Table of Contents
Plans, ports and prices
Contabo's Core line, sold as Cloud VPS 4 through 18, is the product this review is about. Specifications and port speeds are from the US plan page; the Cloud VPS 4 price was read from the same page in September 2026, and the USD prices for the larger sizes from Contabo's catalog data read in July 2026. All are marked as introductory for the first 24 months.
| Plan | Monthly (first 24 months) | vCPU | RAM | SSD | Port | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud VPS 4 | $6.60 | 4 | 8 GB | 100 GB | 200 Mbit/s | Unlimited |
| Cloud VPS 6 | $9.00 | 6 | 12 GB | 200 GB | 300 Mbit/s | Unlimited |
| Cloud VPS 8 | $16.80 | 8 | 24 GB | 300 GB | 600 Mbit/s | Unlimited |
| Cloud VPS 12 | $30.00 | 12 | 48 GB | 400 GB | 800 Mbit/s | Unlimited |
| Cloud VPS 16 | See plan page | 16 | 64 GB | 500 GB | See plan page | Unlimited |
| Cloud VPS 18 | See plan page | 18 | 96 GB | 600 GB | See plan page | Unlimited |
Two things stand out. The memory ladder climbs faster than the price ladder (12 GB for $9, 24 GB for $16.80), which is the opposite of most providers. And the port speed climbs with the plan, so the cheapest plan is also the most constrained on network; Contabo's own line is "Port speeds run from 200 Mbit/s up to 1 Gbit/s". Contabo also sells a Performance VPS line on newer AMD EPYC processors with NVMe storage, a Max Performance (virtual dedicated) line, Storage VPS, and Windows VPS; those are priced in its configurator and are not covered here.
The fine print: 24 months, setup fees, withdrawal
Introductory pricing. The plan page marks the prices as applying for the first 24 months. Contabo does not print the later price on the plan page; it appears at checkout and in the customer panel. When comparing against a flat-price provider such as InterServer, compare the post-24-month figure too.
Setup fee. Contabo's checkout text says the total "includes Setup Fees and any One Off charges" and that "you can discount your Setup Fee by selecting a longer Prepayment term". So a monthly term carries the highest setup fee and a 12-month prepayment the lowest or none. In September 2026 the site data also carries a "No Location Fees in the US + No Setup Fee" promotion tied to some products; the checkout total for your plan, term and city is the number that counts.
Withdrawal. The terms give consumers a 14-day right to withdraw from the contract without stating grounds, and state that the right does not apply to businesses. There is no separate money-back guarantee.
Billing. Monthly and longer prepayment terms in EUR, USD or GBP; no hourly billing. Payment methods other than card require the first payment to be made manually after ordering, per Contabo's FAQ, which is why provisioning can wait on the payment clearing.
Hardware: what "proven infrastructure" means
Contabo's own FAQ describes the Core line as running "on proven infrastructure across multiple CPU generations, virtualized with KVM", chosen for "workloads like web hosting, CMS, email, and dev environments, where CPU is rarely the bottleneck", and adds that "RAM and network throughput are what move performance for these workloads". Read plainly: the CPUs are older generations, the vCPUs are shared, and the plan is sized so that memory, not CPU, is the resource you get a lot of. Contabo points buyers who need current CPUs to its Performance VPS line (AMD EPYC, NVMe), and says moving between the two lines is a one-time migration rather than an in-place upgrade.
Storage on the Core line is SSD; Contabo reserves NVMe for the Performance line. This page publishes no disk or CPU measurements; if either matters to a decision, run fio and sysbench on a monthly server during the 14-day withdrawal window.
Locations
Contabo's locations page lists the European Union (Germany), the United Kingdom (Portsmouth), US East (Carlstadt NJ), US Central (St. Louis), US West (Seattle), Australia, Japan, Singapore and India. Three US cities, one of them central, is more US coverage than Hetzner (two) or OVHcloud (two) and fewer than Vultr (nine). St. Louis is the only central-US location among the budget providers on this site, which matters for users spread across the country. Contabo's checkout can apply a location fee for some datacenters; confirm the US figure at checkout, and see the US datacenter guide for which city to pick.
Snapshots, backups, API, Windows, panels
- Snapshots: one included with Cloud VPS 4 (Contabo's plan data lists "1 Snapshot"), managed from the Customer Control Panel.
- Backups: listed as an "Auto Backup" feature on the VPS menu; priced and configured in the panel.
- API and IaC: the Contabo API and CLI, described as Terraform-compatible; cloud-init on Linux and cloudbase-init on Windows for first-boot automation.
- Operating systems: Ubuntu, Debian, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS, openSUSE and FreeBSD free; Windows Server as a paid add-on with the license on the monthly bill; custom ISO upload through the panel.
- Panels: Webmin free; cPanel and Plesk paid, with Plesk free for the first month at the time of writing.
- Networking: private networking and firewall rules in the panel; unlimited traffic on the capped port.
Against the field at 8 GB
| Provider, plan | Monthly | vCPU | Storage | Network | US locations | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contabo Cloud VPS 4 | $6.60 (24-month intro) | 4 | 100 GB SSD | 200 Mbit/s, unlimited | Carlstadt NJ, St. Louis, Seattle | Monthly, setup fee by term |
| OVHcloud VPS-2 | $10.00 ($8.50 on 12 months) | 4 | 75 GB NVMe | 1 Gbps, unlimited | Virginia, Oregon | Monthly, 6 or 12 months |
| InterServer 4 slices | $12 | 2 | 160 GB SSD | 10 Gbps shared, 8 TB | New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas | Monthly, no refund |
| Hostinger KVM 2 | $8.99 (24-month term), then $14.99 | 2 | 100 GB NVMe | 8 TB | US locations offered | 24-month term |
| Vultr vc2-4c-8gb | $40 | 4 | 160 GB SSD | 4 TB | Nine regions | Hourly |
| Hetzner CPX31 (US) | $73.49 | 4 | 160 GB NVMe | 1 TB | Ashburn, Hillsboro | Hourly, monthly cap |
At 8 GB, Contabo is the price floor by a wide margin and the only one with a central-US location. OVHcloud is the closest on price with a much better network statement, NVMe and a daily backup included, but only two coastal locations. InterServer gives the most transfer and OS-level support at $12. The Hetzner vs Contabo page covers the European comparison in full.
Ordering and the first hour
- Pick the term with the setup fee in view. The checkout total on a monthly term includes the fee; a 12-month prepayment lowers or removes it but commits you for a year at the introductory price. For a first server, monthly plus the 14-day withdrawal right is the lower-risk path.
- Pick the US city and check for a location fee on the same screen.
- Choose the image. A plain Ubuntu, Debian or AlmaLinux image for a server you will administer; a Plesk image if you want the panel, noting the license becomes paid after the first month.
- Non-card payment: make the first payment manually as instructed, or the server will not be provisioned.
- First hour: change the root password from the email, add a non-root user with your SSH key, enable the firewall (Contabo's panel firewall plus ufw or firewalld on the host), take the included snapshot once the base setup is done, and set up your own off-server backup; the snapshot lives with the same provider.
- Check the port in practice: if you expect sustained transfers, run a download of a large file from your users' region during the first two weeks; the 200 Mbit/s cap is the one figure most likely to surprise a buyer.
Verdict and rating
Contabo's Cloud VPS 4 is the cheapest 8 GB server in a US datacenter that we track, by a margin no other provider approaches, and it is sold in three US cities including the only central location among the budget hosts. Contabo also publishes the constraints in its own words: proven rather than current hardware, a 200 Mbit/s port on the entry plan, SSD rather than NVMe, a 24-month introductory price, and a setup fee that depends on the term.
Rating for US buyers: 4.0 out of 5. The score reflects unmatched memory per dollar, useful included tooling (snapshot, API, custom ISO, cloud-init) and a genuine 14-day withdrawal right for consumers; it is held down by the port cap, the older hardware, the introductory pricing with the later price not printed on the plan page, and the absence of hourly billing.
Choose Contabo if the workload is memory-bound, runs all month, and does not move large volumes of data; a WordPress or CMS host with room to grow, a self-hosted stack, a small game server, a staging environment. Choose OVHcloud if you want NVMe, a real port and a backup included at 8 GB and a coastal location suits you. Choose InterServer if you want 2 to 4 GB for less, OS-level support, or Dallas. Choose Vultr if you need hourly billing and an API.