Cloudways Vultr High Frequency Markup: 220% Claim Debunked
By RenUpdated Oct 21, 2026Infra
In this article
Cloudways Vultr High Frequency plans cost $16, $30, $60 and $118 a month for the 1, 2, 4 and 8 GB tiers. The same Vultr HF specs bought direct cost $6, $12, $24 and $48. That’s a 146% to 167% markup at every tier Cloudways lists, not 220%, and since Cloudways runs on Vultr’s own servers, the extra money buys the management layer, not better hardware.
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Cloudways Vultr High Frequency vs raw Vultr: matched-spec prices
Vultr describes its High Frequency line as “Powered by 3GHz+ Intel Xeon CPUs and NVMe SSD.” Cloudways’ official Vultr hosting page lists four High Frequency tiers, and each one lines up exactly with a raw Vultr HF plan on vCPU count, NVMe storage and bandwidth. That makes this a clean like-for-like comparison: same hardware, two ways of paying for it.
| RAM Tier | vCPU | NVMe Storage | Bandwidth | Raw Vultr HF | Cloudways Vultr HF | $ Markup | % Markup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 1 | 32 GB | 1 TB | $6 | $16 | +$10 | +166.7% |
| 2 GB | 1 | 64 GB | 2 TB | $12 | $30 | +$18 | +150.0% |
| 4 GB | 2 | 128 GB | 3 TB | $24 | $60 | +$36 | +150.0% |
| 8 GB | 3 | 256 GB | 4 TB | $48 | $118 | +$70 | +145.8% |
Prices last checked: 2026-10-17
So is Cloudways more expensive than Vultr? Yes: 146% to 167% more at every tier Cloudways lists, with a simple average of 153.1% across the four. The percentage barely moves as you scale, but the dollar gap does, from $10 a month at 1 GB to $70 a month at 8 GB. Bigger servers don’t make the management layer proportionally cheaper here; they make it more expensive in absolute terms.
Annualized, the 1 GB gap alone is $120 a year, and it grows with every tier. For a single personal blog, $120 a year is a real line item. For a server carrying several client sites that are each billed monthly, it’s far easier to absorb.
Two details change the math at the margins. Vultr’s automatic backups aren’t free: they add a “20% higher base monthly/hourly fee,” so a 1 GB HF instance with backups on runs $7.20 instead of $6, still well under $16. And Cloudways’ prices exclude taxes and are billed hourly, in arrears. The official Cloudways page also stops at 8 GB (labelled “Large”), so there’s no official 16 GB or 32 GB High Frequency price to compare against.
Why the 220% figure fails
A 220% markup is a widely repeated claim in Cloudways reviews, usually stated as a blanket number with no per-tier table behind it. The arithmetic doesn’t hold. A 220% markup means paying 3.2 times the raw price. On a $6 Vultr HF instance, that’s $19.20 a month at 1 GB, and $38.40 at 2 GB on the $12 plan. Cloudways actually charges $16 and $30.
The highest markup at any official tier is 166.7%, more than 50 points short of the headline figure. The 1 GB tier is where Cloudways looks worst, and even there the 220% number overshoots.
Don’t confuse the High Frequency line with Cloudways’ cheaper Vultr Standard line, either. Standard costs $14 (1 GB, 25 GB SSD, 1 TB), $28 (2 GB, 55 GB), $54 (4 GB, 80 GB) and $99 (8 GB, 160 GB). The High Frequency premium inside Cloudways is only $2, $2, $6 and $19 at those tiers, and it gets you NVMe storage and more of it. Most of the markup comes from buying through Cloudways at all, not from choosing HF.
What the Cloudways markup buys
A raw Vultr HF instance is a bare server with root access. Everything above the operating system, from the web stack to backups to security, is yours to install and maintain. Cloudways lists what it layers on top instead:
- Free migration of your first website, onto the preconfigured Lightning Stack
- Object Cache Pro free “on 4GB server or above,” alongside Redis cache, which matters for WooCommerce
- Automated backups included; offsite backup storage is billed at $0.033/GB per server
- Advanced staging and cloning, plus vertical scaling when a site outgrows its tier
- A firewall with IP blocking, a WordPress vulnerability scanner and free SSL
- 24/7 support
Note the Object Cache Pro threshold. On the $16 and $30 tiers it isn’t included, so the cheapest plans carry the highest markup and the thinnest feature set. The 4 GB tier at $60 is the first one where every item on that list applies.
On the raw Vultr side, the same ground is a list of jobs: install a web server, PHP and a database over SSH, set up WordPress, configure SSL renewal, schedule backups (or pay Vultr’s 20%), and keep the OS patched. None of it is hard if you’ve done it before. All of it is ongoing, and every hour spent on it is part of the real price of the cheaper server.
Cloudways runs a 3-day free trial with no credit card required, and its pricing page currently shows a “30% OFF for 3 Months on All Plans” banner. Three days is enough to provision a server, move a copy of a site over and see whether the dashboard saves you real time.
Who should pay the Cloudways markup
The markup is a price for not doing server work. Whether that’s a good deal depends on how much of that work you’d otherwise do, and how well.
| Situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Agency or freelancer running several client sites | Cloudways | Staging, cloning and automated backups come built in instead of being rebuilt per server |
| WordPress beginner with no server admin experience | Cloudways | Free first migration, a preconfigured stack and 24/7 support |
| Developer comfortable with Linux and SSH | Raw Vultr | Keeps $10 to $70 a month at matched specs |
| Single hobby site on a tight budget | Raw Vultr | $6 against $16 at 1 GB, or $7.20 with Vultr backups on |
| WooCommerce store that needs Redis object caching | Cloudways, 4 GB or larger | Object Cache Pro is free from the $60 tier up |
Cloudways isn’t for someone who wants full control of the stack; the whole point is that it makes those decisions for you. Raw Vultr isn’t for anyone who won’t keep up with OS updates, security patches and backups, because nobody else will.
The middle path: Vultr HF plus SpinupWP
SpinupWP provisions and manages WordPress servers on your own cloud account, with an Essentials plan at $12 a month (1 server, 1 daily backup) and Advanced at $19. A 2 GB Vultr HF instance at $12 plus Essentials at $12 comes to $24 a month, 20% less than Cloudways’ $30 for the same 2 GB tier. It suits developers who want a managed WordPress stack without the Cloudways markup and don’t mind owning the Vultr account and its bill directly.
The Cloudways Vultr High Frequency markup is 146% to 167%, not 220%
The 220% figure doesn’t survive a tier-by-tier check, but the real Cloudways Vultr High Frequency markup is still steep: $10 to $70 a month on top of the same hardware. Pay it if you’re running client sites, if you’d otherwise skip backups and patches, or if your WooCommerce store needs Redis and you’ll be on the 4 GB tier anyway. Skip it if you already manage Linux servers, or if a single small site is all you’re hosting.
If you lean toward self-managing, test it before committing. New Vultr accounts get $300 in free credit, valid for up to 30 days, which is enough room to spin up the HF tiers above and see whether running your own stack fits your week. For every other Vultr plan type, see our full Vultr pricing breakdown.
