How we rank VPS plans
Every ranking on VPS Scouter comes from the same published formula. No provider can pay for a better spot.
1. We collect the prices
Every Sunday our scraper reads the pricing pages of all 32 providers and records each Linux VPS plan: its price, the billing term that price needs, the renewal price where the page shows one, vCPU cores, RAM, storage size and type, and monthly bandwidth. The last full check ran on October 27, 2026. From 16 November to 2 December we check every day, to catch Black Friday prices. If a provider's page can't be read, we keep showing the last plans we confirmed for it, with that date, for up to 60 days. After that the provider drops out of the rankings until we can read its prices again.
2. We make prices comparable
Providers bill monthly, yearly or for several years at a time, and many show their lowest price only for the longest term. We show each plan's monthly price in US dollars on the term the provider advertises for it, and we put that term (and the renewal price, where the provider shows one) next to every price. Where a provider offers a lower price for the first few months only, we use the average monthly price over the first year. Where you get an extra discount through our link, we use the price you would actually pay. Plans with less than 1 GB of RAM are left out of the rankings.
3. We score value per dollar
Each ranking divides what a plan gives you by its monthly price:
- Best value weighs RAM and vCPU at 38% each, storage at 19% and bandwidth at 5%, all per dollar. Storage and bandwidth are scaled down first, because their numbers are much larger.
- CPU, RAM and storage rankings use one resource per dollar, for example GB of RAM per dollar.
- Bandwidth uses TB per dollar. Unmetered plans count as 50 TB, and ties go to the cheaper plan.
The top 50 plans of each ranking are listed, best score first:
4. What we leave out
The scores only look at specs and price. They don't measure support quality, network speed, uptime or how easy the control panel is, so read the reviews on each provider page too. Windows VPS plans aren't part of the comparison. Most plans are self-managed; a few providers, such as SiteGround and ScalaHosting, include server management in the price, and their plans are scored on specs and price like the rest.
Affiliate links
Some providers pay us a commission when you buy through our links. That never changes the formula above, and providers that pay us nothing are ranked in exactly the same way. Read more about us.