Getting value for money so that your budget goes significantly further has never mattered more than it does in 2025. The rising cost of living, unpredictable energy prices, and the constant surge in the size of other overheads have left many of us looking for ways to streamline our budgets. While at times like these it may be tempting to go with whoever quotes you the lowest price, the last thing you want to do is cost yourself much more in the long run than you will initially save.
In this quick guide, we’re going to show you how to find the cheapest VPS out there in a way that will never force you to compromise on quality and performance.
Outline Your Realistic Needs
While it’s great to have everything out there, if your budget doesn’t allow it, why try and get everything for a price that is ultimately too good to be true? Picking a topline package that offers the most CPU, RAM, and storage from a budget provider with a patchy track record is not a good solution. You are far better off with a basic plan from a skilled provider and then giving yourself the flexibility to scale up later on as and when you need to.
Choose a Managed Service
Just because an unmanaged plan costs less when you come to pay the provider, it doesn’t mean it will ultimately work out cheaper. If you have the technical skills and confidence to go it alone, do so by all means. If, however, you want to spend your time and effort on other things, having an expert team take care of the management of the server, the constant updates, and the security steps that are needed makes a lot of sense. Paying slightly more for a managed service will keep the rest of your costs down because downtime and breaches will be minimised.
Analyse the Uptime Guarantees
The more you look into the cheapest VPS solutions that are out there, the more you will come to see that not all uptime guarantees are created equal. Look for a provider who not only makes a guarantee but has the social proof and data to back up what they’re telling you. If you can find both of these, you will get the peace of mind that blindly cutting costs cannot provide.
Focus on Optimisation
Your server and application can be continually optimised to make sure that you extract every ounce of value from your VPS. It’s much better to look for a cheap deal and proactively optimise your setup than it is to spend your entire budget on a premium-priced solution and then fail to maintain it. Techniques like caching and additions like CDNs will make a real difference here, as will taking a proactive approach to updates so that you’re always protected.
Look For Long-Term Discounts
It’s also worth remembering that VPS providers are businesses, and that means that they may run promotions and offer discounts at certain times of the year. They may also offer you a discount if you sign up for a long-term billing option, such as annual or multi-year billing. Taking advantage of such an arrangement could give you the same premium service for a fraction of the normal price.
Identify Data Centre Locations
Centres that are a long way away from your physical connection will introduce more latency and potentially make it harder for routine problems to be solved quickly. A localised approach with a distributed network of data centres may be the best approach, especially if you want to make sure that you can minimise latency and other delays at all times.
Avoid Dream Deals
Regardless of the product or service, if it seems too good to be true, it virtually always will be. If you find a VPS provider who is offering you 10 times the service for a tenth of the price, the chances are that all is not as it seems. Avoiding these types of deals is the best way to protect yourself from unreliable, patchy, and unpredictable service.
Taking a moment to work through this list and then pausing before purchasing will enable you to home in on real quality while also saving money. Ideal when you want to be able to make your budget go further without cutting corners when it comes to quality and performance.