Contabo Review 2026: Core, Performance and Max Performance VPS Pricing and the Fine Print

Verdict in brief

Contabo still sells more CPU, RAM and disk per euro than almost anyone in mainstream hosting. A Core VPS with 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM and 100 GB SSD lists at EUR 5.50 a month, and the 24-month rate brings it to EUR 4.40. That is the reason people put up with everything else.

Everything else is real, though. There is no hourly billing, the cheapest price on the page is a 24-month rate, servers outside the EU carry a monthly location fee whose amount you only see in the panel, Core VPS CPUs come from whatever hardware generation is available when you order, and the refund window closes after 14 days. Contabo is a strong pick for long-running, predictable workloads where raw resources matter more than elasticity. It is a poor pick if you spin servers up and down by the hour or need guaranteed CPU performance on the cheapest tier.

What Contabo is, and what changed in 2026

Contabo GmbH is a Munich-based host best known for budget VPS and dedicated servers. In June 2022 KKR agreed to acquire a majority stake; Oakley Capital kept a minority stake alongside management and the hosting entrepreneurs Thomas Strohe, Jochen Berger and Thomas Vollrath.

In summer 2026 (late July, per Contabo's blog) the VPS range was split into three tiers. Trade press tied the move to rising hardware and memory costs, with the split letting pricing reflect what different workloads need.

• Core VPS - the former Cloud VPS line on shared cores, still sold as Cloud VPS 4 to Cloud VPS 18.
• Performance VPS - a new tier on AMD EPYC with NVMe storage, sold as Cloud VPS Plus 4 to Plus 18.
• Max Performance VPS - the renamed VDS line with dedicated cores, still sold as Cloud VDS S to XXL.

Two more changes landed in the autumn. On 2 October 2026 Contabo published pricing for a GPU VPS built on an NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell card, and the old Customer Panel is being retired on 12 October 2026 in favour of the new panel at new.contabo.com. If you have bookmarks or scripts pointed at the old panel, move them now.

Core VPS plans and prices

Core VPS is the entry tier and the one behind Contabo's reputation. Every plan has unlimited traffic under a fair-use policy, KVM virtualisation and a fixed port speed. Prices below are the list price first, then the effective monthly rate on a 24-month subscription.

• Cloud VPS 4 - 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD, 1 snapshot, 200 Mbit/s - EUR 5.50 list, EUR 4.40 on 24 months (USD 6.60 list).
• Cloud VPS 6 - 6 vCPU, 12 GB RAM, 200 GB SSD, 2 snapshots, 300 Mbit/s - EUR 7.50 list, EUR 6.00 on 24 months (USD 9.00 list).
• Cloud VPS 8 - 8 vCPU, 24 GB RAM, 300 GB SSD, 3 snapshots, 600 Mbit/s - EUR 14.00 list, EUR 11.20 on 24 months (USD 16.80 list).
• Cloud VPS 12 - 12 vCPU, 48 GB RAM, 400 GB SSD, 3 snapshots, 800 Mbit/s - EUR 25.00 list, EUR 20.00 on 24 months (USD 30.00 list).
• Cloud VPS 16 - 16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD, 3 snapshots, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 37.00 list, EUR 29.60 on 24 months (USD 44.50 list).
• Cloud VPS 18 - 18 vCPU, 96 GB RAM, 600 GB SSD, 3 snapshots, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 49.00 list, EUR 39.20 on 24 months (USD 58.80 list).

Contabo's own help centre says the processor of a Core VPS "will be assigned based on the availability during provisioning", and the product FAQ describes Core VPS as running "across multiple CPU generations". In plain terms, two identical Cloud VPS 8 orders can land on different hardware. Because the dedicated-core tier is marketed with "No Noisy Neighbors", it is fair to read Core VPS cores as shared.

Useful extras on this tier: Storage Extension can double disk capacity (up to 1.2 TB on the top plan), the Contabo API and CLI are Terraform-compatible, and provisioning takes a few minutes once payment clears. Plesk is free for the first month; cPanel and Plesk otherwise cost extra.

Performance VPS and Max Performance VPS

The Performance VPS tier keeps the same plan sizes as Core VPS but moves to AMD EPYC processors and NVMe storage, adds more disk, raises the port speed and gives every plan 5 snapshots. It costs roughly two to two and a half times the Core price for the same CPU and RAM.

• Cloud VPS Plus 4 - 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 150 GB NVMe, 500 Mbit/s - EUR 13.50 list, EUR 10.80 on 24 months.
• Cloud VPS Plus 6 - 6 vCPU, 12 GB, 300 GB NVMe, 500 Mbit/s - EUR 19.00 list, EUR 15.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VPS Plus 8 - 8 vCPU, 24 GB, 450 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 35.00 list, EUR 28.00 on 24 months.
• Cloud VPS Plus 12 - 12 vCPU, 48 GB, 600 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 59.00 list, EUR 47.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VPS Plus 16 - 16 vCPU, 64 GB, 750 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 79.00 list, EUR 63.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VPS Plus 18 - 18 vCPU, 96 GB, 900 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 99.00 list, EUR 79.20 on 24 months.

Max Performance VPS is the old VDS line under a new name. Contabo sells it as dedicated CPU and RAM with "No Noisy Neighbors", on AMD EPYC 7282 cores at 2.8 GHz with NVMe storage.

• Cloud VDS S - 6 cores, 24 GB, 180 GB NVMe, 250 Mbit/s - EUR 39.00 list, EUR 31.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VDS M - 8 cores, 32 GB, 240 GB NVMe, 500 Mbit/s - EUR 49.00 list, EUR 39.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VDS L - 12 cores, 48 GB, 360 GB NVMe, 750 Mbit/s - EUR 69.00 list, EUR 55.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VDS XL - 16 cores, 64 GB, 480 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 94.00 list, EUR 75.20 on 24 months.
• Cloud VDS XXL - 24 cores, 96 GB, 720 GB NVMe, 1 Gbit/s - EUR 139.00 list, EUR 111.20 on 24 months.

Storage VPS, dedicated servers and GPU VPS

Storage VPS trades CPU for disk. It starts at Storage VPS 10 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 300 GB SSD) for EUR 5.50 list or EUR 4.40 on 24 months, and tops out at Storage VPS 50 (14 vCPU, 50 GB RAM, 1.4 TB SSD) for EUR 37.00 list or EUR 29.60 on 24 months. The old Object Storage page now redirects to Storage VPS, so do not plan around an S3-style Contabo product without checking it is still on sale.

Dedicated servers use a different discount: the lower price applies for the first 12 months. Contabo lists no setup fees, unlimited traffic and IPMI (iLO) access on that page.

• AMD Ryzen 12 Cores (Ryzen 9 7900, 64 GB, 1 TB NVMe) - EUR 149.00 list, EUR 109.65 for the first 12 months (marked as a limited special offer).
• AMD Genoa 24 Cores (EPYC 9224, 128 GB ECC, 2x 1 TB SSD) - EUR 199.00 list, EUR 179.10 for the first 12 months.
• AMD Turin 32 Cores (EPYC 9355P, 128 GB, 2x 1 TB NVMe, 10 Gbit/s port available) - EUR 399.00 list, EUR 359.10 for the first 12 months.
• AMD Turin 64 Cores (EPYC 9555P, 192 GB) - EUR 699.00 list, EUR 629.10 for the first 12 months.

The newest product is a GPU VPS. Contabo's 2 October 2026 blog post prices it at $1,199 a month for one NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition card with 96 GB of video memory, 18 processor cores, 96 GB of RAM and 900 GB of NVMe storage, with no setup fee. That is a single, fixed configuration, not a range of GPU sizes.

How the headline price really works

Every VPS, VDS and Storage VPS price on Contabo's site is shown twice: a struck-through list price and a lower figure labelled "for the first 24 months". The footnote reads: "The price displayed is the effective monthly rate for a 24-month subscription including applicable taxes." On every plan we checked, the lower figure is exactly 20% below list.

So EUR 4.40 is what Cloud VPS 4 costs per month if you commit to two years. Month to month, it is EUR 5.50. Whether VAT is included depends on where you are, since the footnote says "including applicable taxes". USD list prices appear in the pages' structured data, but Contabo does not show a USD 24-month rate; applying the same 20% to USD 6.60 would give about USD 5.28, which is our calculation, not a quoted price.

Contract terms do not quite agree

The product page footnote says the minimum initial contract is 1 month, the following term equals the initial one, and the cancellation notice is "None (pre-paid) or 4 weeks (post-paid)". The terms and conditions (effective December 2025) say contracts have an initial term of one, three, six or twelve months and renew automatically unless either side cancels with four weeks' notice before the end of the term. Read the order form for the exact term and notice period on your order.

The terms also say that a one-month server term is due in full immediately, and that customers outside Germany pay for all services upfront. There is no hourly or per-second billing anywhere in Contabo's documentation: the shortest unit is a month.

Price changes

Clause 4 of the terms lets Contabo adjust prices "in line with market developments", says a price increase generally requires the customer's consent, and gives a special right of termination. The help centre adds that base price changes on VPS plans are announced in advance by newsletter. Given that the 2026 relaunch was explicitly linked to rising hardware costs, it is worth keeping that newsletter turned on.

Locations and the location fee

Contabo lists 9 regions and 11 locations: five data centres in Germany, three in the US (New York, Seattle and St. Louis), one in the UK (Portsmouth), Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, and a new data centre in India. The dedicated server page counts twelve locations in nine regions, so expect the list to keep moving.

The catch is the location fee. Contabo's help centre says it "applies to servers located in data centers in the United States, Asia, and Australia" and that "the price varies by service and region". The amount is shown only in the Customer Panel during ordering, not on the public price list. The only surcharge-free regions are in the European Union, and moving a live server between regions carries a one-time fee on top.

Traffic, DDoS protection and acceptable use

Incoming traffic is unlimited and unmetered. Outgoing traffic is unlimited under a fair-use policy based on average server workloads, and Contabo reserves the right to throttle servers with exceptionally high or disruptive usage. The practical limit is the port speed of your plan, from 200 Mbit/s on Cloud VPS 4 to 1 Gbit/s on the larger plans.

One inconsistency: the dedicated server product page lists 1 Gbit/s, while a help article says most dedicated servers run at 100 Mbps with select high-end models at 1 Gbps. Confirm the port speed for the exact server before ordering.

DDoS protection is switched on automatically and free for all Contabo servers, though Contabo says it cannot guarantee that every attack will be repelled. Abuse handling is strict: if an abuse report lands, you are expected to fix it within 24 hours or access to the server is suspended. The terms ban spamming and running IRC servers, among other things.

Contabo's SLA promises availability at an annual average of 99.9%.

Add-ons and extra costs

The base price covers the server. These are the extras most people end up adding:

• Additional IPv4 - EUR 3.50 a month. Limits: 1 extra IPv4 per VPS, 15 per VDS, 25 per dedicated server.
• Private networking - EUR 2.73 a month per Cloud VPS, EUR 6.89 per Cloud VDS.
• Windows Server licence - EUR 4.99 a month.
• Auto Backup - off-server backups kept for up to 10 days. The price is shown in the panel, not as public text, and the availability note still uses the old plan names and excludes Storage VPS.
• Storage Extension, cPanel and Plesk licences, and Full Monitoring - priced in the order flow.

Snapshots are included in every plan (1 to 3 on Core VPS, 5 on Performance VPS), but they are not long-term backups: Contabo deletes snapshots after 30 days. Treat them as a safety net before an upgrade, and run your own off-site backups for anything you cannot lose.

Refunds and cancellation

You can request a refund within the first 14 days of a Contabo contract. After an automatic renewal, a refund request is possible if the renewal happened less than 72 hours ago, but that option is not available to customers in Germany. Refunds of account balance may carry an administration fee.

Business accounts are not eligible for revocation, and domains cannot be revoked at all. If you sign up as a company, assume the 14-day consumer route does not apply to you.

Cancelling a VPS permanently deletes all its snapshots and backups. Download anything you need before you submit the cancellation, and mind the notice period on your order form so you are not billed for another term.

Contabo vs Hetzner, Vultr and OVHcloud

Against Hetzner and Vultr, the biggest difference is billing. Both bill by the hour, so you can run a server for an afternoon and pay for an afternoon. Contabo bills by the month and rewards two-year commitments. If your servers live for weeks or years, Contabo's specs per euro win; if they live for hours, they do not.

Against OVHcloud, Contabo competes on the same European-host, generous-traffic ground. The deciding factors are usually region coverage, the location fee outside the EU and whether you need guaranteed cores. See our Hetzner, Vultr and OVHcloud reviews for their current plans and terms.

Who should use Contabo

• Good fit: self-hosters, homelab overflow, staging and dev servers, game servers, VPN and proxy nodes, and small production sites that run 24/7 in the EU.
• Good fit: anyone who needs lots of RAM or disk on a tight budget and can commit for a year or two.
• Poor fit: autoscaling or short-lived workloads that need hourly billing.
• Poor fit: latency-sensitive or CPU-bound production on the Core tier, where the hardware generation is not fixed - use Max Performance VPS instead.
• Poor fit: buyers outside the EU who have not checked the location fee for their region.

Frequently asked questions

Is Contabo really EUR 4.40 a month?

Only on a 24-month subscription. The list price of Cloud VPS 4 is EUR 5.50 a month, and the EUR 4.40 figure is the effective monthly rate for two years, 20% below list. Servers in the US, Asia and Australia also add a location fee.

Does Contabo have hourly billing?

No. The shortest term is one month, paid upfront. Customers outside Germany pay for all services in advance under Contabo's terms.

Can I get a refund from Contabo?

Yes, within the first 14 days of the contract. After an automatic renewal you can ask within 72 hours, except in Germany. Business accounts are not eligible for revocation.

How do I cancel, and what happens to my data?

Cancel from the Customer Panel before the notice period on your order runs out. Cancelling a VPS permanently deletes its snapshots and backups, so copy your data off first.

How much is the location fee for US or Asia servers?

Contabo does not publish it. The fee varies by service and region and is shown only in the Customer Panel when you order. EU locations have no surcharge.

Are snapshots the same as backups?

No. Snapshots are deleted after 30 days and are removed when you cancel. Auto Backup keeps off-server copies for up to 10 days and is a paid add-on, not available on Storage VPS.

Can I run Windows on a Contabo VPS?

Yes, with a Windows Server licence at EUR 4.99 a month on top of the server price.

What is the difference between Core VPS and Max Performance VPS?

Core VPS uses shared cores on whatever CPU generation is available at provisioning. Max Performance VPS, the former VDS, gives dedicated AMD EPYC cores and RAM with no noisy neighbours, at a much higher price.

Key takeaways

• Core VPS starts at EUR 5.50 list or EUR 4.40 a month on a 24-month subscription for 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM and 100 GB SSD.
• The 2026 lineup has three tiers: Core VPS (shared cores, mixed CPU generations), Performance VPS (AMD EPYC, NVMe) and Max Performance VPS (dedicated cores, formerly VDS).
• There is no hourly billing; the shortest term is a month, paid upfront.
• US, Asia and Australia servers carry a monthly location fee shown only in the panel.
• Refunds are limited to the first 14 days, snapshots are deleted after 30 days, and cancelling wipes snapshots and backups.
• The old Customer Panel retires on 12 October 2026; the new one is at new.contabo.com.