Cloudways Pricing in 2026: what you actually pay, from a real customer

What 40+ sites on one Cloudways server looks like

CloudPlans runs on Cloudways. So do more than 40 other WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP sites owned by the same person, all on one 8 GB DigitalOcean server in San Francisco. At the $99 list price for that size, the server works out to under $2.50 a site per month before add-ons. No per-site hosting plan comes close to that.

The trade-off is that you are now responsible for how hard you load the server. Around 40 sites, memory got tight and the server started throwing short bursts of errors during busy cron runs. The fix was Cloudways’ own Cron Optimizer on the heaviest sites, which freed roughly 1.4 GB of memory with no plan change. That is the real Cloudways deal: very cheap per site, but you watch the server, or you pay for a bigger one. More on running many sites: best hosting for multiple WordPress sites.

Three things have held up well at that scale: one dashboard for every site, one-click staging, and being able to move up a server size without migrating anything.

Costs that are not in the headline price

• Extra bandwidth: $0.02 per GB on DigitalOcean beyond the plan’s allowance. AWS is $0.12 per GB, Google Cloud $0.10 to $0.17.
• Offsite backups: $0.033 per GB per server.
• Advanced Support: $100 a month (Cloudways is running a $25 a month offer as of October 2026).
• Cloudflare Enterprise CDN add-on: from $4.99 per domain per month.
• SafeUpdates (automatic tested plugin updates): from $3 per app per month.
• Malware Protection: from $4 per app per month.
• Email: Cloudways does not include mailboxes. Rackspace email is $1.50 per mailbox per month.
• DNS Made Easy: $0.50 per domain per month, optional.

Free on every plan: SSL, staging, migrations, a firewall, and Redis. Object Cache Pro is free on 4 GB servers and above.

Cloudways Flexible vs Cloudways Autonomous pricing

Flexible is the classic Cloudways product priced above: you pick the server and manage how full it gets. Autonomous is fully managed WordPress that scales on its own, priced per plan instead of per server: Growth $99 a month, Scale $199, Plus $399, plus $1 per GB of disk and $0.04 per GB of bandwidth beyond the plan. Autonomous makes sense for one busy store or course site. For several ordinary sites, Flexible is far cheaper.

Is Cloudways cheaper than Hostinger, Kinsta or WP Engine?

For one site, not always. Hostinger Cloud Startup is $7.99 a month, but only on a 48-month prepay, and it renews at $25.99. Kinsta and WP Engine both start around $30 a month for a single site with a monthly visit cap. Cloudways starts at $14 with no contract and no visit cap. Full breakdown: Hostinger vs Cloudways and the cheapest cloud hosting options.

For several sites, Cloudways wins clearly, because you pay for the server once and add sites at no extra cost. Five sites on a $28 Cloudways server costs less than one Kinsta plan. See every host side by side on the cloud hosting plans page, or the head-to-heads: Cloudways vs Kinsta (and every plan on Kinsta pricing), Cloudways vs WP Engine, Cloudways vs DigitalOcean.

Who should pick Cloudways, and who should not

Pick Cloudways if you run more than one site, want monthly billing with no contract, or want to choose your cloud and data center.

Skip Cloudways if you want one site, the lowest possible first-year price, and email included; Hostinger fits that better. Also skip it if you never want to think about server size; a per-site managed host or Cloudways Autonomous fits that better.

Cloudways coupon and Black Friday code (November 2026)

Short answer: for Black Friday, use the code BFCM802. Cloudways told its affiliate partners on November 2, 2026 that its Black Friday offer is 80% off for 2 months on all hosting plans and add-ons, plus unlimited free managed migrations, for sign-ups made by November 30, 2026. On a $28 Small server that works out to about $5.60 a month for the first two months, then the normal $28.

Here is what cloudways.com itself showed when we last checked:

• Promo code page (checked November 10, 2026): the Black Friday sale is now live on cloudways.com. The page leads with “80% off for 2 months” on hosting plans and add-ons, “up to $200 off per month,” with the code BFCM802, plus unlimited free migrations. Check that BFCM802 is applied at checkout, and enter it if it is not. The promo page says the offer is for new customers only and cannot be combined with another code.
• One code at a time: Cloudways allows one discount code at a time, and the discount ends after the 2 promotional months. The earlier TREAT26 offer (40% off for 4 months) no longer shows on the promo page, so BFCM802 is the code to use.

Codes posted on coupon sites are often old or meant for other campaigns. If a code is not on cloudways.com, assume it will not work, and check the price on the final checkout screen before you pay.

The free trial is the safest way to start. Cloudways lists a 3-day free trial with no credit card required, on both Flexible and Autonomous. You can launch a server, migrate a test site and see the dashboard before you pay anything.

The bigger saving is the right server size. Cloudways is pay-as-you-go: it bills hourly, charges in arrears each month, and has no commitment (cancel anytime), so there is no prepay discount to chase. What you pay depends on the server you choose. Start on the smallest server that runs your sites well, watch memory use, and move up a size only when you need to. Cloudways’ vertical scaling lets you resize without migrating. Turning off add-ons you do not use (offsite backups, Advanced Support, SafeUpdates) cuts the bill more than any promo code.

Claim the Black Friday price on Cloudways’ signup page (the link carries code BFCM802). Check the discount on the final checkout screen before you pay.

Cloudways pricing FAQ

How much does Cloudways cost per month?

From $14 a month for a 1 GB DigitalOcean server, up to $99 a month for 8 GB, as of November 3, 2026. Bigger servers and other clouds cost more. Billing is hourly, charged monthly.

Is there a Cloudways Black Friday deal in 2026?

Yes. Cloudways says its Black Friday offer is 80% off for 2 months on all plans and add-ons with the code BFCM802, plus unlimited free managed migrations, for sign-ups by November 30, 2026. It is for new customers, and only one code can be used per account.

Does Cloudways charge per website?

No. You pay per server, and every plan allows unlimited websites. The real limit is the server’s memory and CPU.

Does Cloudways have a free trial?

Yes. Flexible plans have a free trial (the pricing page labels them “Start Free”), and Autonomous lists a 3-day free trial.

Is Cloudways cheaper than Kinsta?

For more than one site, almost always, because Kinsta prices per site and Cloudways prices per server. For one small site, they are within a few dollars of each other.

Does Cloudways include email?

No. Email is an add-on (Rackspace at $1.50 per mailbox per month), or you can use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

See current Cloudways plans →

CloudPlans earns a commission if you sign up through some links on this page, at no extra cost to you. That never changes the prices we print. See our disclosure and methodology.