Cloudways Black Friday 2026 has not been announced, but a 40% discount is live today, on 22 September 2026, across all hosting plans for four months, with unlimited free migrations and the promo code already applied. Pages telling you to wait for a 50% Black Friday deal are describing something that does not exist yet.
More importantly, Cloudways is not the product most articles about it still describe. It is now owned by DigitalOcean, it has split into two separate products, and it is the only host in my Black Friday coverage this year that does not have a renewal trap. There is no prepaid term, so there is no year two price shock. $14 is $14 next year too.
Deal status, checked 22 September 2026
- Live now: 40% off all hosting plans for 4 months, code applied automatically
- Plus: unlimited free migrations
- Black Friday 2026: not announced
- Billing: hourly against a monthly cap, no contract, no prepaid term
- Cheapest entry: $14/mo, or $8.40/mo for the first four months on the current promotion
- Free trial: 3 days, no credit card
Cloudways is now owned by DigitalOcean, and it shows
DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways and the branding on Cloudways' own pages now reads Cloudways by DigitalOcean. The practical consequences are visible in the product rather than in a press release.
- The platform has split in two. Cloudways Flexible is the original product, where you choose the cloud provider and the server size. Cloudways Autonomous is fully managed WordPress that autoscales, aimed at high traffic ecommerce and learning platforms.
- DigitalOcean is the default provider and the one the pricing page opens on. Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud are all still selectable.
- A new Lightning Stack has been rolled out across the Flexible plans.
- Cloudways Copilot, an AI layer that monitors infrastructure and suggests optimisations, is now part of the platform.
Cloudways pricing in 2026
These are the DigitalOcean Premium prices, which is the default view on Cloudways' own pricing page. Note the hourly figure next to each monthly one. That is not decoration, it is how you are actually billed.
| Plan | Per month | Per hour | RAM | vCPU | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | $14 | $0.0208 | 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB NVMe | 1 TB |
| Small | $28 | $0.0417 | 2 GB | 1 | 50 GB NVMe | 2 TB |
| Medium | $54 | $0.0804 | 4 GB | 2 | 80 GB NVMe | 4 TB |
| Large | $99 | $0.1473 | 8 GB | 4 | 160 GB NVMe | 5 TB |
Every tier carries unlimited websites and unlimited visits. That is genuinely unusual. DreamHost caps the entry plan at 40,000 monthly visits and Hostinger Premium limits you to three sites. Here the constraint is the server, not a policy.
There is no renewal price, and that is the real story
Every other host in my Black Friday coverage sells you a cheap first term and then raises the price. GreenGeeks quadruples. Hostinger goes from $2.99 to $10.99. Cloudways does not do this, because there is no term to renew. You are billed hourly against a monthly cap and you can stop at any point.
| Cloudways Micro | GreenGeeks Lite | Hostinger Premium | DreamHost Launch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $14/mo | $2.95/mo | $2.99/mo | $1.99/mo |
| Commitment | None, hourly | 12 months prepaid | 48 months prepaid | 48 months prepaid |
| Price in year 2 | $14/mo | $13.95/mo | $2.99/mo | $1.99/mo |
| Price in year 5 | $14/mo | $13.95/mo | $10.99/mo | $7.99/mo |
| Websites | Unlimited | 1 | 3 | 25 |
| Visit cap | None | None | None | 40,000/mo |
Look at the year five row. GreenGeeks' cheapest plan ends up within a dollar of Cloudways Micro, and Cloudways gives you unlimited sites on a dedicated server instead of one site on shared hosting. The gap between budget shared hosting and managed cloud is much smaller than the headline prices suggest, once the introductory year is behind you.
The honest caveat
$14 a month is still five times $2.95 in the year that matters to most people, which is the first one. If your site is a hobby or a new project with no traffic, shared hosting is the right answer and this page is not for you. Cloudways starts making sense when downtime costs you something.
What is included, and what still costs extra
Cloudways bundles a set of things that are paid add ons almost everywhere else, and it prices them openly on its own page.
| Included on every plan | Costs extra |
|---|---|
| Free migration | Offsite backup storage at $0.033/GB per server |
| Object Cache Pro, stated worth $95/mo | Cloudflare Enterprise CDN add on |
| Redis Cache, stated worth $100/mo | Advance Support, currently $25/mo flat |
| Advanced staging and cloning, worth $20 | Applicable taxes, excluded from listed prices |
| WordPress vulnerability scanner | Rackspace email, if you want mail on the server |
| Vertical scaling and server level firewall | |
| Free Let's Encrypt SSL and automated backups | |
| 24/7 support |
Object Cache Pro is the one worth pausing on. It is free on 4 GB servers and above, which is the Medium plan at $54. On Micro and Small you do not get it. If object caching matters to your build, that changes which plan you should be looking at.
What is the downside of Cloudways?
- It is server management, not site management. Cloudways keeps the OS, the stack and the security patches healthy. It does not debug your plugin conflict. That is the difference between this and a fully managed host at three times the price.
- Scaling down is harder than scaling up. Vertical scaling up is one click. Coming back down generally means cloning to a smaller server and repointing, which takes time and can briefly overlap two servers.
- Email is not included. There is no mailbox with your server. Budget for a proper mail provider, which you should be doing anyway.
- No free domain, unlike every shared host in this comparison.
- Backup storage is metered at $0.033/GB per server, and taxes are on top of every listed price.
- The cheapest plan is 1 GB of RAM. For WooCommerce or anything with real concurrency, Micro is not the plan, whatever the price comparison says.
What I would actually buy
A busy blog or a business site
Small at $28, on DigitalOcean. 2 GB of RAM handles a real WordPress site with caching in front of it comfortably, and you can scale up in one click if you are wrong. Start on the 3 day trial before you pay anything.
WooCommerce or anything with logged in users
Medium at $54. 4 GB of RAM, 2 vCPU, and it is the tier where Object Cache Pro becomes free, which matters a great deal for carts and sessions that cannot be page cached.
Deciding between Cloudways and a fully managed host
I have measured this tier against the managed alternatives from multiple locations rather than guessing. The numbers are in WP Engine vs Rocket.net vs Cloudways, and the method behind them is on the How I Test page.
How these prices were checked
Prices came off the rendered Cloudways pricing page on 22 September 2026, on the DigitalOcean Premium view, which is the default. The 40% offer came off Cloudways' own promo page, not from a coupon aggregator. Both screenshots are above.
Where a figure here disagrees with your invoice, trust the invoice and tell me so I can correct this page. The full method is on the How I Test page.
Cloudways Black Friday FAQ
Is there a Cloudways Black Friday deal in 2026?
Not yet announced. What is live on 22 September 2026 is 40% off all hosting plans for four months plus unlimited free migrations, with the code applied automatically on Cloudways' own promo page.
How much does Cloudways cost?
On DigitalOcean, Micro is $14/mo, Small $28, Medium $54 and Large $99, billed hourly at rates from $0.0208 to $0.1473 per hour. Prices exclude tax.
Does Cloudways have a renewal price?
No, and this is its biggest structural advantage. There is no prepaid term, so there is no introductory rate that expires. $14 a month stays $14 a month.
Does Cloudways bill hourly or monthly?
Hourly, against a monthly cap. If you run a server for part of a month you pay for the hours it ran, which makes it genuinely practical to spin up a staging server and delete it.
Who owns Cloudways?
DigitalOcean. The branding on Cloudways' own pages now reads Cloudways by DigitalOcean, and DigitalOcean is the default cloud provider on the pricing page.
What is the difference between Cloudways Flexible and Autonomous?
Flexible is the classic product where you choose the cloud provider and server size and manage the resources. Autonomous is fully managed WordPress that autoscales automatically, aimed at high traffic ecommerce and learning sites.
How many websites can I host on Cloudways?
Unlimited on every plan. The limit is your server's resources rather than a policy, which is different from shared hosting where the site count is a pricing lever.
Is Object Cache Pro free on Cloudways?
Yes, on servers of 4 GB and above, which means the Medium plan at $54 and up. Cloudways states its standalone value as $95 a month. It is not included on Micro or Small.
Does Cloudways include email hosting?
No. There are no mailboxes with the server. Rackspace email is available as a paid add on, or you use a dedicated mail provider.
Is there a Cloudways free trial?
Yes, three days with no credit card required.
Does Cloudways include a free domain?
No. Unlike the shared hosts in this comparison, you bring your own domain.
Is Cloudways worth it compared to shared hosting?
In year one, shared hosting is much cheaper. By year five, GreenGeeks' cheapest plan costs within a dollar of Cloudways Micro while giving you one website on shared infrastructure instead of unlimited sites on your own server. The answer depends entirely on how long you intend to stay.
Related deal pages I keep updated
- Hostinger Black Friday, real prices and renewals
- DreamHost Black Friday, and the guarantee that shrank
- GreenGeeks Black Friday, and what 300% renewable really means
- A2 Hosting Black Friday, and why A2 is now Hosting.com
- WP Engine vs Rocket.net vs Cloudways, tested from 18 locations
- WordPress plugin deals for Black Friday
- How I test, verify and update everything on this site
Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links and I earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. Prices, the promotion and the included features were read off Cloudways' own pages on 22 September 2026, from the rendered page rather than a text copy. You can read exactly how I test, verify and update everything on this site.
