Cloudways let us launch a real WordPress server without a credit card. It took about eight minutes, and the server we got lists at $54.00 a month once the trial ends. Here is every screen in between, plus the parts of Cloudways hosting a three-day trial can’t show you.
Why We Put Cloudways Hosting Through a Real Trial
Cloudways is not a data center. It is a managed layer that sits on top of cloud servers from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud, and handles the server setup, updates and backups for you. W3Techs lists it as managed web hosting owned by DigitalOcean (W3Techs).
That model sounds great on a sales page. But how does it feel on day one, when you are a blogger or a small business owner who has never touched a server? That is the question most Cloudways reviews skip, because they start from a paid account.
So we started from zero. We signed up for the free Flexible trial on October 21, 2026, launched one WordPress server, opened the site, and then walked up to the upgrade screen to see what Cloudways asks for when the trial ends.
Here’s the catch, though. A trial shows you the setup, not the months after it. We’ll be clear about which is which.
Key Takeaways
Cloudways hosts about 0.5% of all websites, per W3Techs’ October 2026 survey (W3Techs). In our test, the Flexible trial needed no card, gave us one DigitalOcean server, and had WordPress live in about 7 to 8 minutes. Keeping that server costs $54.00/month, and upgrading starts with a card or PayPal check.
Quick Verdict: Is Cloudways Hosting Worth Trying in 2026?
Yes, if you want managed cloud hosting and can spend about $54 a month: the 3-day Flexible trial gave us a live WordPress site in about 8 minutes with no card, on the same server size the pricing page sells for $54.00/month (Cloudways pricing). If you are hunting for the cheapest shared plan you can find, Cloudways is not built for you.
| Task | What happened in our test |
|---|---|
| Sign up | Worked with Google; still had to create a password and answer two profile questions |
| Pick a server | Preset WordPress on DigitalOcean, 4 GB RAM, New York; shown as $0 during the trial |
| Launch WordPress | Ready in about 7 to 8 minutes; the screen promised approx 5 minutes |
| Check the site | Public URL returned HTTP 200 with a default WordPress 7.1.3 site |
| Read the trial limits | One server; “Get Full Access” opened a card or PayPal form with a $1 reversible check |
Is that a good deal? It depends on what you compare it with. Next to a raw cloud server, you pay extra for the management layer. Next to a shared plan, you pay more, but you get your own server, and Cloudways lists vertical scaling so you can resize it later. You can start the same trial from the official Cloudways signup page.
How We Tested Cloudways: One Flexible Trial, No Card
We tested Cloudways Flexible on October 21, 2026, using one work account, Google sign-in and zero payment details. The plan was five tasks, written down before we started: sign up, pick the server, launch the WordPress site, check that the site works, and record the trial limits.
We launched exactly one server. We renamed the application, the server and the project so we could find them later, and we left every other setting at its default. That matters, because defaults are what most beginners keep.
What did we not do? We did not connect a domain, turn on SSL for a domain, create a staging copy, migrate a site, or pay for anything. We also never logged into wp-admin, because opening the public site was enough to confirm WordPress was running. A full list of those gaps comes near the end of this review.
Everything quoted in this review is copied from the screen. We kept masked screenshots of every step.
A note on money: Indie Stack Lab may add affiliate links to some tools later. When a link is an affiliate link, it is labeled, and our disclosure page explains how that works. It did not change what we tested or what we wrote down.
Signing Up: No Card, but a Password and Two Profile Questions
Signing up for Cloudways took one Google click plus a short form, and the signup page promised “Get Started Free — No credit card required.” An older signup page we landed on first listed a “3-day free trial (no credit card, no charges).”
The “Session expired” detour
Our first stop was platform.cloudways.com/signup. On a brand-new visit, with no account and no earlier login, it showed a “SESSION EXPIRED” box. Pressing “Exit session” moved us to unified.cloudways.com, and the signup form there worked normally.
Is that a big deal? No. But if you see a session warning before you even have an account, don’t assume something is broken. Go to the unified signup page instead.
Google sign-in still asks for a password
The Google consent screen asked only for our email address. That part was clean.
What surprised us was the next screen. Even after Google sign-in, the form still required us to create a password. It also asked us to pick an option that describes us and to choose our monthly hosting spend. Both questions were required, so plan for about a minute of extra typing.
Why ask about hosting spend? Cloudways doesn’t say. Our guess is that it helps them route you to the right plan or sales follow-up, so answer it honestly and move on.
Picking a Server: DigitalOcean 4 GB in New York for $0
The trial preset gave us a DigitalOcean server with 4 GB RAM, 2 cores, 80 GB NVMe storage and 4 TB of transfer, priced at $0.0804/hour or $54.00/month and struck through to $0 for the trial. That matches the Medium size on the public pricing page (Cloudways pricing).
After signup we landed on a page titled “Cloudways Flexible — 3-Day Free Trial.” It was already filled in: WordPress, DigitalOcean 4GB, New York, “$0.00 from $54.00/month.” We pressed “Quick Launch Your Server” and reached step 4 of 4, “Review and Launch Application.”
The review screen listed everything Cloudways was about to build:
- Application: WordPress (Latest Version), with the “Lightning” stack
- Cloud: DigitalOcean, New York
- Database: MariaDB v10.11
- Server: Basic Premium, 4 GB RAM, 2 Core, 80 GB NVMe, 4 TB transfer
- Price: $0 hourly (was $0.0804), $0 monthly (was $54.00)
The footer was the most useful line on the page: “Start Your 3-Day Free Trial — Your trial starts when you launch a server. Billing starts once you Upgrade your account.” In plain terms, the three days do not start at signup. They start when you press Launch.
Why keep the preset? Because most people will, and we wanted to see the default path. The only things we changed were the names of the application, the server and the project. If you plan to stay on a cheaper size later, read the plan breakdown further down, because the trial server is not the smallest one Cloudways sells.
Launching WordPress: About 7 to 8 Minutes to a Live Site
Our WordPress server was ready after about 7 to 8 minutes, a little longer than the “approx 5 minutes” the server list promised. For a fresh cloud server with WordPress, a database and the full stack installed, that is still quick.
While it built, the server list read “Adding Server — Your high-speed application will be ready in approx 5 minutes.” Once it finished, a banner appeared at the top: “Your Flexible trial expires in 02d :23h :59m.” From that point on, the three days were visibly running.
What the Access Details page gives you
We opened Applications, then our app, then Access Details. That page lists everything you need to start working:
- The Application URL, a temporary address on cloudwaysapps.com
- The Admin Panel link (/wp-admin/)
- The WordPress admin username and password
- The database credentials
Then we opened the Application URL anonymously, without logging in. It returned HTTP 200 and the default WordPress site with its “Hello world!” post. The page’s generator tag read “WordPress 7.1.3.”
So the site was public and working within minutes. Would a beginner find the Access Details page alone? Probably, but it sits a few clicks deep, so bookmark it once you find it.
What Cloudways Manages for You: Server Stack, Backups, Staging and Security
Cloudways manages the server for you: its help center says it handles OS-level patches, security updates, firewall rules and server orchestration, while you manage your apps through its dashboard (Cloudways Getting Started FAQs). We did not test these features on the trial, so everything in this section comes from Cloudways’ own documentation, checked on October 23, 2026.
The Lightning Stack
The “Lightning” label we saw on the launch screen is Cloudways’ newer server stack. Cloudways describes it as a rebuild of the Flexible platform on NGINX plus PHP-FPM, available at no extra cost (Cloudways blog). The company says independent benchmarks recorded up to 65% faster dynamic response times; that is the vendor’s claim, and we did not measure speed.
One practical change matters more than the speed claim. Lightning does not support Apache’s .htaccess files. Cloudways replaces them with a dashboard feature called Web Rules for 301 and 302 redirects, URL rewrites and header rules. If your current site depends on complex .htaccess logic, Cloudways says you can stay on its Hybrid Stack instead.
Backups
Off-site backups are switched on by default for every new server. Per Cloudways’ backup guide, the default is one server-level backup a day, taken between 1 am and 5 am UTC and kept for a week (Cloudways backup guide). You can change the frequency from every hour to every seven days, keep backups from 1 to 4 weeks, and take an extra backup any time with “Take Backup Now.”
Backups are not free on Flexible. Cloudways charges $0.033 per GB of backup storage and rounds the total up in $0.5 steps, so $3.85 becomes $4 (Cloudways backup charges). On Autonomous, backup storage is part of the plan price.
Staging
Cloudways offers a free one-click staging copy of your application on all plans (Cloudways staging guide). Search engines can’t index the staging site. When your changes look right, you push files, the database or both back to the live site, and you can also pull live content into staging. On Autonomous, each application can have one staging environment.
Security and SSL
The pricing page lists free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates, a server-level firewall (Imunify360), IP and country blocking, bot protection and malware scanning. Cloudflare Enterprise CDN is a paid add-on on Flexible, from $4.99 per domain per month, and malware removal is another add-on from $4 per app per month (Cloudways pricing).
Looking for cPanel? There is none. Cloudways uses its own dashboard, and file access goes through SFTP or SSH. If you are used to a cPanel file manager, budget a little time to learn an SFTP app.
Cloudways Hosting Plans and Pricing: Flexible vs Autonomous
Cloudways sells two hosting products: Flexible, where you choose the cloud and the server size, starting at $14/month on DigitalOcean, and Autonomous, a fully managed, autoscaling WordPress plan starting at $99/month (Cloudways pricing). Our trial ran on Flexible.
Flexible: pick a cloud and a server size
These are the DigitalOcean sizes the pricing page showed by default on October 23, 2026. Prices exclude taxes.
| Size | RAM | vCPU | NVMe storage | Transfer | Price per month | Price per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 1 TB | $14 | $0.0208 |
| Small | 2 GB | 1 | 50 GB | 2 TB | $28 | $0.0417 |
| Medium | 4 GB | 2 | 80 GB | 4 TB | $54 | $0.0804 |
| Large | 8 GB | 4 | 160 GB | 5 TB | $99 | $0.1473 |
Our trial server was the Medium row. Every Flexible size lists unlimited visits and unlimited websites, but the real limit is the server’s RAM and CPU. Cloudways itself says 1 GB servers are mainly meant for testing and staging, and it recommends 2 GB or more for live sites (Cloudways Getting Started FAQs).
How does billing work? Cloudways charges by the hour and bills in arrears: an invoice arrives in the first week of each month for the previous month’s usage. If you resize a server midway through a month, the new rate applies from that point. Extra bandwidth on DigitalOcean costs $0.02 per GB, and AWS bandwidth costs $0.12 per GB.
Autonomous: one website, autoscaling servers
Autonomous is built for WordPress and WooCommerce sites with traffic spikes. Instead of one server you size yourself, it runs on Kubernetes and adds servers when traffic rises.
| Plan | Price per month | Websites | Baseline servers | Bandwidth | Disk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | $99 | 1 | 1 | 150 GB | 20 GB |
| Scale | $199 | 1 | 2 | 250 GB | 50 GB |
| Plus | $399 | 1 | 3 | 1,000 GB | 100 GB |
All three list unmetered visits and 100 PHP workers per server. Cloudflare Enterprise, SSL, malware protection, managed migration and off-site backups come included. Extra disk is $1 per GB and extra bandwidth $0.04 per GB, and every server beyond the baseline adds an hourly charge. Autonomous has its own 3-day free trial.
Add-ons worth knowing about
- Cloudflare Enterprise CDN: from $4.99/domain/month
- Rackspace Email: $1.5/mailbox/month
- DNS Made Easy: $0.50/domain/month
- Site Manager: from $3/app/month
- Advance Support: $100/month
For most small sites, the real monthly bill is the server price, plus a few dollars of backup storage, plus whichever add-ons you pick.
When the Trial Ends: The Card Form and the $1 Verification Charge
To keep the server after three days, you upgrade to full access, and that starts with a card or PayPal authorization: when we clicked “Get Full Access,” Cloudways asked to charge $1 for verification and said it reverses automatically. Cloudways’ trial guide says the temporary charge can be anywhere from $1 to $10 (Cloudways trial guide).
We clicked the button only to see what it asks for. It opened Billing with an “Add a New Payment Method” window offering card or PayPal, and this note: “Please authorize your card details for complete access to Cloudways Platform. $1 will be charged for verification purpose and is automatically reversed once the attempt is successful.” We closed the window without entering anything.
What the trial does not allow
The trial banner said full access is needed “to add more servers and claim your free migration.” So during the trial you get one server, and the free managed migration waits until you upgrade.
What happens if you do nothing? Cloudways advises customers to upgrade before the trial expires, and its help center says it offers no free hosting plan at all, only the 3-day trial (Cloudways Getting Started FAQs). Don’t build anything on a trial server that you can’t afford to lose.
One more billing detail: the help center lists Visa, Mastercard and American Express, with PayPal available on request through live chat. That matches the card or PayPal choice we saw on screen.
Which Cloud Provider to Pick Inside Cloudways
Cloudways Flexible lets you choose from five cloud providers: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud (Cloudways Flexible). You pick one per server, and the pricing FAQ says you can run servers on different providers and plans in the same account.
We used DigitalOcean in New York because that was the trial preset. DigitalOcean is also the company that owns Cloudways: W3Techs lists Cloudways under DigitalOcean Group, which hosts 1.5% of all websites (W3Techs). For DigitalOcean servers, the pricing page lists nine data centers: New York, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Frankfurt, London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto.
How do you choose? Start with location. Put the server close to most of your readers; for a US audience, New York, San Francisco or Toronto are the DigitalOcean options. Then think about price. Cloudways says AWS and Google Cloud prices change by region, and that North America and Europe are usually cheaper than Asia Pacific and South America.
A small detail for email: Cloudways notes that Vultr and Google block outgoing SMTP port 25 by default, and suggests ports 587 or 2525. If your site sends email, that is one more reason to use an email add-on instead of the server itself.
Email on Cloudways: Add-ons, Not Mailboxes on Your Server
Cloudways does not host email on its servers; mailboxes and outgoing mail come from add-ons, such as Rackspace mailboxes at $1.5 per mailbox per month (Cloudways pricing). This trips up people moving from shared hosting, where email usually comes bundled.
Cloudways’ email guide splits the job in two (Cloudways email add-ons):
| Need | Cloudways option | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| An inbox like you@yourdomain.com | Rackspace Email add-on | $1.5/mailbox/month; rate-limited for outgoing mail, so not for bulk sending |
| Order confirmations, password resets | Elastic Email add-on | The add-on page showed 25,000 emails for $2.30 per month |
| Your own SendGrid or Mailgun account | Free SMTP add-on | You pay the third-party provider directly |
You can run only one transactional email add-on per server, either Elastic Email or the SMTP add-on. Whichever you use, you will need SPF and DKIM records on your domain, or your mail is likely to land in spam.
Is that a dealbreaker? Not really. Many site owners already keep email with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, separate from their host. Just don’t expect a free mailbox to come with your server.
What We Could Not Test on the Trial
Our trial covered 5 tasks from signup to the upgrade screen; everything after that is untested here. These are the gaps, and why:
- Custom domain and SSL for a custom domain. Both need a domain pointed at the server, which was outside our shared task list. Not sure how a domain and a host fit together? Our guide to domain vs hosting covers it, and how to register a domain name walks through the purchase. Still choosing where to buy one? See our comparison of the best domain registrars.
- Staging. Our server held one fresh WordPress site, so there was nothing to stage.
- Migration. The trial banner tied the free migration to full access.
- Backups and restores. We never changed the default schedule or restored a copy.
- Any paid upgrade. We stopped at the payment form.
- wp-admin. We confirmed the site from the public URL and never logged in.
We also have no speed, uptime or support-response data. Three days and one default site can’t produce numbers worth publishing, and we would rather leave a gap than guess.
Who Cloudways Fits, and Who Should Start With Shared Hosting
Cloudways fits sites that have outgrown cheap shared hosting and need more server control: the smallest size Cloudways recommends for a live site, 2 GB, lists at $28/month on DigitalOcean (Cloudways pricing). This section is our judgment, built on the trial and the official prices, not on months of running a site there. So where does that leave you?
Good fit
- You run a WordPress or WooCommerce site that already gets steady traffic, and shared hosting feels slow.
- You run several small sites. Cloudways’ help center says a 2 GB server can handle 4 to 5 small websites with combined traffic of up to 110K page views a month (Cloudways Getting Started FAQs), so one server can replace several shared plans.
- You want to pick the cloud provider and data center yourself, and resize the server later without a migration.
- You build sites for clients and want staging, cloning and backups in one dashboard.
Start somewhere else
- You are launching a first blog with no traffic yet. A shared plan is far cheaper while you find out whether the site will grow.
- You want email, a domain and hosting on one bill.
- You prefer cPanel and a browser file manager.
Choosing between those two paths is a bigger topic than one host. Our buyer’s guide to website hosting plan types compares shared, cloud and managed plans, and our guide to the best web hosting for WordPress looks at managed and shared options side by side.
Before You Start a Cloudways Trial: A Short Checklist
Before you press Launch, have a plan for all three trial days, because Cloudways says the 3-day trial starts when you launch a server, not when you sign up. Our server was ready in about 8 minutes, so is time the problem? No. Preparation is.
A short checklist:
- Decide which site you want to try first, and keep a copy of it outside the trial.
- Pick a data center close to your readers before launch.
- Note where the Access Details page lives so you can find your URL and passwords again.
- Decide your monthly budget, including about $0.033 per GB for backups and any add-ons.
- If you plan to stay, keep a card or PayPal ready for the $1 verification check.
Cloudways made the first hour easy. Whether it is the right host for the next year depends on your traffic, your budget and how much server control you want.
References
- W3Techs: Usage Statistics and Market Share of Cloudways as Web Hosting Provider
- Cloudways: Pricing & Plans
- Cloudways: Flexible Managed Cloud Hosting
- Cloudways Help Center: Getting Started FAQs
- Cloudways Help Center: How To Subscribe Flexible Trial
- Cloudways Help Center: How to Configure a Server-level Backup
- Cloudways Help Center: Charges for Off-site Backups
- Cloudways Help Center: How to Create a Staging Environment
- Cloudways Help Center: Which Email Add-on Should I Use?
- Cloudways: Elastic Email Add-on
- Cloudways Blog: New Cloudways Lightning Stack