A French cloud provider's plain VPS: four fixed sizes from $5.35 a month on a monthly subscription, with root, a dedicated IPv4 and unlimited traffic, and a powered-off server still billed.
Short answer: One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $5.35 a month here, the 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: An always-on agent on the cheapest possible box: VPS-1 at $5.35 a month with 2 vCores, 4 GB and a dedicated IPv4 covers Hermes, OpenClaw, a chat bot or an MCP server.
us.ovhcloud.com/vps/27 providersSources linked
OVHcloud VPS is an ordinary rented virtual machine from one of Europe's largest hosting companies: fixed vCores, RAM and NVMe disk in one bundle, root access, real SSH, any TCP port, a dedicated IPv4 and IPv6, and a monthly subscription. You choose Linux, Windows or BSD from OVHcloud's images and administer everything above the hypervisor yourself.
The current range is called VPS 2027 and has four models: VPS-1 (2 vCores / 4 GB / 40 GB), VPS-2 (4 / 8 / 75), VPS-3 (6 / 12 / 100) and VPS-4 (8 / 24 / 200). A daily backup, anti-DDoS protection and unlimited traffic are included; a manual snapshot and a 7-day premium backup are paid options, and an additional disk adds 50 GB to 10 TB.
It is not a sandbox product. There is no prompt endpoint, no pause or memory snapshot, no idle sleep, no per-second meter and no session limit. The machine exists from order until cancellation. OVHcloud's Public Cloud instances are the hourly, API-first alternative and are a different product with a different price list; this page prices only VPS.
At a glance
Who it is for
Someone who wants a cheap always-on Linux or Windows server in Europe or North America and will run the operating system, the agent, the firewall and the backups themselves. It suits a personal Hermes or OpenClaw agent, n8n, a Discord bot, a scheduled scraper or a small MCP server. It is a poor fit for many short-lived tasks, untrusted code, or anyone who wants a dashboard that installs the agent for them.
Isolation
A full virtual machine per server with its own kernel, disk and public IP: root, Docker, real SSH and any port. OVHcloud does not name the hypervisor on the VPS pages, publishes no CPU-share or burst policy for its vCores, and does not document nested virtualisation. There is no GPU and no custom ISO or image upload: reinstallation offers only OVHcloud's own images.
Sizes
Four fixed 2027 models, 2 to 8 vCores and 4 to 24 GB of RAM, with 40 to 200 GB of NVMe. CPU, RAM and disk cannot be sized independently. RAM, vCPU and storage can be upgraded in place within the range, but a downgrade needs a new plan and a data migration, and OVHcloud's US support page says upgrades are only offered in its US regions. An additional disk adds 50 GB, 100 GB, 200 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 5 TB or 10 TB, attached to one server.
A personal agent here
About $5.35 a month for one always-on 2 vCPU / 4 GiB machine (VPS-1: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 40 GiB), before the AI model. Change the numbers
Users say: orders cancelled after payment, with generic reasons (reviews).
Bills while switched off: a stopped machine is charged like a running one; only deleting it ends the bill.
Whole months only: sold as monthly plans, with no hourly price.
CPU sharing unpublished: OVHcloud publishes no CPU-sharing, burst or contention policy for its VPS vCores, so whether a core is shared is not stated.
You run the server: OVHcloud makes the server's configuration, security and running your responsibility. A daily backup is included free.
Not for: many short runs: a monthly plan bills whether the machine runs 166 hours or none, so 1,000 ten-minute tasks cost the same as an idle month.
Fits well, fits badly
Our reading of the sourced material on this page, not a provider claim.
Fits well
An always-on agent on the cheapest possible box: VPS-1 at $5.35 a month with 2 vCores, 4 GB and a dedicated IPv4 covers Hermes, OpenClaw, a chat bot or an MCP server.
n8n on a preinstalled image: OVHcloud sells n8n pre-installed on VPS plans, and VPS-1 at $5.35 is the cheapest supported n8n route in this comparison.
A real server: own kernel, root, Docker, SSH, any TCP port (port 25 is open by default outside Local Zones), a static IP and unlimited traffic.
European data residency: France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK, with a DPA and a 99.9% SLA with service credits.
Automation: a documented REST API, an official CLI that manages VPS, Python and Node SDKs, and a Terraform resource.
Fits badly
Many short runs: a monthly plan bills whether the machine runs 166 hours or none, so 1,000 ten-minute tasks cost the same as an idle month.
Bursty day-time use: powering off does not reduce the bill, so three hours a day costs the full month.
Untrusted code: there is no per-run sandbox, no snapshot rollback per task and no hard isolation between jobs on the same VPS.
Anything that needs a GPU, nested virtualisation, a memory snapshot, a pause, an idle sleep, a custom ISO or a provider-side egress allowlist.
Non-coders: OVHcloud says a VPS requires basic server-administration knowledge, and its own agent routes are terminal guides.
How it bills
Model
A monthly subscription per VPS, renewed automatically until cancelled, plus optional monthly add-ons (snapshot, premium backup, additional disk, additional IP, Plesk or cPanel licence). A 6- or 12-month commitment lowers the monthly price but is not required. There is no hourly or per-second rate.
Meter
Calendar months, not machine-hours. The no-commitment price is $5.35 for VPS-1, $10.00 for VPS-2, $14.50 for VPS-3 and $27.50 for VPS-4; a 12-month commitment lowers those to $4.54, $8.50, $12.32 and $23.37. The installation fee is $0.
While stopped
Nothing changes. Stopping is a power-off: the disk and IP stay, the invoice renews, and the only way to stop paying is to cancel the service. There is no pause, hibernate or cheaper stopped-storage rate.
Plan fee
No platform fee. The VPS price is the whole machine charge; the daily backup is described as free, though the order catalog also lists a $0.50–$1.20 standard-backup line.
Minimum
No free tier and no signup credit. A payment method (bank card, PayPal or SEPA direct debit) is required, and the first invoice is the full month, prorated to the first of the following month.
The cheapest always-on machine in this comparison: 2 vCores, 4 GB, 40 GB and a dedicated IPv4 for $5.35 a month.
A real server with root, Docker, SSH, any port, a static IP and unlimited traffic.
n8n can be ordered pre-installed, and OVHcloud publishes full Hermes and OpenClaw install guides.
European locations and a DPA, with a 99.9% SLA backed by service credits.
A documented REST API, an official CLI, Python and Node SDKs, and a Terraform resource.
Daily backup and anti-DDoS included, with a cheap 7-day premium backup option.
Using it without writing code
Dashboard
Yes: the OVHcloud Control Panel creates the VPS, reinstalls the OS, reboots, opens a KVM console, takes a snapshot, configures the automated backup, adds disks and IPs, and shows CPU, RAM and network graphs. The 2027 range is ordered through a configurator that needs an account.
Without code
Partly. Choosing a model, a region, an image (including n8n, Docker, Plesk or cPanel) and an SSH key is clicking. Everything after delivery — the agent, the database, TLS, the firewall — is a terminal, and OVHcloud's own Hermes and OpenClaw guides are command-line tutorials.
Signup
An OVHcloud account, an email address and a payment method (bank card, PayPal or SEPA direct debit). No free tier and no signup credit; the first invoice is the full month, prorated to the first of the next month.
Docs and support
A large, current documentation set at docs.ovhcloud.com with a VPS section covering getting started, snapshots, backups, additional disks, rescue mode, KVM, iptables, TLS, Docker, n8n, Hermes and OpenClaw, plus a complete API console and an official CLI. Support is by ticket and email; phone support depends on the support level.
Tools you can use
OVHcloud VPS has 7 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
MCP serverWith a catch Official; no VPS section. OVHcloud runs an official MCP server, but it is split into product sections and no VPS section or VPS tool is documented, so an agent cannot manage these servers through it today.
Resize while runningWith a catch You can add vCores, RAM or storage in place, but the US product page says a reboot is required, a downgrade needs a new plan and a data migration, and OVHcloud's US support page says upgrades are only offered in its US regions.
Mount outside storageWith a catch Object Storage is S3-compatible, but OVHcloud documents no native mount on a VPS: you add s3fs, rclone or an application's own S3 client yourself.
Automatic HTTPSWith a catch OVHcloud does not issue or renew a certificate for a plain VPS: you install Certbot or Traefik and renew it yourself, or use a control panel that does.
Allow only some sitesWith a catch There is no provider-side outbound allowlist in the VPS API: filtering is iptables or ufw inside the guest, which an agent with root can change.
Turn the internet offWith a catch There is no no-internet switch or private-only VPS: you drop outbound traffic with iptables inside the guest, and the VPS still has a public IP.
MCP serverWith a catch OVHcloud runs an official MCP server, but it is split into product sections and no VPS section or VPS tool is documented, so an agent cannot manage these servers through it today.
Desktop for computer useWith a catch A Windows VPS gives a real desktop over RDP, but there is no computer-use image, streaming API or preinstalled agent, and Linux images have no desktop at all.
Usage alertsWith a catch OVHcloud emails before a service expires or renews, but there is no spend-threshold or budget alert for a VPS, whose price is fixed until you change it.
Audit logWith a catch Account audit, activity and access-policy logs exist, but you must forward them to Logs Data Platform, a separate paid service, to read or keep them.
SOC 2 reportWith a catch SOC 1/2/3 reports exist for OVHcloud Services and the US data centres, but the published scope names "Bare Metal Cloud" rather than VPS, and non-US services need a sales request.
From the profile's company section: the legal entity, who funds it, and what a buyer can check before signing.
Legal entity
OVH US LLC dba OVHcloud, a Delaware limited liability company.
“OVH US LLC dba OVHcloud®, a Delaware limited liability company”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Registered address
11950 Democracy Drive, Suite 300, Reston, VA 20190.
“with its principal place of business at 11950 Democracy Drive, Suite 300, Reston, VA 20190”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Ownership
OVH US is a wholly owned subsidiary of OVH Group.
“OVH US, a wholly owned subsidiary of OVH Group”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Age
Founded in 1999.
“OVHcloud has been shaping the internet of today and tomorrow since 1999.”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Scale
46 data centres across four continents.
“46 data centers implemented across 4 continents”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Customers
More than 1.6 million customers worldwide.
“over 1.6 million customers worldwide”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Uptime promise
A 99.9% service level agreement for VPS.
“Get guaranteed availability with a 99.9% service level agreement (SLA).”us.ovhcloud.compricing-page
SLA remedy
Missed availability is remedied with service credits calculated as a percentage of the total fees paid by the customer.
“Service Credits are calculated as a percentage of the total Fees paid by the Customer”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
SOC attestations
SOC 1, SOC 2 + NIST and SOC 3 attestations; the published scope is OVHcloud Services and the US data centres.
“The scope of the SSAE 18 Type 2 SOC 1, 2, & 3 examinations is the OVHcloud Services and US Data Centers”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
ISO certifications
ISO/IEC 27001, 27017 and 27018 certifications; the published scope is OVHcloud Services and the US data centres.
“The scope of the ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, and ISO/IEC 27018 certifications include all the OVHcloud Services and US Data Centers”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
Data protection
A Data Processing Agreement forms part of the Terms of Service.
“This Data Processing Agreement (“DPA”) forms part of the OVHcloud Terms of Service”us.ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
EU data protection
OVHcloud says data hosted in its data centres is GDPR-compliant and protected from extraterritorial laws such as the CLOUD Act.
“Your data is hosted in certified datacentres compliant with the GDPR, and protected from extraterritorial laws such as the CLOUD Act.”ovhcloud.comdocs-confirmed
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 daily backup is a priced add-on that the order waives Contradiction
OVHcloud's order catalog makes a standard daily backup a mandatory option priced at $0.50 (VPS-1) to $1.20 (VPS-4) a month, while its product page and FAQ call daily backups free. The configurator settles it for now: the no-commitment VPS-1 order lists the backup at $0.50 struck through to $0.00 and totals $5.35 ex. taxes a month (checked 30 October 2026). If OVHcloud stops waiving it, the three shared workloads become $5.85, $10.60 and $5.85 a month instead of $5.35, $10.00 and $5.35.
Upgrades: reboot or no disruption, US-only or global? Contradiction
The US product page says an upgrade needs "just a quick reboot", the international page says "no service disruption", the upgrade guide says it is immediate, and the US support article says RAM, vCPU and storage upgrades are not offered outside US regions. In-place upgrade exists and keeps data and IP, but the reboot and the regional restriction are real catches; the capability is marked partly, not yes.
“Upgrade your VPS resources with a single click -- just a quick reboot required, with no data migration or configuration changes needed.”
There is no pause, hibernate or memory snapshot. Stopping powers the machine off, keeps the disk and the IP, and leaves the monthly subscription running; the only way to stop paying is to cancel, which deletes the service at the end of the term.
04
Monthly plans make short work expensive Open question
OVHcloud sells whole months. A 10-minute daily job, a three-hour-a-day coding box and an always-on agent all cost the same monthly price; there is no hourly rate to fall back to.
05
No custom image and no documented nested virtualisation Open question
Reinstallation offers only OVHcloud's images, and the API exposes an images/available list rather than an upload. Nested virtualisation is not documented either way, so QEMU/KVM inside the VPS, Firecracker or an Android emulator cannot be assumed to work.
06
SOC 2 scope does not name VPS Open question
The SOC 1/2/3 attestations cover "OVHcloud Services" and the VPS's two US data centres, with "Bare Metal Cloud" as the service family. VPS is not named, and non-US services need a sales request, so procurement should ask for the report and its scope before relying on it.
07
The US hero says 1.5 Gbps, the plan cards say up to 3 Gbps Contradiction
The US product page's banner reads "Unlimited bandwidth, up to 1.5 Gbps" while its own plan cards list 500 Mbps to 3 Gbps and the international page says up to 3 Gbps. This guide uses the plan cards.
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 OVHcloud VPS's own documents.
Trustpilot 3.8 out of 5 from 9,058 reviews · see the page
One company page for VPS, dedicated servers, web hosting, domains and webmail. Reviews mix all of them.
OVHcloud is cheap enough that people keep buying VPS there, and a working server with a named support agent gets five stars. The other half of the page is orders cancelled after payment with generic reasons, invoices that go wrong, and support that cannot escalate.
How much to trust this: One page covers VPS, webmail, domains and dedicated servers, so many complaints are not about VPS at all. At 9,058 reviews the average is more stable than page 1 suggests.
Mixed
Support quality swings between excellent and useless
Monthly plan (VPS-1)1 × $5.35 a month, running 166.67 h of tasks back to back$5.35
The card uses the no-commitment monthly price, which is also the ongoing renewal price. A 6-month commitment lowers it to $5.08 / $9.50 / $13.77 / $26.12; a 12-month commitment to $4.54 / $8.50 / $12.32 / $23.37, paid monthly. The product page's "Starting at" figures are the 12-month prices.
Prices are OVHcloud's own USD list for the US subsidiary, read from its live public order catalog on 2026-10-30. They exclude sales tax: the catalog reports taxRate 0 and the US Terms of Service say all fees are exclusive of taxes.
OVHcloud sells whole months, not machine-hours. There is no hourly or per-second rate, so the calculator bills one plan per machine and lets short tasks share a plan: 1,000 ten-minute tasks need 166.67 hours and fit on one VPS-1.
Powering off is a power-off, not a pause: the subscription renews and the disk stays attached. The monthly plan therefore already covers stopped hours, and billedWhileStopped is not set (it would double-count).
VPS-1 has 2 vCores / 4 GB / 40 GB at $5.35, VPS-2 4 / 8 / 75 at $10.00, VPS-3 6 / 12 / 100 at $14.50 and VPS-4 8 / 24 / 200 at $27.50. OVHcloud quotes RAM and disk in GB; the card maps them 1:1 to the site's GiB fields. A/B/C asks are small enough that the difference does not change a shape.
The additional disk is sold in fixed sizes at fixed monthly prices — 50 GB $2.60, 100 GB $5.20, 200 GB $10.30, 500 GB $25.70, 1 TB $51.30, 5 TB $256.50, 10 TB $512.90 — not as a per-GiB rate. disk.extraMonthly would pro-rate sizes OVHcloud does not sell, so it is omitted and a request above the plan's own disk is reported as infeasible; the reader can still attach an additional disk, which this card does not price.
The order catalog lists a mandatory standard daily backup at $0.50 (VPS-1), $0.60 (VPS-2), $0.80 (VPS-3) and $1.20 (VPS-4) a month, but OVHcloud's configurator waives it: on the no-commitment VPS-1 order it shows "Automated Backup Standard - VPS-1 2027 $0.50 $0.00" and a total of $5.35 ex. taxes/month (read 2026-10-30). The product page also calls daily backups free, so the card leaves it out.
Optional monthly add-ons not priced by the card: snapshot from $0.40 (the catalog's 20 GB option is $1.20), premium 7-day backup $1.40–$5.90, additional IPs, Plesk and cPanel licences, and a Load Balancer.
Local Zone plans are priced separately: VPS-1 LZ is $6.54 monthly-billed and VPS-2 LZ $10.00. Local Zones also lose anti-DDoS, additional IPs, Windows, cPanel/Plesk/Docker images, load balancing and managed databases. Not modelled.
Snapshots and automated backups never include additional disks. A snapshot is one at a time and is deleted when restored.
The 2026 range (VPS-1 to VPS-6, plan codes vps-2025-model*) is still listed in the catalog but is not the range OVHcloud presents for new orders; it is not modelled.
The card uses the no-commitment monthly price, which is also the ongoing renewal price. A 6-month commitment lowers it to $5.08 / $9.50 / $13.77 / $26.12; a 12-month commitment to $4.54 / $8.50 / $12.32 / $23.37, paid monthly. The product page's "Starting at" figures are the 12-month prices.
Prices are OVHcloud's own USD list for the US subsidiary, read from its live public order catalog on 2026-10-30. They exclude sales tax: the catalog reports taxRate 0 and the US Terms of Service say all fees are exclusive of taxes.
OVHcloud sells whole months, not machine-hours. There is no hourly or per-second rate, so the calculator bills one plan per machine and lets short tasks share a plan: 1,000 ten-minute tasks need 166.67 hours and fit on one VPS-1.
Powering off is a power-off, not a pause: the subscription renews and the disk stays attached. The monthly plan therefore already covers stopped hours, and billedWhileStopped is not set (it would double-count).
VPS-1 has 2 vCores / 4 GB / 40 GB at $5.35, VPS-2 4 / 8 / 75 at $10.00, VPS-3 6 / 12 / 100 at $14.50 and VPS-4 8 / 24 / 200 at $27.50. OVHcloud quotes RAM and disk in GB; the card maps them 1:1 to the site's GiB fields. A/B/C asks are small enough that the difference does not change a shape.
The additional disk is sold in fixed sizes at fixed monthly prices — 50 GB $2.60, 100 GB $5.20, 200 GB $10.30, 500 GB $25.70, 1 TB $51.30, 5 TB $256.50, 10 TB $512.90 — not as a per-GiB rate. disk.extraMonthly would pro-rate sizes OVHcloud does not sell, so it is omitted and a request above the plan's own disk is reported as infeasible; the reader can still attach an additional disk, which this card does not price.
The order catalog lists a mandatory standard daily backup at $0.50 (VPS-1), $0.60 (VPS-2), $0.80 (VPS-3) and $1.20 (VPS-4) a month, but OVHcloud's configurator waives it: on the no-commitment VPS-1 order it shows "Automated Backup Standard - VPS-1 2027 $0.50 $0.00" and a total of $5.35 ex. taxes/month (read 2026-10-30). The product page also calls daily backups free, so the card leaves it out.
Optional monthly add-ons not priced by the card: snapshot from $0.40 (the catalog's 20 GB option is $1.20), premium 7-day backup $1.40–$5.90, additional IPs, Plesk and cPanel licences, and a Load Balancer.
Local Zone plans are priced separately: VPS-1 LZ is $6.54 monthly-billed and VPS-2 LZ $10.00. Local Zones also lose anti-DDoS, additional IPs, Windows, cPanel/Plesk/Docker images, load balancing and managed databases. Not modelled.
Snapshots and automated backups never include additional disks. A snapshot is one at a time and is deleted when restored.
The 2026 range (VPS-1 to VPS-6, plan codes vps-2025-model*) is still listed in the catalog but is not the range OVHcloud presents for new orders; it is not modelled.
The card uses the no-commitment monthly price, which is also the ongoing renewal price. A 6-month commitment lowers it to $5.08 / $9.50 / $13.77 / $26.12; a 12-month commitment to $4.54 / $8.50 / $12.32 / $23.37, paid monthly. The product page's "Starting at" figures are the 12-month prices.
Prices are OVHcloud's own USD list for the US subsidiary, read from its live public order catalog on 2026-10-30. They exclude sales tax: the catalog reports taxRate 0 and the US Terms of Service say all fees are exclusive of taxes.
OVHcloud sells whole months, not machine-hours. There is no hourly or per-second rate, so the calculator bills one plan per machine and lets short tasks share a plan: 1,000 ten-minute tasks need 166.67 hours and fit on one VPS-1.
Powering off is a power-off, not a pause: the subscription renews and the disk stays attached. The monthly plan therefore already covers stopped hours, and billedWhileStopped is not set (it would double-count).
VPS-1 has 2 vCores / 4 GB / 40 GB at $5.35, VPS-2 4 / 8 / 75 at $10.00, VPS-3 6 / 12 / 100 at $14.50 and VPS-4 8 / 24 / 200 at $27.50. OVHcloud quotes RAM and disk in GB; the card maps them 1:1 to the site's GiB fields. A/B/C asks are small enough that the difference does not change a shape.
The additional disk is sold in fixed sizes at fixed monthly prices — 50 GB $2.60, 100 GB $5.20, 200 GB $10.30, 500 GB $25.70, 1 TB $51.30, 5 TB $256.50, 10 TB $512.90 — not as a per-GiB rate. disk.extraMonthly would pro-rate sizes OVHcloud does not sell, so it is omitted and a request above the plan's own disk is reported as infeasible; the reader can still attach an additional disk, which this card does not price.
The order catalog lists a mandatory standard daily backup at $0.50 (VPS-1), $0.60 (VPS-2), $0.80 (VPS-3) and $1.20 (VPS-4) a month, but OVHcloud's configurator waives it: on the no-commitment VPS-1 order it shows "Automated Backup Standard - VPS-1 2027 $0.50 $0.00" and a total of $5.35 ex. taxes/month (read 2026-10-30). The product page also calls daily backups free, so the card leaves it out.
Optional monthly add-ons not priced by the card: snapshot from $0.40 (the catalog's 20 GB option is $1.20), premium 7-day backup $1.40–$5.90, additional IPs, Plesk and cPanel licences, and a Load Balancer.
Local Zone plans are priced separately: VPS-1 LZ is $6.54 monthly-billed and VPS-2 LZ $10.00. Local Zones also lose anti-DDoS, additional IPs, Windows, cPanel/Plesk/Docker images, load balancing and managed databases. Not modelled.
Snapshots and automated backups never include additional disks. A snapshot is one at a time and is deleted when restored.
The 2026 range (VPS-1 to VPS-6, plan codes vps-2025-model*) is still listed in the catalog but is not the range OVHcloud presents for new orders; it is not modelled.