one or three years and the hourly rate drops. Google Cloud's Compute Engine pricing page gives sustained-use discounts of "up to 30% on resources that are used for more than 25% of a month" automatically, and committed-use discounts of up to 55 percent (70 percent for memory-optimized types) on one- or three-year commitments; AWS sells reserved instances and savings plans and Azure sells reservations and savings plans, none of which this page priced. The logic is the same as a VPS term: worth it for a server you know you will keep, and the renewal question becomes whether the on-demand rate you fall back to has moved.
When to pay monthly, when to pay for a term
- Monthly or hourly: the first server at any provider; anything you may resize or move; any provider without a refund window; any provider that does not print its renewal price.
- A term: a server you have already run in production at that provider, where the renewal price is printed and acceptable over three years, and where the refund window or your own history covers the risk. OVHcloud's 12-month term and Hostinger's 24-month term pass those tests for their respective buyers.
- Annual-only cheap plans (RackNerd, BuyVM at 512 MB): fine for a second box or a known workload; not for a first server, because the refund terms are narrow.
- Never prepay to chase a discount at a provider whose terms you have not read.
Affiliate link: BestUSAVPS may earn a commission if you buy from InterServer through it. It is placed here as the monthly-only provider with the lowest 2 GB price on this site; it offers no term discount and no refund, as stated above. Other provider links are plain links.
What this page could not verify
- Hostinger's monthly-term price: the VPS page prints only the 24-month price and its renewal.
- Contabo's renewal price and US location fee: shown at checkout.
- Refund policies at Vultr (pages did not load), Linode, DigitalOcean, Lightsail, Hetzner and Hostwinds: not read for this page.
- Hostwinds and Kamatera term discounts, if any: their pages print monthly and hourly figures; a term selector, if present, was not read.
- AWS and Azure reserved and savings-plan rates: not priced.