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InMotion Hosting will rent you a whole physical server for USD 35 a month, renewing at USD 49.99. SiteGround’s biggest shared plan, GoGeek, renews at USD 44.99. So the two price ranges now overlap, but the work you’re responsible for hasn’t shrunk at all. This comparison prices both sides with September 2026 figures, renewals included, and shows where a dedicated server’s real cost hides.
Quick answer: Stay on shared hosting if you run a blog, a brochure site or a small store and nobody on your team manages Linux. If you keep hitting your plan’s process limits, a managed cloud plan is usually the cheaper next step. Move to a dedicated server when you need software a shared account can’t run, or a whole machine’s resources. The same goes when a contract demands hardware nobody else touches.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Prices and features verified.
How We Built This Comparison
Every price here was read off the provider’s own pricing page on 17 September 2026. The shared hosts are ScalaHosting, Hostinger, SiteGround, HostArmada and ChemiCloud. The dedicated providers are Ultahost, Contabo, Liquid Web, DreamHost and InMotion Hosting. These are the same ten providers the previous version of this page used. We removed none and re-checked every figure.
Three rules shaped the numbers. First, we recorded the renewal price next to every promo price and calculated the multiplier. A USD 1.99 plan that renews at USD 9.95 is really a USD 9.95 plan. Second, we only counted resource limits a host publishes itself, on its pricing page or in its knowledge base. Third, we checked refund terms on each provider’s legal or refund page, not the badge in its sales copy. The two don’t always agree, and at Ultahost they flatly contradict each other.
Where the two hosting types trade off, we gave most weight to total cost over two years, including control panel licensing and management. Published resource ceilings came second, then refund exposure and hardware age. For background we used the CloudLinux documentation on shared limits and Intel’s product database for CPU launch dates. Currency conversions use the European Central Bank reference rate of EUR 1 = USD 1.1537 (16 September 2026).
What we skipped: load tests. We didn’t benchmark any of these servers ourselves. Where a host doesn’t publish a limit, we say so instead of guessing. Contabo prices in euros, so its USD figures below are our conversions, not prices Contabo quotes.
What You’re Actually Renting
A shared hosting account is a user login on a server that holds many other accounts. You get a slice of CPU time, memory, disk and database connections, plus a control panel. The host runs the operating system, the web server, PHP, the firewall and the hardware. You never see the machine and never patch it.
A dedicated server is a physical computer in a data center that nobody else uses. Every CPU core and every gigabyte of RAM is yours. So is everything above the hardware, unless you pay someone to handle it. That means the operating system, security updates, web server configuration, backups and the control panel license.
That second point matters more than raw specs. Shared hosting bundles a sysadmin into the price. Dedicated hosting usually doesn’t, and the sections below put a number on that difference.
The option in between
Plenty of buyers who think they need a dedicated server only need guaranteed resources, not a whole machine. ScalaHosting’s Entry Cloud lists 2 dedicated CPUs and 2 GB RAM for USD 14.95/mo, renewing at USD 39.95. It includes SPanel (ScalaHosting’s own control panel), automated backups and expert support. Hostinger’s managed Cloud Startup gives 4 CPU cores and 4 GB RAM for USD 7.99/mo, renewing at USD 25.99. If your problem is a busy WordPress site rather than custom software, look there first.
The Limits Shared Hosting Doesn’t Print on the Sales Page
“Unlimited bandwidth” is the headline (a word that does a lot of heavy lifting on hosting sales pages). The real ceiling sits in the account’s resource limits. A common tool for enforcing them is CloudLinux, an operating system built for shared servers, and its documentation states the goal plainly: “to make sure that no single web site can bring down your web server.” Good for stability. Less good when your site is the one being held back.
The one limit your visitors can see directly is entry processes (EP, the number of dynamic requests your account can run at the same moment). CloudLinux counts concurrent connections to dynamic scripts such as PHP, plus SSH sessions and cron jobs running at once. Go over it and visitors get a 508 “Resource Limit Reached” error, even when the server itself has spare capacity.
Only two of our five shared hosts publish process and disk I/O caps (how fast your account may read and write to disk). This is what each host tells you:
- HostArmada Start Dock: 20 entry processes, 40 total processes, a 40% average daily CPU allowance, 250,000 files and 5 MB/s disk I/O.
- Hostinger Premium: 1 CPU core, 2 GB RAM and 40 PHP workers (processes that run your site’s code). Also 400,000 inodes (files and folders), 12,288 KB/s I/O and 10 databases.
- ChemiCloud Starter: 1 core, 2 GB RAM and 250,000 inodes. No process or I/O cap appears on its plan page.
- ScalaHosting Mini: listed only as “Shared CPU & RAM”. No numbers.
- SiteGround StartUp: no CPU or process figures on the plan page. SiteGround sizes it at “around 10,000 visits” a month instead.
Look at the I/O line. Hostinger’s Premium allows about 12 MB/s of disk throughput and HostArmada’s Start Dock allows 5 MB/s. That gives Hostinger’s entry plan roughly 2.4x the disk headroom. The gap matters most for database-heavy jobs like WooCommerce imports, backups and search indexing. Rent a whole server and the host-imposed I/O cap disappears.
Read the CPU line with the same care. HostArmada’s plan card advertises 2 CPU cores for Start Dock. The quota tooltip on the same page adds “Average CPU Usage/day: 40%”. Headline cores and the CPU time you can use all day long are two different numbers.
Email gets rationed too, and this one catches store owners out. Hostinger caps mail sent by scripts through the server’s built-in system (PHP mail(), PHPMailer and similar). The limit is 10 per minute and 100 per day on every web and cloud plan. Order confirmations, shipping notices and password resets can add up to 100 fast. Hostinger itself recommends switching to SMTP (an outside mail service your site logs into), and that’s the right fix on any shared host.
A shared plan can shrink under the same name
Hostinger publishes its plan history, and the numbers moved fast. Hostinger Premium plans bought since 17 December 2025 include 3 websites and 20 GB, down from 100 websites and 100 GB before 24 April 2025. The RAM and CPU didn’t move: 2 GB and 1 core in every version. Limits follow the purchase date, so older accounts keep the old allowance. If a friend’s older Hostinger account runs a dozen sites, don’t assume a new signup will.
What Shared Hosting Costs in 2026
Promo prices on shared hosting are marketing numbers. The renewal is the price you’ll pay for most of the life of your site. Below is the entry plan at each of our five shared hosts, with the multiplier we calculated from each provider’s published figures:
- ScalaHosting Mini: USD 2.95/mo intro, renews at USD 11.95 (4.05x). 10 GB NVMe (a fast type of SSD), 1 website, 99.9% uptime guarantee.
- Hostinger Premium: USD 2.99/mo on a 48-month term, renews at USD 10.99 (3.68x). 20 GB SSD, 3 websites, 30-day refund.
- SiteGround StartUp: USD 2.99/mo prepaid for 12 months (excluding VAT), renews at USD 17.99 (6.02x). 10 GB, 1 website, 30-day refund.
- HostArmada Start Dock: USD 1.99/mo, renews at USD 9.95 (5.00x). 15 GB NVMe, 2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM, 45-day refund.
- ChemiCloud Starter: USD 1.95/mo on a 3-year term, with a listed regular rate of USD 11.95 (6.13x). 20 GB NVMe, about 25,000 visits, 45-day refund.
Notice the pattern? The two cheapest promos, ChemiCloud and HostArmada, carry two of the three steepest multipliers. Hostinger has the gentlest jump at 3.68x. HostArmada still ends up with the lowest regular price of the five, USD 9.95. SiteGround’s USD 17.99 renewal is 64% above Hostinger’s, for half the storage and a third of the websites.
Bottom line on shared costs: after the promo ends, you’re paying USD 10 to USD 18 a month. Budget from that range, not from USD 2. Our shared hosting rankings go deeper on which of these plans holds up after year one.
What Dedicated Servers Cost in 2026
Entry dedicated prices now run from USD 35 to over USD 200 a month. The spread comes down to three things: how old the hardware is, whether anyone manages it for you, and whether a control panel is included.
- Ultahost Ulta-X1: USD 93.50/mo on a 24-month term, renews at the same USD 93.50 (1.00x). 4-core Xeon E3-1265L v3, 16 GB DDR3, 256 GB SSD. Fully managed, 99.99% uptime guarantee.
- Contabo AMD Ryzen 12 Cores: about USD 126.50/mo (EUR 109.65, excluding VAT) for the first 12 months. After that it’s about USD 171.90 (EUR 149.00), a 1.36x step. Ryzen 9 7900, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe, no setup fee, self-managed.
- Liquid Web Intel Xeon E-2134: USD 205.70/mo on a 2-year term, which Liquid Web describes as 15% off. The plan card doesn’t show a renewal rate. 4 cores, 16 GB RAM, 480 GB SSD, 500 GB Acronis backups and cPanel. Fully managed, 99.99% uptime guarantee.
- DreamHost Dedicated Standard: USD 165/mo billed yearly, or USD 199 month to month, with no separate promo or renewal rate shown. 6-core AMD EPYC, 16 GB RAM, 480 GB SSD in RAID 1 (two mirrored drives). Fully managed OS, unmetered bandwidth.
- InMotion Hosting Aspire: USD 35.00/mo on a 12-month term, renews at USD 49.99 (1.43x). 4-core Xeon E3-1246 v3, 16 GB DDR3, 960 GB SSD, no RAID, 1 Gbps unmetered.
Two details in that list are easy to miss.
Where dedicated providers publish a renewal, it’s far flatter than on shared plans. Ultahost holds its price, InMotion rises 1.43x and Contabo 1.36x, against 4x to 6x on the shared side. That changes the real gap. Over two years, SiteGround StartUp costs USD 251.76: 12 months at USD 2.99, then 12 at USD 17.99. InMotion’s Aspire costs USD 1,019.88 over the same two years. The first-year monthly prices differ 11.7x, but the two-year totals differ only 4.05x.
“Dedicated” doesn’t mean “new”. Intel lists the Xeon E3-1265L v3 in Ultahost’s entry box as a Q2 2013 launch. The E3-1246 v3 in InMotion’s Aspire launched in Q2 2014. Both are discontinued and both use DDR3 memory. Contabo’s Ryzen box gives you 12 cores and 64 GB against 4 cores and 16 GB in both of those. In this comparison, the two cheapest dedicated servers are also the two oldest, so read the CPU line before the price.
Why dedicated prices went up in 2026
Memory got expensive. The European cloud provider OVHcloud says DDR4 prices climbed 158% and DDR5 prices 307% since September 2025. It doesn’t expect RAM prices to normalize before 2028. On 15 June 2026, German host Hetzner raised prices on new dedicated server orders, putting its AX42-1 at USD 117.10/mo (EUR 97.30). Hetzner blamed hardware procurement costs. The AX42-1 also carries a USD 59 setup fee and a separate IPv4 charge, and existing contracts kept their old terms. Contabo’s blog is blunter: “the AI boom led to a dramatic increase in RAM and HDD prices”.
Dedicated buyers feel this more directly. On a dedicated server you pay for every gigabyte of RAM in the machine, while a shared host spreads its memory across many accounts. Once you’ve confirmed a server fits your workload, a flat long-term price is a sensible hedge. Ultahost’s USD 93.50 held for 24 months is one example.
The Management Bill Hiding Behind the Server Price
InMotion publishes the clearest proof of what management costs. Its Essential dedicated server (Xeon E-2134, 64 GB DDR4, 2 TB SSD, 5 IPs) costs USD 99.99/mo. The same hardware sold as Essential Premier Care costs USD 218.98/mo. Both renew at the price you signed up for.
That USD 118.99 difference puts the server under InMotion’s in-house management team. It also buys a cPanel license, which InMotion values at USD 58.99/mo. Monarx malware protection, 500 GB of backup storage and an hour of consulting a month are included too. We calculated the managed version at 2.19x the unmanaged price. At InMotion, the hardware is less than half the bill.
The control panel is the piece people forget. On shared hosting, cPanel or an in-house panel comes with the plan. On a dedicated server you either get it bundled or you pay for it. Liquid Web includes cPanel on its managed plans, and DreamHost advertises “No Extra Panel Fees”. Elsewhere, check the order page before you assume a panel is included. InMotion values the license at USD 58.99/mo, which is more than its whole Aspire server at renewal (USD 49.99).
Then there’s your time. Contabo says it specializes in self-managed servers and charges extra for management help. Self-managed means you apply security patches, configure the firewall, set up backups and fix whatever breaks at 2 a.m. If you can’t do that yourself, price in a managed plan or a freelancer before comparing servers. Our managed dedicated hosting comparison covers the providers that take that job off your hands.
Performance: When Dedicated Is Faster, and When It Isn’t
A dedicated server is faster under load, not automatically faster for every page view. A cached WordPress page is served as a ready-made file, so the server does very little work. For that kind of page, the distance between server and visitor matters more than CPU cores. The gap opens when traffic arrives in bursts or pages run heavy database queries.
On shared hosting, a burst hits your entry process ceiling. HostArmada’s Start Dock allows 20 entry processes, so the 21st simultaneous PHP request gets a 508 error. On a dedicated server, the same burst runs into the machine’s cores and RAM, not a quota of 20 or 40.
Neighbors matter too. CloudLinux caps each account’s CPU, memory, processes and disk I/O, so one busy account can’t take over the whole server. Everyone still shares the same physical disks and network port. On a dedicated server nobody else uses them, so another customer’s busy hour can’t eat into your disk or port capacity.
Here’s the thing, though. If your site is slow because of a bloated theme or no caching, a dedicated server won’t fix it. It’ll just run the same slow code on more expensive hardware.
Security and Reliability: Isolation Only Helps If Someone Patches the Box
Shared hosting’s security model is “the host handles it”. The host patches the server, and SiteGround and HostArmada both list malware scanning on their plans. On servers running CloudLinux, a feature called CageFS gives each customer “a virtualized, per-user file system”. Accounts can’t see each other’s files. The weak spot is shared reputation: if another account on your server’s IP gets blacklisted for spam, your outgoing mail can suffer too.
Single-tenant hardware removes neighbors entirely, which is why some client contracts and security reviews insist on it. But isolation only helps if someone hardens the box. An unpatched dedicated server with SSH open to the internet is a softer target than a well-run shared account.
The uptime guarantee barely changes between the two types. ChemiCloud lists 99.99% on a shared plan with a USD 11.95 regular rate. Ultahost and Liquid Web promise the same 99.99% on dedicated servers costing 7.8x and 17.2x as much. That figure allows about 4 minutes of downtime in a 30-day month either way.
The real difference is who deals with a hardware failure, and how fast. On shared hosting, a dead disk is the host’s problem to plan around. Rent a dedicated server and your site depends on one machine. InMotion’s Aspire and Essential list no RAID. A failed drive there means downtime and a restore from backup. DreamHost ships RAID 1 on its entry plan. Liquid Web backs its servers with a 30-minute hardware replacement SLA (service level agreement, a written promise with remedies). Ask about both before you order.
The Refund Trap on Dedicated Servers
It’s an easy mistake to make when you upgrade: assuming the money-back guarantee you had on shared hosting carries over. For two of our five dedicated providers, it doesn’t.
Ultahost’s dedicated server page says “We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.” Its refund policy says “Refunds are not valid for Dedicated Servers Plans.” Same company, two different answers, and the legal page is the one that applies. DreamHost’s terms of service (updated 27 August 2026) exclude dedicated servers from its 30-day guarantee. InMotion’s dedicated page promises an “up to 30-day” money-back guarantee, so check the terms for your specific plan. Neither Liquid Web’s nor Contabo’s dedicated pages state a refund window at all.
Shared hosting is far more forgiving. HostArmada and ChemiCloud give 45 days, and Hostinger and SiteGround give 30. So test your workload on a monthly dedicated plan before committing to a long term. At USD 93.50 a month, Ultahost’s 24-month term adds up to USD 2,244, and its refund policy returns none of it.
How to Choose Between Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Skip the feature checklists. These scenarios put a real workload next to a real price.
Small blog, under USD 12/mo: HostArmada Start Dock. It renews at USD 9.95, the lowest regular rate of our five shared hosts, with 2 CPU cores and 2 GB RAM. Running two or three small sites? Hostinger Premium covers three for USD 10.99. Skip SiteGround StartUp here. Its USD 17.99 renewal is 81% more than HostArmada’s, for a plan SiteGround sizes at about 10,000 visits.
Store doing 30-100 orders a day: stay managed, but move past entry shared. HostArmada’s Start Dock caps you at 20 concurrent processes and 5 MB/s I/O, which is thin for checkout traffic. ScalaHosting’s Entry Cloud gives dedicated CPUs and RAM with SPanel and backups for USD 39.95 at renewal. Whatever you pick, send order emails through SMTP. A 100-per-day script mail cap like Hostinger’s won’t survive a sale weekend. Our WordPress ecommerce hosting guide compares store-ready plans.
Agency with a Linux admin: Contabo’s Ryzen 12-core. About USD 126.50/mo (EUR 109.65) in year one buys 12 cores and 64 GB RAM for 20 or more client sites. It rises to about USD 171.90 (EUR 149.00) after 12 months, and a control panel license comes on top. Skip InMotion’s Aspire for this job. USD 35 looks cheaper, but 4 cores from 2014 and 16 GB of DDR3 will run out long before your client list does.
Compliance need, no technical staff: Liquid Web or InMotion Premier Care. Liquid Web’s USD 205.70 (2-year term) includes cPanel, 500 GB of backups and a 30-minute hardware replacement SLA. InMotion’s Essential Premier Care costs USD 218.98 on a 12-month term. That’s USD 13.28 more for 64 GB of RAM instead of 16 GB. Ultahost’s fully managed Ulta-X1 costs less than half as much, at USD 93.50. In return you accept 2013 hardware, a 256 GB SSD and no refund if it’s the wrong fit. Don’t pick Contabo here, because a self-managed server leaves you responsible for the patching an auditor will ask about.
Not sure you need dedicated yet: DreamHost Dedicated Standard on monthly billing. At USD 199 a month it’s the priciest way to rent that server, but you’re paying for the exit. DreamHost won’t refund a dedicated server, so a monthly term caps your risk at USD 199. Compare that with the USD 2,244 locked into Ultahost’s 24-month term. You also get management and RAID 1 from day one. Once the workload proves itself, yearly billing drops the price to USD 165.
Tight budget, root access required: InMotion Aspire. It’s USD 35 in year one, then USD 49.99. That renewal is only USD 5 above SiteGround’s GoGeek shared plan (USD 44.99), and you get a whole machine with root access. Accept the 2014-era CPU and keep backups off the server, since there’s no RAID. If you don’t truly need root access, GoGeek costs USD 5 less and SiteGround runs the server for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will a USD 35 dedicated server load my site faster than a USD 3 shared plan?
Not for a small, well-cached site. You’ll feel the difference during traffic spikes, when a shared plan hits its entry process limit. InMotion’s Aspire (USD 35, renewing at USD 49.99) also runs a 2014-era Xeon, so per-core speed isn’t guaranteed to improve. Fix caching first, and upgrade if 508 errors keep coming.
Can I get a refund if a dedicated server doesn’t work out?
Often, no. Ultahost’s refund policy excludes all dedicated server plans, even though its sales page mentions a 30-day guarantee. DreamHost’s terms exclude dedicated servers from its 30-day guarantee too. Start on a monthly term, such as DreamHost’s USD 199 month-to-month option, until you’re sure.
Is cPanel included with a dedicated server?
Only on some plans, such as Liquid Web’s managed dedicated servers. InMotion includes it on Premier Care plans and values the license at USD 58.99/mo. On self-managed servers like Contabo’s, you license a panel yourself. Free panels exist too, and Contabo lists Webmin among its install options.
Will a new host move my site from shared hosting to a dedicated server for free?
Usually, if the server is managed. Ultahost advertises free migration to its dedicated servers, and InMotion lists free migration for cPanel sites. Liquid Web says its experts handle the transfer, and DreamHost includes free guided onboarding. On a self-managed server like Contabo’s, the move is your job, so lower your DNS TTL (how long resolvers cache your records) a day ahead.
Final Verdict
Shared hosting is still the right answer for most websites in 2026. After the promo, about USD 10 to USD 18 a month buys a managed server, a control panel and a 30 to 45-day refund window. HostArmada has the lowest renewal of our five shared hosts at USD 9.95. Hostinger has the gentlest jump at 3.68x. SiteGround and ChemiCloud carry the steepest, at 6.02x and 6.13x.
A dedicated server earns its price when you need guaranteed cores, custom software or single-tenant hardware. The sticker price is the smaller part of that decision. InMotion’s price list shows the same server costing 2.19x more once management and cPanel are added. Ultahost and DreamHost won’t refund a dedicated server that turns out to be the wrong fit. Whoever you pick, start on the shortest term offered, such as DreamHost’s USD 199 monthly option, and commit longer once the server has proved itself. Contabo wins on hardware per dollar for teams that can run Linux. Liquid Web and InMotion Premier Care win for teams that can’t.
If you’re somewhere in between, you probably don’t need either extreme. Our shared vs VPS comparison covers the first step up from shared hosting. The VPS vs dedicated breakdown covers the step after that.