WP Engine vs Cloudways Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

WP Engine Cloudways
Starts at $30/mo $14/mo
Number of plans 3 14
Free plan
Free trial
Pricing model flat-rate usage-based

Essential

$30/mo
  • Edge content delivery with global CDN
  • Managed WP, PHP & MySQL updates
  • 24/7 WordPress technical expertise
  • Real-time WordPress threat defense
  • Free automated migration plugin
  • Local development tool

Core

Popular
$400/mo
  • Isolated resources
  • 99.99% uptime SLA
  • AI-powered plugin & theme updates
  • NitroPack
  • Fast-track support from senior experts
  • On-demand performance investigations
  • Advanced uptime monitoring alerts
  • Managed bulk site migrations
  • Personalized onboarding experience
  • GeoTarget to show geographically relevant content
  • eCommerce Performance Pack
  • Application Performance
  • Failover
  • High Availability
  • Managed Vector Database
  • Smart Search AI

Enterprise

Custom
  • High capacity infrastructure designed for unexpected traffic spikes
  • High-availability and single-node solutions
  • NitroPack
  • Top-tier priority support access
  • Dedicated expert team
  • Ongoing technical & business alignment
  • Incident analysis & proactive performance management
  • Collaborative event preparation and real-time event monitoring
  • Advanced DDoS & managed WAF
  • Proactive account monitoring
  • Managed migration planning team
  • Consultative business development
  • Git-powered CI/CD
  • SSH gateway
  • eCommerce Performance Pack
  • Application Performance
  • Failover
  • High Availability
  • Managed Vector Database
  • Smart Search AI

Micro

$14/mo
  • 1GB RAM
  • 1 vCPU
  • 25GB NVMe Storage
  • 1TB Transfer Bandwidth
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Small

$28/mo
  • 2GB RAM
  • 1 vCPU
  • 50GB NVMe Storage
  • 2TB Transfer Bandwidth
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Medium

Popular
$54/mo
  • 4GB RAM
  • 2 vCPU
  • 80GB NVMe Storage
  • 4TB Transfer Bandwidth
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Large

$99/mo
  • 8GB RAM
  • 4 vCPU
  • 160GB NVMe Storage
  • 5TB Transfer Bandwidth
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

8XL

$342/mo
  • 128GB RAM
  • 24 vCPU
  • 2560GB Storage
  • 11TB Transfer Bandwidth
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Free Trial

$0/mo
  • 1 WordPress Application
  • 15GB Disk Space
  • 30k Unique Visits
  • 100GB Bandwidth

Small

$35/mo
  • 1 WordPress Applications
  • 15GB Disk Space
  • 30k Unique Visits
  • 100GB Bandwidth

Medium

Popular
$240/mo
  • 3 WordPress Applications
  • 25GB Disk Space
  • 70k Unique Visits
  • 200GB Bandwidth

Large

$995/mo
  • 3 WordPress Applications
  • 15GB Disk Space
  • 30k Unique Visits
  • 100GB Bandwidth

Free Trial

$0/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Growth

$99/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Scale

Popular
$199/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Plus

$399/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Enterprise

Custom
  • Optimized resources for your traffic and usage patterns.
  • Custom resource allocation and baseline capacity.
  • Expert consultation to match plan to requirements.

WP Engine vs Cloudways FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
Cloudways is the cheaper option, starting at $14/mo vs $30/mo for WP Engine.
Can I use either one for free?
Cloudways has a free plan. WP Engine doesn't — you'll need to pay from day one.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. WP Engine uses flat-rate pricing, while Cloudways goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. WP Engine: WP Engine sits at the premium end of managed WordPress hosting — they're not competing with Bluehost or SiteGround on price, they're going after teams that need performance, staging environments, and support SLAs. Kinsta and Flywheel (which they own) are the closest comparables. Cloudways: Flexible sits below Kinsta and WP Engine on price but above raw cloud provider costs — they're selling the managed layer on top of DigitalOcean/AWS without the premium WordPress host markup. Autonomous competes more directly with Kinsta and Pressable, targeting teams who want autoscaling WordPress without enterprise pricing.

Keep tabs on both.

We'll monitor pricing changes for WP Engine and Cloudways and let you know when something moves.

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