What Is Included in a VPS Price? A 12-Point Checklist

Two VPS offers both list 4 GB of RAM, and one costs several times as much as the other. Part of that gap is hardware. The rest is what each price leaves out: an IPv4 address, backups, a licence, faster support, or VAT that only appears at checkout. This checklist covers the twelve lines that decide your monthly bill.

Quick answer: Every VPS price buys vCores, RAM, disk space and monthly transfer. What differs is everything around them: whether the vCores are shared, whether an IPv4 address, DDoS protection, backups, licences and support are included or billed on top, how long setup takes, and whether VAT is in the price. To compare offers, add each extra you need to the list price, bring both offers to the same VAT basis, currency and billing term, and compare those totals.

All provider prices below come from each provider's own page, checked on 30 October 2026.

1. vCores: Shared or Dedicated

Many VPS plans share their vCores with other customers on the same host, and that choice moves the price a lot. Hetzner describes its shared cloud plans as "designed for variable usage patterns rather than sustained high workloads". On its cloud page, the shared Regular Performance line started at €6.49 a month and the dedicated General Purpose line at €43.49, both excluding VAT. Ask which kind a plan has and which CPU it runs on. Our guide to shared and dedicated vCPUs shows how to measure what a shared vCore gives you.

2. RAM: Reserved or Overcommitted

A host can promise its virtual machines more memory than it has. Red Hat's KVM performance guide says that with memory overcommit "you can assign more memory to virtual machines (VMs) than is available to the host", and warns: "A VM runs slower if it is swapped frequently." Ask whether the plan's RAM is dedicated to your VPS. For sizing, see how much RAM a VPS needs.

3. Disk: Type, Size and Extra Space

Check the disk type (NVMe or SATA SSD), the size, and the price of more space: a bigger plan, an add-on or a separate volume. If backups and snapshots are billed as storage of their own, count them too (line 7).

4. Transfer and Port Speed

Check the monthly allowance, whether incoming traffic counts, and what happens above it. Hetzner's EU cloud servers include at least 20 TB and each extra TB costs €1.00 excluding VAT (plan page); its billing FAQ says "We only bill for outgoing traffic", and its usage notifications "do not cap or stop" the traffic. DigitalOcean bills extra outbound transfer at $0.01 per GiB, pooled across a team's Droplets, and inbound transfer is free.

A port speed is a ceiling, not a promise. Hetzner's cloud FAQ says each host has a 10 Gbit/s connection shared by all instances on that host, and that you can expect about 300 to 500 Mbit/s, without a guarantee.

5. IPv4 and IPv6

IPv4 addresses are scarce. The RIPE NCC, which hands out IP addresses in Europe, ran out of IPv4 addresses on 25 November 2019, when it made its final /22 allocation, and some providers bill the address separately:

• Hetzner: €0.50 a month excluding VAT per Primary IPv4, billed even when it is not assigned to a server; IPv6 is free (Primary IPs). Its plan tables show prices with the IPv4 included.
• AWS: $0.005 per public IPv4 address per hour, in use or idle (VPC pricing), which is $3.60 over a 30-day month.
• DigitalOcean: its bundled Droplet plans include a public IPv4 "at no extra cost"; on its v5 configurations the address is a separate line, at an introductory $0.00 that "is subject to change".

An IPv6-only server saves the fee, but then only clients with IPv6 can reach it.

6. DDoS Protection

Basic filtering is often included. Offers differ in depth and in what happens when an attack is bigger than the filter. AWS includes Shield Standard "at no additional charge", while Shield Advanced costs $3,000 a month on a one-year commitment, plus usage fees (Shield pricing). When an attack reaches DigitalOcean's mitigation limit, it "temporarily reroutes your traffic (triggers a blackhole)" (support note), so nothing reaches your server for a while. Ask what is included and what happens at the limit.

7. Backups and Snapshots

Backups are often an extra, and providers price them differently:

• Hetzner: backups cost 20% of the server price and give 7 backup slots; snapshots cost €0.0143 per GB per month excluding VAT (billing FAQ, plan page).
• DigitalOcean: weekly backups add 20% of the Droplet's cost and daily backups 30% (backups pricing); snapshots cost $0.06 per GB per month (snapshots pricing).

Backups tied to a server can go with it: Hetzner's backups "are removed when the server is deleted". For a copy somewhere else, see our guide to off-site backups with restic, and budget for the storage it needs.

8. OS Images and Licences

Linux images are a menu choice: Hetzner's cloud page lists Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora "and many other Linux distributions". Windows Server is different: a host that provides it has to license it, for example through Microsoft's Services Provider License Agreement, which lets service providers license products "on a monthly basis" for their customers. Expect that cost inside the price or as its own line. Some hosts leave Windows to you: Hetzner's cloud FAQ says "we will not provide any support for Windows."

Control panels need a licence too. On 30 October 2026, cPanel listed its Solo licence for one account at $29.99 a month, more than the $24.00 Droplet in the worked example below, and Plesk sold its VPS editions with monthly or yearly billing.

9. Support: Hours, Channels and Scope

Check when people answer, through which channels, and what they help with. On a self-managed VPS you run the operating system and your software, so support covers the platform; ask before you order if you want help inside the server. Faster answers can cost extra: DigitalOcean's support plans range from free tickets answered within 24 hours to Developer at $24 a month (8 hours), Standard at $99 (2 hours, with live chat) and Premium at $999 (30 minutes).

10. Setup Time and Setup Fees

Some hosts create a VPS automatically when you pay, others set it up by hand, so check the delivery time if you need the server today. Look for a one-time setup fee in the amount due at checkout, and whether it disappears on longer terms.

11. VAT and Currency

EU VAT law lists website hosting among electronically supplied services (Regulation 282/2011, Annex I), and Your Europe explains that these are "always taxed in the customer's country" when sold to consumers, while a business customer in another EU country usually pays the VAT itself through the reverse charge. DigitalOcean's website prices "do not include applicable VAT charges", and its tax table for consumers lists 19% for Germany, 21% for the Netherlands and up to 27% for Hungary (EU tax page). Hetzner lists its prices excluding VAT too. Compare offers with VAT if you are a consumer, without it if your business reclaims it, and always in one currency.

12. The Term Behind the Headline Price

Check which billing term the big number is for. Hetzner and DigitalOcean bill for the time a server exists, up to a monthly maximum: Hetzner showed €0.0104 an hour next to €6.49 a month for its smallest Regular Performance plan, and DigitalOcean caps a bundled Droplet at 672 hours a month. Other hosts headline the average monthly rate of a two-year prepaid term, and the renewal can cost more. A monthly price, a capped hourly rate and the average of a long prepaid term are different numbers. Our guide to monthly and annual VPS billing shows a dated example and covers discounts, renewals and refunds.

Worked Example: From List Price to Monthly Total

DigitalOcean's Basic Droplet with 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB of memory, an 80 GiB SSD and 4,000 GiB of transfer was listed at $24.00 a month on 30 October 2026 ($0.03571 an hour, capped at 672 hours a month), with a public IPv4 included. Add weekly backups and Dutch VAT:

Daily backups make it $37.75. At Germany's 19% it is $34.27, and a business that adds a valid EU VAT ID pays $28.80 and accounts for the VAT itself. Every 1,000 GiB above the team's transfer allowance adds $10.00 before VAT.

Our VPS Plans Against the Same List

As of 30 October 2026, our VPS page and checkout list what the price of a Space-Node VPS includes. Every plan is a KVM virtual machine with full root access in an EU data center.

Every size is listed on our VPS plans.

Check What You Got After Ordering

Once the server runs, check the lines you paid for. These commands work on Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 12:

nproc
lscpu | grep 'Model name'
free -h
df -h /
ip -br address show

nproc prints the number of processing units available, which should match your vCores. lscpu shows the CPU model the VPS reports; its man page warns that in a virtual machine this "reflects the configuration of the guest operating system", which can differ from the physical host. free -h shows a total a little below the plan's RAM, because it leaves out "a few reserved bits and kernel binary code", and df -h / gives the root filesystem in powers of 1024. In the ip output, look for your public IPv4 address and an IPv6 address that does not start with fe80, the link-local prefix (RFC 4291).

To measure your real transfer before you choose an allowance, let vnStat collect data for a few weeks:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install vnstat
sudo systemctl enable --now vnstat
vnstat -m

With --now, systemctl starts the service as well as enabling it. vnstat -m shows traffic per month as rx (received) and tx (transmitted); compare tx with an outbound allowance.

Which One Fits

• A small site, bot or test server: the list price, an IPv4 address and VAT are often the whole bill.
• A public game server, or anything that draws attacks: DDoS protection and what happens at its limit matter more than a few euros.
• Data you cannot rebuild: count backups or an off-site copy from the first month.
• Windows or a control panel: add the licence first, because it can cost more than the server.
• Heavy downloads or streaming: compare transfer allowances and the price above them, not port speeds.
• An EU business with a VAT number: compare prices without VAT and check that the checkout accepts your VAT ID.

FAQ

Is an IPv4 address included in a VPS price? Often, but not always. DigitalOcean includes one on its bundled Droplets, Hetzner bills each Primary IPv4 as its own €0.50 a month excluding VAT (its plan tables show the total with one IPv4), and AWS charges $0.005 an hour per public IPv4 address (all checked 30 October 2026). Look for an IPv4 line before you pay.

Are backups included in a VPS price? Usually not. Hetzner charges 20% of the server price for backups, DigitalOcean 20% for weekly or 30% for daily backups, and snapshots are often billed per GB on top.

Do VPS prices include VAT? That depends on the provider. DigitalOcean and Hetzner list prices without VAT, while other hosts show prices with VAT, so check the total at checkout. EU consumers pay the VAT rate of their own country, so one list price gives a different total in each country.

Which matters more, port speed or transfer? Usually transfer. A 1 Gbit/s port could send 10 TB in about 22 hours, so the monthly allowance and the price above it limit you long before the port does.

Sources

All opened on 30 October 2026:

• Space-Node: VPS plans and FAQ, Standard VPS-S checkout, Premium VPS-S checkout
• Hetzner: Cloud, Regular Performance plans, Cloud billing FAQ, Primary IPs
• DigitalOcean: Droplet pricing, Droplet billing, Backups pricing, Snapshots pricing, Support plans, Blackholed traffic, EU tax information
• AWS: Amazon VPC pricing, AWS Shield pricing
• RIPE NCC: The RIPE NCC has run out of IPv4 Addresses
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10: Optimizing virtual machine performance
• Microsoft: Services Provider License Agreement
• cPanel: Pricing; Plesk: Pricing
• European Union: Your Europe, cross-border VAT, Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011
• IETF: RFC 4291, IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture
• Man pages for Ubuntu 24.04: apt(8), nproc(1), lscpu(1), free(1), df(1), ip(8), vnstat(1), systemctl(1)
• Debian 12: ip(8), lscpu(1), vnstat(1), vnstat package file list