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Cloudways vs SiteGround: pricing and who each suits

Updated Oct 14, 2026

Three-year cost of the providers in: Cloudways vs SiteGround: pricing and who each suits
What the cheapest hosting plan of each costs over three years, at the prices on their own sites.
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The short answer

If you want the lowest first bill and are happy with shared hosting for a year, SiteGround starts far cheaper. If you want predictable costs and dedicated resources you control, Cloudways charges more each month but keeps the same price in year three as in month one.

What you pay now

Cloudways is managed cloud hosting with four main plans:

Those prices buy managed cloud servers with dedicated resources you scale yourself. There is no lower “teaser” rate — what you see on month one is what you pay from the start.

SiteGround’s shared hosting headline prices are lower on day one:

For a small personal site or a new project, that first-year price will usually be less than Cloudways Micro at 14.00 USD/month. If you are deciding purely on the first bill and want shared hosting, SiteGround is cheaper to begin with.

What you pay after the first term

The gap looks different once renewal pricing is included.

All Cloudways plans keep the same price at renewal:

SiteGround’s shared hosting plans move to their standard monthly rates after 12 months, and the totals over three years are recorded on the pricing page:

The StartUp plan goes from 2.99 USD/month in the first year to 17.99 USD/month from year two. GrowBig moves from 4.99 USD/month to 29.99 USD/month after 12 months, and GoGeek from 7.99 USD/month to 44.99 USD/month after 12 months. The three-year totals show what that structure costs if you stay for a full three-year run.

Cloudways has no stated three-year totals, but the key point is structural: its price is the same in year three as in month one, while SiteGround’s is not.

What the money buys

Cloudways is managed cloud hosting that runs on dedicated resources. Each plan gives you a cloud server that is not shared in the way a traditional shared hosting account is, and you control how those resources are scaled. That suits projects where consistent performance and control over the server matter more than having the absolute lowest monthly rate.

SiteGround’s StartUp, GrowBig and GoGeek plans are shared web hosting. Multiple sites share the same underlying server, which is why the introductory prices can be much lower than managed cloud plans. The trade-off is that these plans are priced for a first term at 2.99, 4.99 and 7.99 USD/month and then move to their renewal rates for the rest of the time you stay.

On the deal side, Cloudways includes:

Those extras matter if you are moving an existing site, want Object Cache Pro included on larger servers, or want to try the control panel and workflow before committing.

SiteGround lists:

That saves the cost of registering a domain separately for a new site, which is useful if you are setting up your first project and want everything under one bill.

The trade-off in plain terms

Between these two, you are choosing between:

For a small site where budget in the first year is the main concern and shared resources are acceptable, SiteGround’s 2.99, 4.99 and 7.99 USD/month intro prices will usually cost less in that first term than Cloudways’ 14.00 USD/month Micro plan.

For a project that you expect to run for several years, and where predictable costs and dedicated resources are more important than the cheapest first invoice, Cloudways’ fixed pricing structure and managed cloud model become the main reasons to pay more per month.

Who Cloudways suits

Cloudways suits someone who:

Who SiteGround suits

SiteGround suits someone who:

If you know the project will run long term and you want dedicated cloud resources, Cloudways is the better structural fit. If your priority is a low-cost shared hosting start with a free domain and you are focused on the first term, SiteGround fits that brief.

The providers in this article

Cloudways Read our review · Visit Cloudways ↗
SiteGround Read our review · Visit SiteGround ↗