Contabo price increase

Have you got an email from Contabo informing you about their new prices? Well, you probably want to know the reasons behind this Contabo price increase.

Every European host is increasing its plan prices - especially the ones who have been trying hard to offer low-cost hosting for a very long time, like Contabo and Hetzner.

Contabo mentioned an increment of 9.1% in its email, but the price rise is more than 15% in reality. Let’s discuss the affected products, reasons for increment, and best Contabo alternatives below.

Here is Contabo's current entry VPS after the price changes (checked October 19, 2026):

Contabo price increase

Contabo increased its prices on average by 16.6% roughly in October 2022. The price increase was effective immediately for all new subscriptions.

However, it applies to existing subscriptions only on their first renewal on or after 1st November 2022.

The table below compares the old and new Contabo prices along with the percentage rise:

As seen above, the cheapest Contabo VPS is available for $6.99 monthly, offering 8 GB RAM and 50 GB NVMe/200 GB SSD storage.

Now look at the new Contabo prices below:

Though the server resources remain the same with all Contabo plans, the prices have increased. At the same time, the price of Contabo’s object storage rose by 33%.

Which products are affected by this increase?

The Contabo price hike affects all its hosting products, including their:

• VPS plans
• Dedicated server plans
• Storage VPS/Object storage plans

The price hike also impacts Contabo’s server location fee and addon services, including SSL certificate and backup.

Reasons for Contabo’s price hike

In 2022, Europe faced a substantial rise in electricity and gas prices, impacting all power-dependent industries. Surging inflation was affecting almost every commodity throughout the world.

So Contabo’s price hike seems within reason.

Every other host is gradually increasing its hosting prices as well. Thus, the Contabo price surge was an expected move.

Prices have come down from the 2022 peak, but not to where they were before the crisis. According to Eurostat, mid-sized business users in Germany, where Contabo is based, paid €174 per MWh (excluding VAT) in the first half of 2026, compared with €150 in the first half of 2021. The EU average went from €110 to €156 over the same period.

Another reason contributing to the Contabo price increase is the VAT charge. The majority of the German hosts charge VAT for all sales outside of the EU region.

For instance, when you select a European server, they display prices that include 18% VAT. But the host still shows the same prices when you pick a region outside of Europe.

The actual price for non-EU customers is Contabo’s current hosting price minus 18% VAT. But unfortunately, this VAT amount is not deducted on changing your country, and all Contabo VPS users end up paying the exact cost.

In short, no matter where you reside and how much VAT is applicable in your country, these hosts, including Contabo, charge you the same price.

For non-EU customers, this leads to higher hosting prices than is reasonable.

Why is Contabo still so cheap?

Even after the price increase, Contabo gives you more CPU, RAM and storage for the money than most VPS providers. The host keeps its costs low in several ways:

• Contabo says it owns all of its data centers and their hardware, and builds its facilities itself instead of renting space from other providers. Buying hardware in bulk and skipping colocation fees keeps its operating costs down.
• It uses an open-source server solution, Proxmox, instead of premium enterprise solutions like OnApp.
• Contabo saves a huge amount of money by not hiring much technical support staff. It offers unmanaged servers under all its plans.
• Automatic backups aren’t included in the price. They are a paid add-on (snapshots are included).
• Cloud VPS plans use shared vCPUs, so the cores are shared with other customers on the same host. Plans with dedicated cores (Contabo VDS) cost more.
• The cheaper plans have slower network ports: 200 Mbit/s on Cloud VPS 4, rising step by step to 1 Gbit/s only on the two largest plans.
• Contabo places many virtual servers on each host, so CPU and disk speed can vary from one node to another.
• The host does not provide customer support outside of office hours.

Like OVH, Contabo mainly competes on price, so comparing its support or server performance with bigger providers like Vultr, Linode, AWS and DigitalOcean would be unfair.

Who should use Contabo?

Use Contabo if:

• You need a server for non-critical projects.
• You can create backups outside Contabo (even when they offer snapshots).
• You plan to perform a custom server setting to host your project.
• You have enough time to deploy your VPS.
• You want to carry out web application testing only at the non-production stage.
• Your queries are not urgent, and customer support is not very important to you.

Don’t use Contabo if:

• You want to host a large app for your business.
• Server reliability is one of your major concerns.
• You don’t have enough time to deploy your server. Or, you require it only for a short duration.
• Your application demands Graphics Processing Unit ( GPU ).
• You plan to manage your virtual resources dynamically, like scaling your Software as a Service ( SaaS ) model.

Pros and cons of Contabo

Pros:

• The host uses new NVMe storage much faster than the older SSDs, making your app run faster.
• It provides hosting at competitive prices that help you remain within your budget.
• You can easily scale your server resources.
• The host allows unlimited incoming traffic, which is handy during traffic spikes and makes your app fast and stable.
• Contabo has servers across four continents, allowing you to choose the most suitable server location for your project.
• You can choose from extensive hosting plans to match your needs.

Cons:

• Contabo doesn’t offer good customer support, so you must be self-sufficient to handle all server-related tasks.
• Unlike many of its competitors, Contabo doesn’t have any online chat support.
• You might notice slower performance due to disk I/O (IOPS) issues when you receive a lot of traffic. (I recommend asking Contabo to move your app to another node if you’re unsatisfied with their disk speed).
• Cheaper Contabo servers attract many service abusers, so some Contabo IP addresses end up on blacklists through no fault of their own users.
• Setting up a Contabo server can take about a day. The host activates your VPS only after verifying your ID when you buy a server for the first time.
• Contabo doesn’t have high availability of virtual servers.
• Contabo has an API to create and manage VPS instances, but billing is monthly, not hourly. Servers that you scale up and down for a few hours at a time are cheaper with hourly cloud providers.
• Contabo offers a short money-back guarantee of 14 days and isn’t fast enough to respond to your refund requests.

Best Contabo Alternatives

Below are the best Contabo alternatives based on the availability of European server locations, lower prices, and an overall good value for money:

AlphaVPS (Best Budget)

AlphaVPS is a European host focused on providing affordable hosting. It uses Kernel-based Virtual Machine ( KVM ) virtualization to offer powerful performance.

AlphaVPS has servers in Bulgaria, Germany, and the UK, plus four US locations. Its cheapest VPS (2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 30 GB NVMe) costs €2.99/month, or €2.54/month when you pay yearly.

Time4VPS (Most Reliable)

Time4VPS is a European hosting provider offering Windows, Linux, container, and storage VPS plans. The company uses both OpenVZ and KVM virtualization.

Time4VPS has servers in Lithuania, its central location making it an ideal choice for other European countries. Its cheapest Linux VPS (1 GB RAM) costs €2.99/month. The 2 GB Linux 2 plan is €2.88/month on a two-year term and renews at €5.77/month.

Conclusion

Global inflation and the European power crisis are the major contributing factors to the Contabo price hike.

Overall, Contabo is an average host offering value for money but is unsuitable for anything in production. Their services are cheap, and you only “ get what you pay for.”

For an application requiring high-end performance, consider choosing AlphaVPS, Time4VPS, or even Hetzner, over Contabo.

Feel free to leave a comment below for any further Contabo-related queries.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Is Contabo good value for money?

Yes, for the resources you get. Contabo’s plans include more CPU, RAM and storage than most VPS providers at the same price. The trade-offs are limited support, monthly billing and less consistent performance.

What is the difference between Contabo VPS and VDS?

On a Contabo VPS, the physical server’s CPU cores are shared with other customers. On a Contabo VDS, your cores are dedicated to you, which is why VDS plans cost more.

Is Contabo a KVM?

Yes, Contabo uses Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) as its standard hypervisor.

Does Contabo do refunds?

Yes, Contabo does refunds if you request them within 14 days of signing up. But this option is available only to EU residents.

How reliable is Contabo?

Contabo is unreliable performance-wise. It is inconsistent because of overloaded servers, IP blacklisting due to neighbors’ spammy activities, and high steal time for server resources.