Fine-Print Index · version 0.2.3
How hourly VPS providers bill in practice: the billing unit, the monthly cap, what a stopped server costs, IPv4 fees, minimum top-ups and refunds. Every value links to the provider page it came from.
Counted across the 20 providers in this version, checked on .
12 of 20
bill a stopped server in full until it is deleted.
Who bills stopped servers12 of 20
bill by the hour. 5 bill by the second and 3 by the minute.
Per-second vs per-hour billing11 of 20
stop hourly charges at a monthly price. 5 of them reach it after 672 hours.
5 of 20
charge for a public IPv4 address on top of the server price, on some or all instance types.
11 of 20
bill after use (post-paid), so there is no top-up to make before a server runs.
2 of 20
say they pay back money left on the account: Akamai (Linode) and Exoscale.
Each value links to the provider page it came from. Select a column heading to sort; our own row stays at the bottom. “Our arithmetic” marks a figure we calculated from numbers the provider publishes. Two blog posts build on this data: how much a VPS costs across these providers, and Vultr vs DigitalOcean vs Hetzner, rule by rule.
| Provider | Billing unit | Monthly cap | Stopped server | IPv4 | Smallest hourly plan | Minimum top-up | Unused credit refund |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai (Linode) Shared CPU Linodes | Per hourrounded up; invoiced monthly | Monthly priceabout 667 h on Nanode (our arithmetic); G8 and GPU uncapped | Billed in fullresources stay reserved | Included1 per Linode; extra IPv4 billed hourly, uncapped | $0.0075/hourNanode, 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB ($5/month) | None (post-paid)new accounts may be billed mid-month at $50 | Yespositive balance, minus a $5 fee, 180-day window |
| Atlantic.Net Cloud VPS, on-demand | Per hourpost-paid; no minimum fee | 672 hoursthen the monthly rate | Billed in fullfrom creation until deletion | Includedextra IPs $3.65/month | $0.0149/hourG3.2GB, 1 vCPU, 2 GB ($10/month); the $0.0119 headline is the 3-year rate | None for cards (post-paid)PayPal: prepay an amount you choose | Not publishedcredit owed is applied to fees, not paid out |
| AWS Lightsail Lightsail bundles | Per hourpartial-hour rounding not published | Monthly pricethe bundle's monthly price is the maximum | Billed in fulluntil deleted | Includedin dual-stack bundles; IPv6-only bundles cost less | $0.0047/hourIPv6-only, 2 vCPU, 512 MB ($3.50/month); $0.0067 with IPv4 | None (post-paid)billed monthly | Not publishedpost-paid, so no prepaid balance |
| Cherry Servers Cloud VPS | Per hourrounding of partial hours not published | None stated | Billed in fulluntil terminated | Included1 floating IPv4 | $0.018/hourCloud VPS 1, 1 vCore, 1 GB (€0.015), excl. VAT | Prepaid, minimum not published€100 for unverified crypto payers | Partialorder refund within 15 days |
| Civo Compute instances | Per hourrounded up to the next hour | None statedmonthly prices are shown at 730 h | Billed in fullsame as running, until deleted | Includedno separate fee listed | $0.00744/hourxSmall, 1 core, 1 GB, 25 GB NVMe | None (post-paid)invoiced on the 1st of each month | Case by casewritten request; unused credit expires |
| DigitalOcean Droplets (bundled plans) | Per second60 s or $0.01 minimum, whichever is higher | 672 hoursbundled plans; v5 Droplets uncapped | Billed in fulluntil destroyed | Includedv5 Droplets: separate line, $0.00 for now | $0.00595/hour1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 10 GiB ($4/month) | None (post-paid)PayPal $5 or crypto $25 authorization | Nosupport may help in extenuating cases |
| Exoscale Standard instances | Per secondminimum charge not published | None stated | Compute stopsdisk and any Windows license still billed | Includedextra Elastic IPs 0.01389/hour | About $0.0087/hourMicro, 512 MB, with the 10 GB minimum disk (our sum) | Not publishedprepaid or post-paid | Yesremaining balance refunded on termination |
| Google Compute Engine E2 VMs | Per second1-minute minimum | None statedno sustained-use discount on E2 | Compute stopsdisks and static IPs still billed | Extra$0.005/hour per external IPv4 | $0.008376/houre2-micro, 2 shared vCPU, 1 GiB (us-central1); disk and IPv4 extra | None (post-paid) | Partialunused early payments refunded on request |
| Hetzner Cloud Cloud servers | Per houralways rounded up | Monthly priceabout 624 h on CX23 (our arithmetic) | Billed in fulluntil deleted, on or off | Extra€0.50/month per primary IPv4 | €0.0088/hourCX23, 2 vCPU, 4 GB, shown as not available; CPX22 €0.0312 | Not publishedinvoiced monthly in arrears | Partialcredit paid out after the account is closed |
| IONOS Cloud Cubes Cloud Cubes | Per minutewhile the server is active | 30-day priceequals 720 h at the hourly rate (our arithmetic) | Compute stopssuspended Cube: storage still billed | Not published | $0.008/hourBasic Cube XS, 1 vCPU, 2 GB ($5.76 per 30 days) | Not published | Not published |
| Kamatera Hourly cloud servers | Per minutehourly servers, post-billed monthly | None stated | Compute stopsa small hourly charge for storage and IP | Included1 free; up to 3 more at $1/month | About $0.0055/hour1 core, 1 GB, 20 GB ($4/month); read from its calculator (our arithmetic) | None for card accounts$10 refundable deposit if checks fail | Mostly nofees non-refundable unless noted |
| LightNode Hourly VPS | Per houra partial hour is billed as a full hour | 672 hoursper calendar month | Billed in fulluntil released, per the docs pages disagree | Included1 IPv4; no IPv6 | $0.012/hour1 vCPU, 2 GB, 50 GB NVMe ($7.71/month) | Prepaid, minimum not publishedbalance must stay above zero | Noterms: fees are non-refundable |
| Microsoft Azure B-series VMs | Per minutefull minutes; leftover seconds not billed | None stated | Depends on how you stopdeallocated: compute stops; shut down in the OS: billed | Extra$0.005/hour per static IPv4 | $0.0084/hourB2pts_v2 (Arm), 2 vCPU, 1 GiB, East US; disk and IP extra | None (post-paid)billed in arrears | Not publishedpost-paid, so no prepaid balance |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) Flex VMs, pay as you go | Per second1-minute minimum for VMs | None stated | Depends on how you stopConsole/API stop pauses compute; OS shutdown does not | No fee listedno public IPv4 line in the price list | $0.0115/hourA1.Flex (Arm), 1 OCPU + 1 GB (our sum); boot volume extra | None (post-paid)no minimums or prepayment | Nonon-refundable unless the agreement says otherwise |
| OVHcloud Public Cloud instances | Per second1-minute minimum | No capseparate monthly billing option instead | Billed in fullshelving leaves only the snapshot billed | Extra on Gen 3€0.0027/hour since Oct 1, 2026 pages disagree | $0.0123/hourd2-2, 1 vCore, 2 GB ($6.74/month on monthly billing) | None (post-paid)invoiced on the 1st; optional prepaid account | Not published |
| RamNode Cloud VPS | Per houra partial first hour is billed | Monthly pricehours to reach it differ between RamNode pages pages disagree | Billed in fullshelving stops compute charges | IncludedStandard plans; Lite is IPv6-only (+$2/month) | $0.003/hourLite, 1 core, 1 GB, IPv6 only ($2/month); $0.006 with IPv4 | $3 or $10RamNode pages give different minimums pages disagree | Partial3 days on the first payment; credit is not cashed out |
| Scaleway CPU Instances | Per hour60-minute minimum | None stated | Compute stopsafter Power off; disks and IPs still billed | Extra€0.004/hour per flexible IPv4 | €0.0006/hourSTARDUST1-S, 1 vCPU, 1 GB; storage and IPv4 extra | None (post-paid)usage invoiced monthly | Not publishedpost-paid, so no prepaid balance |
| UpCloud Cloud Servers | Per hourby the started hour, from prepaid balance | 672 hoursthen the monthly rate | Depends on planDeveloper and General Purpose billed; Cloud Native not | Included1 per server; extra IPv4 €3.47/month | About €0.0045/hourStarter 1 GB (€3/month); hourly by UpCloud's formula (our arithmetic) | €10 or $10one-time deposit to leave the trial | Nocredits non-refundable; 30-day money-back on first payment |
| Vultr Cloud Compute | Per hour1-hour minimum | 672 hoursCloud Compute; VX1 and GPU uncapped | Billed in fulluntil destroyed | Included$2.50 plan is IPv6-only; extra IPv4 fee not stated | $0.004/hour1 vCPU, 0.5 GB, IPv6 only ($2.50/month); $0.005 with IPv4 pages disagree | Not published | NoFAQ: no refunds |
| X-ZoneServers Hourly VPS | Per hourevery started hour | Monthly priceabout 715 h on Nano (our arithmetic) | Billed in fulluntil destroyed | Included1 IPv4; IPv6 where available | €0.0056/hourNano, 1 vCPU, 2 GB, 20 GB SSD (capped at €4/month) | Prepaid, amount not publisheda minimum balance is required | Noprepaid credit non-refundable; 48 h on first monthly order |
| HourlyVPS UsOur own rules, for comparison | Per hourby the hour in whole cents; a partial first or last hour is rounded to the nearest cent | Monthly price500 h on every plan, per billing period from the order date | Billed in fulluntil you delete the server | Included1 IPv4 + IPv6 | $0.01/hourQuartz Q1, 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB NVMe | $5prepaid account credit | No refunds neededusage is metered; account credit is not paid out unless the law requires it |
What it takes to open an account and pay, plus Windows, API access and the number of locations, in each provider’s own unit.
| Provider | Verification | Payment methods | Windows license | API | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai (Linode) Shared CPU Linodes | SMS phone + card or PayPalsome accounts reviewed manually | Cards, PayPal, Google Paycheck, ACH, wire via support | Not offered | YesAPI v4, Linode CLI | 33 regionscore compute regions |
| Atlantic.Net Cloud VPS, on-demand | Cardphone call if automated checks fail | Cards, PayPalprepaid cards only after the first invoice | Separate rateG3.2GB $16.50 vs $10.00/month Linux | Yes | 8 data centersUSA, Canada, UK, Singapore |
| AWS Lightsail Lightsail bundles | SMS phone + payment method | Cards, direct debitdirect debit in some countries; no PayPal | Separate rateWindows bundles from $9.50/month with IPv4 | YesLightsail API, AWS CLI, SDKs | 19 regions4 of them opt-in pages disagree |
| Cherry Servers Cloud VPS | ID check for card paymentscrypto: ID check or a €100 top-up | Cards, PayPal, cryptoalso wallets, bank wire | Not offeredvirtual servers are Linux only | YesREST API, CLI, Terraform | 7 regionsper the pricing filter pages disagree |
| Civo Compute instances | SMS phone + cardsome accounts reviewed manually | Cards onlyvia Stripe; no prepaid or virtual cards | Not offered | YesREST API, CLI, Terraform | 4 regionsLondon, Frankfurt, New York, Mumbai |
| DigitalOcean Droplets (bundled plans) | Payment methodno virtual or prepaid cards | Cards, PayPal, cryptocrypto access limited; also wallets, ACH | Not offered | YesREST API, doctl CLI | 16 data centersin 13 regions |
| Exoscale Standard instances | Card (3-D Secure) or prepaid credit20 EUR/CHF pre-authorization | Cards, PayPal, bank transferPayPal in prepaid mode only | Extra0.01111/hour up to 7 vCPUs | YesAPI v2, CLI, Terraform | 8 zones |
| Google Compute Engine E2 VMs | Payment method$0 to $1 hold; bank check in some countries | Cards, bank debitlocal methods by country; no PayPal or crypto | Extra$0.046/hour per vCPU | YesREST API, gcloud CLI | 43 regions130 zones |
| Hetzner Cloud Cloud servers | Billing addressID or card prepayment if fraud checks ask for it | Cards, SEPA, PayPalalso bank transfer; no crypto | Not offered | YesREST API, hcloud CLI | 6 locations4 network zones |
| IONOS Cloud Cubes Cloud Cubes | Not published | Card, SEPAvaries by country | Extra$0.0079/hour per vCPU | Yes | 10 data centersCubes: New Jersey and EU only |
| Kamatera Hourly cloud servers | Card + 3-D SecureID video may be requested | Cards, PayPal deposit | ExtraWindows Server $19/month | Yes | 21 data centers |
| LightNode Hourly VPS | Not publishedcrypto orders deploy once the account is approved | Cards, PayPal, cryptoalso Alipay, Google Pay | Separate rateWindows plans from $0.021/hour | YesOpenAPI for the instance lifecycle | 40+ locations |
| Microsoft Azure B-series VMs | Phone + cardno VoIP numbers, no prepaid cards | Cards, SEPA debitwire for approved accounts | Separate rateB2ats_v2 $0.0186 vs $0.0094/hour Linux | YesResource Manager API, CLI, SDKs | 80+ regions |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) Flex VMs, pay as you go | Credit cardno prepaid, virtual or PIN debit cards | Credit cardsdebit cards that work like credit cards | Extra$0.092 per OCPU-hour | YesREST APIs, CLI, SDKs, Terraform | 41 regionscommercial cloud, 26 countries |
| OVHcloud Public Cloud instances | Payment methodmanual checks; documents on request | Cards, PayPal, SEPAalso a prepaid account | Separate ratee.g. b3-8 $0.1385 vs $0.0605/hour Linux | YesOVHcloud API, OpenStack APIs | No total stated16 Local Zones plus 1-AZ and 3-AZ regions |
| RamNode Cloud VPS | Automatic fraud checkdocuments if an order is flagged | Cards, PayPal, cryptoalso Alipay | Not offered | YesOpenStack-compatible API | 5 regions4 in the USA, 1 in Amsterdam |
| Scaleway CPU Instances | Physical cardphoto ID + face check for higher quotas | Cards, SEPAno virtual or prepaid cards | Separate ratee.g. POP2-2C-8G €0.1823 vs €0.0735/hour | Yes | 3 regionsParis, Amsterdam, Warsaw |
| UpCloud Cloud Servers | Phone + cardsanctions screening at signup | Cards, PayPalVisa and Mastercard per FAQ | Extra€12.00/month per core (Standard) | Yescovers all control panel actions | 15 data centers |
| Vultr Cloud Compute | Card or PayPalterms allow further account checks | Cards, PayPal, cryptoalso Alipay, wire, gift codes | Extra$16/month per CPU | YesREST API v2, CLI, Terraform | 33 regions |
| X-ZoneServers Hourly VPS | Not published | Cards, PayPal, cryptoalso bank transfer | Not offeredon VPS; dedicated servers only | YesREST API v1 (public beta) | 6 locations5 in Europe, 1 in the USA |
| HourlyVPS UsOur own rules, for comparison | Minimal paperworksee our verification policy | Card, crypto | Not on our price list | YesREST API | 1 locationIstanbul, New York coming soon |
The table uses the more specific page. Both versions are recorded here and in the data files, so you can check which one applies to you.
AWS Lightsail · Locations
The Lightsail docs list 19 Regions; the Lightsail marketing FAQ still lists 15. Source
Cherry Servers · Locations
The pricing filter lists 7 virtual server regions; the FAQ on the same page lists 6. Source
LightNode · Stopped server
LightNode's billing docs and FAQ say a stopped server keeps billing; its hourly landing page says turning the server off stops billing. Source
OVHcloud · IPv4
OVHcloud's pricing post of October 1, 2026, bills IPv4 separately on Gen 3 instances; the price-list footnote still says instances include an IPv4 address. Source
RamNode · Monthly cap
RamNode's hourly-billing doc says the hourly rate is the monthly price divided by 730; the hourly prices on its product page equal the monthly price divided by 672. Source
RamNode · Minimum top-up
RamNode's hourly-billing doc gives a $3 minimum Cloud Credit top-up; its billing FAQ gives a $10 minimum initial credit. Source
Vultr · Smallest hourly plan
The pricing page lists the IPv6-only plan at $0.004/hour; Vultr's public API lists it at $0.003/hour. Source
We sell hourly VPS too, so here is where the providers above do better than HourlyVPS today, from the same data.
DigitalOcean, Exoscale, Google Compute Engine, Oracle Cloud (OCI) and OVHcloud bill by the second, and IONOS Cloud Cubes, Kamatera and Microsoft Azure by the minute. We bill by the hour, in whole cents, with a partial first or last hour rounded to the nearest cent.
Exoscale, Google Compute Engine, IONOS Cloud Cubes, Kamatera and Scaleway stop charging for compute while a server is powered off (disks or IP addresses may still bill), and Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud (OCI) and UpCloud do so on some plans or when you stop the server their way. We bill a stopped server until you delete it.
Akamai (Linode) and Exoscale pay back a positive balance on request or when you close the account. We do not pay out unused account credit to a card or crypto wallet unless the law requires it.
Every provider here that publishes a count lists more locations than our 1.
13 providers accept PayPal in some form. We take card and cryptocurrency only.
13 providers sell Windows servers. Windows is not on our price list.
Billing is by the hour: every hour a server exists is charged at the plan’s hourly rate. The price tapes and cost tables on this site count every started hour as a full hour, so they show the most a duration can cost; the cost calculator charges a partial hour to the nearest cent, as the bill does.
Every server is billed by the hour: the plan’s hourly rate is deducted from the server’s prepaid balance for every hour it exists, powered on or off, until you delete it.
Every plan is capped at 500 hours per billing period: the monthly price is 500 times the hourly rate, and after 500 billed hours (about 20.8 days) the rest of the period is free, so a server left on all month pays exactly the monthly price and never more. A billing period is one month from your order date, not the calendar month, and the cap resets every period.
A stopped server is still billed, because its vCPU, memory, disk and IP addresses stay reserved for you; only deleting the server stops billing.
Your account runs on prepaid credit, with a minimum top-up of $5.
Usage is metered, so there are no refunds to claim: you pay only for the hours a server exists, never more than the monthly price in a billing period. Account credit is not paid out to your card or crypto wallet unless the law requires it. Details: Refunds
Every server comes with one dedicated IPv4 address and IPv6, included in the plan price.
You can pay and top up your credit by card or cryptocurrency.
For every provider we read its own pricing pages, documentation and terms, wrote each rule down in plain words and linked the exact page we used. When a provider describes the same rule in two places, the table follows the more specific page, and the disagreement is listed above.
The underlined line is our short summary and links to the provider page we read. The line under it adds the condition that matters most. “Our arithmetic” marks a figure we calculated from numbers the provider publishes. The download files hold the full rule for every cell, with our notes.
HourlyVPS sells hourly, daily and monthly VPS, so we are not a neutral party. To keep the comparison fair, every provider fact comes from that provider’s own pages, providers are listed from A to Z, and our own row sits apart at the bottom of each table. That row is generated from our live price list and billing rules, and it is not part of the downloadable dataset. The section above lists where other providers do better than we do.
Providers that sell servers by the hour or by a finer unit and publish their prices and terms: large clouds, developer clouds, and smaller hosts that market hourly VPS. A provider without public prices or terms cannot be checked cell by cell, so it is left out until it publishes them.
The files hold every cell in full: the rule in our words, the short form, the source link, the check date and our notes, including archive links and conflicts.
hourly-vps-index.csv
Download CSVhourly-vps-index.json
Download JSONLicense: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, adapt and republish the data, including commercially, as long as you credit the source with a link to this page. Suggested credit:
Hourly VPS Fine-Print Index by HourlyVPS, https://www.hourlyvps.com/compare/hourly-vps-providers/, CC BY 4.0
Found a cell that is out of date or wrong? Email [email protected] with the provider, the field and a link to the public page that shows the current rule. We check the page, correct the cell and record the change, with its date, in the changelog.
Providers are welcome to write in too. We change a cell only when a public page supports the new value, because every cell has to link to its source.
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Your account runs on prepaid credit, with a minimum top-up of $5.