How we check facts

Where facts come from

Only from each host: pricing pages, documentation, help centres, terms of service, service-level agreements and status pages. Reviews, benchmark sites, forums, resellers and deal listings don't count, even when they agree.

Every value is tied to the host's page and the sentence that states it, and is kept only when that sentence actually says it. The prices that change a decision, such as entry plans, IPv4 fees and renewal prices, are opened and read again by hand.

The real monthly price

• It's the plan's listed monthly price plus one public IPv4 address when the host charges for it separately. With "Backups" picked on the home page, the automatic backup price is added too.
• Entry plans are each host's three or four cheapest general-purpose Linux plans. Hosts sell much more than that; this is where most people start.
• When a price needs a term (12 or 24 months, say) or is a first-term promotion, the term and the renewal price are shown next to it. A renewal price the host doesn't state stays "Not stated".
• Hourly prices become monthly ones with the host's own monthly figure or cap, or 730 hours where the host only gives an hourly rate.
• Three-year costs are plain arithmetic on those stated prices.

Currencies and VAT

• Each host is shown in one currency, the one its own price list uses for these plans. Nothing is converted.
• Prices in different currencies are never ranked against each other: the home page, the table and the guides give each currency its own section.
• Some hosts list prices with VAT and some without. Each plan says which, where the host states it.
• Prices change and differ by country, region and tax. Always check the checkout page.

Kinds of host

• Cloud servers: Billed by the hour, run from an API or dashboard.
• Monthly VPS: A fixed server per month or per term, often with more for the money.
• Big cloud: AWS, Google, Microsoft and Oracle: huge catalogues, metered extras.

When a host doesn't say

We write "Not stated". That's different from "No". Filters never count it as a match, the home page puts those hosts in the tray with a dashed outline, and a missing price is never filled in with a guess.

Hardware and uptime

Processors, disk types and uptime percentages are the ones each host states in its plan pages and service-level agreement.