German VPS provider: fixed-size KVM servers from $6.60 a month for 4 vCPU and 8 GB on the 1-month term, with shared cores, unlimited traffic under a fair-use throttle, and no hourly meter.
Short answer: One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $6.60 a month here, the 3rd cheapest of the 22 providers that run it as described. The AI model adds about $1.88 a month on top (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (1017), 30 requests a day at 40k tokens each, median zero-retention price; from $0.46 at the cheapest host). Fits well: One always-on agent on a very cheap box: Cloud VPS 4 gives 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB and a static IPv4 for $6.60 a month.
contabo.com/en-us/vps/27 providersSources linked
Contabo sells ordinary KVM virtual machines in fixed sizes. Core VPS is the cheap family: 4–18 vCPU, 8–96 GB of RAM and 100–600 GB of SSD, from $6.60 a month. Performance VPS adds current AMD EPYC cores and NVMe, Storage VPS trades CPU for up to 1.4 TB of disk, and Cloud VDS gives 6–24 dedicated vCores. There are also GPU VPS and bare-metal dedicated servers.
It is a plain server product, not a sandbox API. You get root, SSH, any TCP port, a static IPv4 and a /64 IPv6 subnet, and the machine exists until you cancel it. There is no prompt endpoint, no per-session microVM, no pause that keeps memory and no fork.
Billing is prepaid by term: 1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 months, one flat price per server. There is no hourly or per-second meter, so a powered-off server keeps billing until the paid period ends. The 1-month term is the ongoing monthly price; the heavily advertised 24-month rate is paid upfront for two years.
At a glance
Who it is for
Readers who want the cheapest possible always-on Linux box for one agent, an n8n instance, a chat bot or an MCP server, are comfortable with a terminal, and accept shared CPU cores and a monthly prepayment. It is not a fit for per-task sandboxes, a team that needs SSO and a hard spend cap, or anyone who needs a vendor security report.
Isolation
A full KVM virtual machine with its own kernel, root, Docker and public IP. The vCPU cores are shared with other customers on the same host, and Contabo's own blog says performance can vary with neighbouring tenant load. Nested virtualisation is not supported on Core VPS; it is supported only on the dedicated-core Cloud VDS line, which has no snapshots or Auto Backup. The GPU product is a separate, single-configuration instance.
Sizes
Six fixed Core VPS shapes: 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 100 GB at $6.60; 6 / 12 / 200 at $9.00; 8 / 24 / 300 at $16.80; 12 / 48 / 400 at $30.00; 16 / 64 / 500 at $44.50; 18 / 96 / 600 at $58.80. CPU and RAM cannot be chosen independently. Performance VPS goes to 18 vCPU / 96 GB with NVMe; Cloud VDS to 24 dedicated vCores / 96 GB; Storage VPS to 1.4 TB. Upgrades are in place with a short reboot; there is no downgrade, and a plan-family change means a new server and a new IP.
A personal agent here
About $6.60 a month for one always-on 2 vCPU / 4 GiB machine (Cloud VPS 4: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB / 100 GiB), before the AI model. Change the numbers
Our reading of the sourced material on this page, not a provider claim.
Fits well
One always-on agent on a very cheap box: Cloud VPS 4 gives 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB and a static IPv4 for $6.60 a month.
n8n on the 1-click image: the server is installed for you and the editor opens at the server's IP, with no terminal step.
A predictable bill: one flat monthly price, unlimited traffic under fair use, and no per-GiB overage.
EU data residency in Germany, with a DPA you can create online, at the same price as the US regions.
A bigger box when needed: 18 vCPU / 96 GB for $58.80, or a VDS with 24 dedicated vCores.
Automation through the REST API, the open-source cntb CLI or Terraform, including cloud-init.
Fits badly
Many short runs or one machine per task: there is no hourly or per-second meter, so a ten-minute task costs a month.
Pause and resume: a stop powers the machine off, loses memory and still bills.
A team that needs SAML/OIDC single sign-on, a hard account spend cap, usage alerts or a SOC 2 report.
A workload that cannot tolerate a noisy neighbour: the vCPU cores are shared and Contabo says performance can vary.
Managed TLS, preview URLs, a file API, a PTY API or an MCP server: none is offered.
Nested virtualisation on the cheap Core VPS, Windows bring-your-own-licence, or a GPU today: nested virt needs the VDS line, and the GPU VPS was on a waitlist.
How it bills
Model
Prepaid term of 1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 months with one flat price per server. Add-ons are separate monthly charges: Auto Backup, Private Networking, an extra IPv4, a storage extension, Windows Server and control panels.
Meter
A flat price per server per month; no hourly or per-second meter. Cloud VPS 4 is $6.60 a month on the 1-month term and $5.28 a month on the 24-month term, paid upfront.
While stopped
Powering off keeps the disk and the bill. The contract is for the billing period, not for running time, and a cancellation leaves the service active until the end of the period already paid for.
Plan fee
No platform fee. The plan price is the whole machine charge, and no setup fee was shown for any term at this check.
Minimum
One month of Cloud VPS 4 at $6.60. No free tier and no signup credit; payment is due before the server is provisioned.
The cheapest VPS listing in this comparison for an always-on 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 100 GB server: $6.60 a month.
A real KVM VM with root, Docker, SSH, any TCP port and a static IPv4 for the life of the server.
Unlimited inbound and outbound traffic under a fair-use policy, with no per-GiB bill.
Nine regions on four continents, including five data centres in Germany and a UK location.
A 1-click n8n image that opens in a browser, plus OpenClaw, Hermes Agent and Paperclip images.
A documented REST API, an open-source CLI, a Terraform provider, cloud-init and custom ISO/QCOW2 images.
A DPA created online and a 99.9% annual average connectivity promise.
Using it without writing code
Dashboard
Yes: the Customer Control Panel creates and manages servers, start/stop/restart, reinstall, snapshots, a VNC console, the rescue system, firewall, private networking, storage extension, DNS and reverse DNS, upgrades and add-ons.
Without code
Partly. Ordering, the OS or 1-click image and the first boot are click-through. n8n then opens in a browser at the server's IP. OpenClaw and Hermes still need SSH and their own onboarding wizard, and everything after the image is yours.
Signup
An email address and a payment method. There is no free tier or starting credit and the first invoice is due before provisioning; card, PayPal, bank transfer and SEPA are offered depending on currency, and non-card first payments are manual.
Docs and support
A product documentation site at docs.contabo.com, a large help centre, a Redoc API reference at api.contabo.com, an open-source cntb CLI, a Terraform provider and a status page. No official Python or TypeScript SDK and no MCP server.
Tools you can use
Contabo has 4 of the 10 ways to drive a machine that this guide checks, and 1 more with a catch. From its own documentation; how pleasant each one is to use was not tested. Compare every provider
Resize while runningWith a catch An upgrade needs a short reboot and cannot shrink; a smaller plan means a new server, a new IP and a manual migration.
GPUsWith a catch GPU VPS is one fixed configuration in two locations, cannot be customised, and was on a waitlist at this check.
Pick an older snapshotWith a catch Cloud VPS 4 holds one snapshot at a time, so there is no earlier point to return to once it is replaced; every snapshot expires after 30 days.
Mount outside storageWith a catch Object Storage is S3-compatible, but there is no native mount; Contabo documents s3fs-fuse or goofys for filesystem access.
Choose the idle timeoutWith a catch There is no idle setting at all: the only behaviour is to run until you stop it, so you cannot choose a timeout or save money by letting it sleep.
Stored secretsWith a catch The secret store holds provisioning passwords and SSH keys; it does not put API keys into the machine as environment variables.
Hard spending capWith a catch The prepaid term caps the machine's own bill, but there is no account-level spending limit; add-ons and upgrades are separate purchases.
KKR agreed in June 2022 to acquire a majority stake; Oakley Capital kept a minority stake alongside management and the hosting entrepreneurs Thomas Strohe, Jochen Berger and Thomas Vollrath. No later change is stated on the pages checked.
“KKR, ein weltweit führender Investor, hat Vereinbarungen über den Erwerb einer Mehrheitsbeteiligung an Contabo”kkr.comthird-party
Uptime promise
99.9% annual average physical connectivity for VPS, VDS and dedicated servers, excluding maintenance and causes outside Contabo's control. No service credit or refund formula is published.
“The Provider will ensure that the physical connectivity of the object storage infrastructure, webspace packages, dedicated servers, virtual dedicated server and VPS is available at an annual average rate of 99.9%.”contabo.comdocs-confirmed
Data processing
A standardised GDPR data processing agreement can be created in the control panel, covering VPS, VDS, dedicated servers and object storage, in English, German or Spanish.
“A Data Processing Agreement (DPA) is a contract between Contabo and its customer that governs the processing of personal data by Contabo on behalf of the customer”docs.contabo.comdocs-confirmed
Certifications
The India location page lists ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, PCI DSS and SOC 1/SOC 2 Type 2 among the data centre's certifications. The page does not say whether Contabo or the facility holds them, and Contabo publishes no trust centre or route to request a SOC 2 report.
Ticket support, advertised at a two-hour average response time; no contractual response time is published.
“2 Hours Average Response Time”contabo.comdocs-confirmed
Support scope
Covers the VPS, network, hardware and the initial install of a 1-click app; maintaining the application is the customer's job.
“Contabo provides full technical assistance for the Contabo VPS itself - including the network, hardware, and initial setup of any 1-click Add-Ons.”contabo.comdocs-confirmed
Caveats and contradictions
Shown as the research found them. A contradiction means the provider's own pages disagree; an open question means the answer is not published.
01
The cores are shared, not dedicated Contradiction
Core VPS uses shared vCPU cores. Contabo's blog says a VPS shares physical cores with other customers and that performance can vary with neighbouring load, while the product docs call CPU and RAM "dedicated allocations but shared at the hypervisor level". The two statements describe the same thing: an allocation that is not a guaranteed physical core.
“A VPS shares physical CPU cores across multiple customers on the same host”
A monthly plan is the smallest unit of billing Open question
There is no hourly or per-second rate. One ten-minute task costs a whole month, and 1,000 tasks only become cheap if they share one server. This is the opposite of what a per-task agent workload needs.
03
Stopping does not stop the bill Open question
The plan is sold by term, not by running hour. Powering off keeps the disk but the period is already paid for, and a cancellation leaves the service active until the end of the current billing period. There is no cheaper stopped-storage rate.
04
Two first-party statements on cancellation notice Contradiction
The Terms say a contract extends for another term unless either party terminates with four weeks' notice before the end. The VPS page footnote says the minimum cancellation notice is "None (pre-paid) or 4 weeks (post-paid)". The model assumes a 1-month prepaid term that can be ended at the end of the paid month, but a buyer should confirm in the panel which rule applies to their contract.
“The contractual term will be extended by an additional period equivalent to the one selected for the initial term”
The 24-month price is not the monthly price Open question
The $5.28 headline is the effective monthly rate on a 24-month term, paid as $126.72 upfront. The 1-month term is $6.60. The card uses $6.60 because the site prices the cheapest monthly-billed term at its ongoing price.
06
The USD list is a fixed multiple of the EUR list Open question
Every USD figure on the en-US pages is 1.2× the EUR figure at this check (€5.50 → $6.60, €4.40 → $5.28), not a market exchange rate, with small rounding on Cloud VPS 16 ($44.50 vs €37.00 × 1.2 = $44.40). The account currency is fixed at order and EU consumers pay VAT on top. Add-on prices in the configurator are shown in EUR even on the en-US site.
07
One snapshot slot, deleted after 30 days Open question
Cloud VPS 4 includes one snapshot; larger plans include two or three. Every snapshot is deleted after 30 days, cannot be downloaded, and is a disk image, not a memory image. Auto Backup is a separate paid add-on with 10 daily off-server backups, and Contabo does not guarantee that a backup is recoverable.
08
The support page still says 75 GB NVMe Contradiction
The support page's product strip says Cloud VPS 4 starts with "75 GB NVMe", while the VPS page, pricing page and product docs all say 100 GB SSD. The model uses 100 GB SSD; the support line looks stale.
“Starts with 4 vCPU cores, 8 GB RAM, and 75 GB NVMe.”
SOC 2 is listed for the data centre, not clearly for Contabo Open question
Location pages list SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 among the facility's certifications. Contabo publishes no trust centre, no report-request route and no statement that the report covers its VPS platform. A procurement team should ask for the report and its scope before assuming either way.
10
Support ends where the application begins Open question
Contabo supports the VPS, network and hardware and the initial install of a 1-click app. It says maintenance, upgrading and troubleshooting of the application are the customer's responsibility, and the advertised two-hour response time is an average, not a promise.
11
GB is not necessarily GiB Open question
Contabo labels RAM and disk in GB. The card maps 8 GB to 8 GiB. If the figure is decimal, 8 GB is 7.45 GiB and workload B's 8 GiB request does not fit; the next plan (12 GB) would be needed. Contabo does not publish which unit it uses.
What users say
Opinion, not research. Read from public Trustpilot and Reddit pages on 30 October 2026. It changes no verdict on this page; everything above comes from Contabo's own documents.
Trustpilot 4.6 out of 5 from 11,613 reviews · see the page
Contabo's own page for VPS, VDS and dedicated servers.
Contabo sells cheap, large VPS and VDS plans that reviewers say perform well day to day, and its support can fix things quickly when a named agent picks up the ticket. The recurring failure is outages handled with silence: multiple customers reported their VDS down for two to three days in late October 2026 with no human reply or ETA.
How much to trust this: The 4.6 average comes from 11,613 reviews over years; the reviews read are from a single week of outages, so both the average and this page are biased in opposite directions. Reviews appear to be solicited after support contacts.
Monthly plan (Cloud VPS 4)1 × $6.60 a month, running 166.67 h of tasks back to back$6.60
The card uses the 1-month term, the only monthly-billed option, at its ongoing price. The 3- and 6-month terms cost the same per month; 12 months is 15% cheaper and 24 months 20% cheaper, both paid upfront.
Term choice: the card prices the 1-month term. Cloud VPS 4 is $6.60 a month on 1, 3 or 6 months, $5.28 a month on the 24-month term ($126.72 paid upfront for two years), and €5.50 (1–6 months) / €4.68 (12 months) / €4.40 (24 months) in the EUR list. The 24-month rate is the one Contabo advertises most prominently; the 1-month rate is the ongoing price a monthly buyer pays.
No setup fee was shown for any term in the configurator on 2026-10-30 ("No Setup Fee" under 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months). Contabo has advertised no VPS setup fee since 2014.
There is no hourly or per-second meter. A server is sold as a monthly plan, so a single ten-minute task costs a whole month, and tasks mode assumes all runs share one plan back to back. Running one fresh server per task would need one monthly plan per task.
A powered-off server keeps billing for the paid period: the contract is for a term, not for running time, and cancelling leaves the service active until the end of the current billing period. The card bills one monthly plan for workload C whether the server runs 90 hours or 730.
Cloud VPS 4 is 4 vCPU / 8 GB RAM / 100 GB SSD. The 4 vCPU and 8 GB are the smallest Core VPS allocation, so workload A (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) and workload C (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) are served by a larger shape. There is no custom CPU/RAM split.
Contabo labels RAM and disk in GB. The card maps 8 GB to 8 GiB, as the other VPS cards do. If 8 GB is decimal, it is 7.45 GiB and workload B's 8 GiB request is 0.55 GiB short; the next shape (Cloud VPS 6, 12 GB) would be needed. This is unresolved because Contabo does not say which unit it means.
Add-ons are separate monthly charges and are not in A/B/C: Auto Backup (€1.65/month on Cloud VPS 4 in the configurator), Private Networking (€2.29/month), one additional IPv4 (€3.50/month), 100 GB extra SSD (€1.50/month), Windows Server licence (€8.00/month). Those are net EUR prices from the configurator; the USD list is a fixed 1.2× the EUR list at this check.
Storage Extension adds capacity of the plan's own type, up to 1.2 TB on the top Core plan. It is tied to the server and is not a detachable volume, so it is not modelled as a volume.
GPU VPS (one NVIDIA RTX 6000 PRO configuration, EU and US Central) is a separate product and was showing a waitlist on 2026-10-30; it is not in this card.
Prices are Contabo's own USD list on the en-US site, excluding VAT. The account currency is fixed at order; EUR and GBP lists differ, and EU consumers pay VAT on top.
The card uses the 1-month term, the only monthly-billed option, at its ongoing price. The 3- and 6-month terms cost the same per month; 12 months is 15% cheaper and 24 months 20% cheaper, both paid upfront.
Term choice: the card prices the 1-month term. Cloud VPS 4 is $6.60 a month on 1, 3 or 6 months, $5.28 a month on the 24-month term ($126.72 paid upfront for two years), and €5.50 (1–6 months) / €4.68 (12 months) / €4.40 (24 months) in the EUR list. The 24-month rate is the one Contabo advertises most prominently; the 1-month rate is the ongoing price a monthly buyer pays.
No setup fee was shown for any term in the configurator on 2026-10-30 ("No Setup Fee" under 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months). Contabo has advertised no VPS setup fee since 2014.
There is no hourly or per-second meter. A server is sold as a monthly plan, so a single ten-minute task costs a whole month, and tasks mode assumes all runs share one plan back to back. Running one fresh server per task would need one monthly plan per task.
A powered-off server keeps billing for the paid period: the contract is for a term, not for running time, and cancelling leaves the service active until the end of the current billing period. The card bills one monthly plan for workload C whether the server runs 90 hours or 730.
Cloud VPS 4 is 4 vCPU / 8 GB RAM / 100 GB SSD. The 4 vCPU and 8 GB are the smallest Core VPS allocation, so workload A (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) and workload C (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) are served by a larger shape. There is no custom CPU/RAM split.
Contabo labels RAM and disk in GB. The card maps 8 GB to 8 GiB, as the other VPS cards do. If 8 GB is decimal, it is 7.45 GiB and workload B's 8 GiB request is 0.55 GiB short; the next shape (Cloud VPS 6, 12 GB) would be needed. This is unresolved because Contabo does not say which unit it means.
Add-ons are separate monthly charges and are not in A/B/C: Auto Backup (€1.65/month on Cloud VPS 4 in the configurator), Private Networking (€2.29/month), one additional IPv4 (€3.50/month), 100 GB extra SSD (€1.50/month), Windows Server licence (€8.00/month). Those are net EUR prices from the configurator; the USD list is a fixed 1.2× the EUR list at this check.
Storage Extension adds capacity of the plan's own type, up to 1.2 TB on the top Core plan. It is tied to the server and is not a detachable volume, so it is not modelled as a volume.
GPU VPS (one NVIDIA RTX 6000 PRO configuration, EU and US Central) is a separate product and was showing a waitlist on 2026-10-30; it is not in this card.
Prices are Contabo's own USD list on the en-US site, excluding VAT. The account currency is fixed at order; EUR and GBP lists differ, and EU consumers pay VAT on top.
The card uses the 1-month term, the only monthly-billed option, at its ongoing price. The 3- and 6-month terms cost the same per month; 12 months is 15% cheaper and 24 months 20% cheaper, both paid upfront.
Term choice: the card prices the 1-month term. Cloud VPS 4 is $6.60 a month on 1, 3 or 6 months, $5.28 a month on the 24-month term ($126.72 paid upfront for two years), and €5.50 (1–6 months) / €4.68 (12 months) / €4.40 (24 months) in the EUR list. The 24-month rate is the one Contabo advertises most prominently; the 1-month rate is the ongoing price a monthly buyer pays.
No setup fee was shown for any term in the configurator on 2026-10-30 ("No Setup Fee" under 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months). Contabo has advertised no VPS setup fee since 2014.
There is no hourly or per-second meter. A server is sold as a monthly plan, so a single ten-minute task costs a whole month, and tasks mode assumes all runs share one plan back to back. Running one fresh server per task would need one monthly plan per task.
A powered-off server keeps billing for the paid period: the contract is for a term, not for running time, and cancelling leaves the service active until the end of the current billing period. The card bills one monthly plan for workload C whether the server runs 90 hours or 730.
Cloud VPS 4 is 4 vCPU / 8 GB RAM / 100 GB SSD. The 4 vCPU and 8 GB are the smallest Core VPS allocation, so workload A (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) and workload C (2 vCPU / 4 GiB) are served by a larger shape. There is no custom CPU/RAM split.
Contabo labels RAM and disk in GB. The card maps 8 GB to 8 GiB, as the other VPS cards do. If 8 GB is decimal, it is 7.45 GiB and workload B's 8 GiB request is 0.55 GiB short; the next shape (Cloud VPS 6, 12 GB) would be needed. This is unresolved because Contabo does not say which unit it means.
Add-ons are separate monthly charges and are not in A/B/C: Auto Backup (€1.65/month on Cloud VPS 4 in the configurator), Private Networking (€2.29/month), one additional IPv4 (€3.50/month), 100 GB extra SSD (€1.50/month), Windows Server licence (€8.00/month). Those are net EUR prices from the configurator; the USD list is a fixed 1.2× the EUR list at this check.
Storage Extension adds capacity of the plan's own type, up to 1.2 TB on the top Core plan. It is tied to the server and is not a detachable volume, so it is not modelled as a volume.
GPU VPS (one NVIDIA RTX 6000 PRO configuration, EU and US Central) is a separate product and was showing a waitlist on 2026-10-30; it is not in this card.
Prices are Contabo's own USD list on the en-US site, excluding VAT. The account currency is fixed at order; EUR and GBP lists differ, and EU consumers pay VAT on top.