What happened to VPS prices in 2026, and how we are holding the line

• Server memory now costs several times what it did a year ago. SSDs are on the same path.
• Server manufacturers raised their lists by 15% to 30%, AWS adjusted twice in six months and Leaseweb raised its VPS by up to 41%.
• Our list is still the one from before the increase, for as long as the capacity we already have installed lasts. If we had to adjust it, plans already paid for one, two or three years keep their price until they end.

DRAM contract prices (the memory inside every server) rose quarter after quarter since late 2025, according to TrendForce, the industry's reference analyst:

The cause is on the supply side: Samsung, SK hynix and Micron moved production lines to HBM, the high-bandwidth memory used by AI accelerators. The large cloud providers signed multi-year agreements that fix their price and volume, so the increase lands on whoever buys without a long contract: most mid-sized providers in the world. For 2027, TrendForce expects server module supply to grow only 15% to 20%, below demand.

SSDs follow the same logic, because 90% of their cost is NAND memory and NAND also went to AI data centers. Enterprise SSD contracts rose 53% to 58% in the first quarter of 2026, and NAND prices multiplied by 4 to 4.5 in nine months. Western Digital has already sold its entire 2026 output, and the next NAND fabrication capacity does not come online before late 2027.

We looked at the ones that set the market's reference price: the server manufacturers, the world's largest cloud provider and a European infrastructure operator with 25 years of history. None of them sells cheap, and all three went up.

The server manufacturers (Dell, Lenovo, HP and HPE):

• December 2025: all four announced list increases of around 15% on servers. Lenovo called it "an unprecedented cost increase widely in the industry, especially on memory and SSD, more dramatic than any player can mitigate".
• March 30, 2026: Dell raised its entire list by 17% and warned of up to 30% on memory-heavy configurations. Its quotes are now valid for fewer days than ever, according to its chief operating officer.
• In a reference 2U server with 512 GB, memory went from 18% of the cost in January 2025 to 53% in July 2026: more than half of a new server, today, is memory.

AWS (Amazon Web Services, the world's largest cloud provider):

• Raised the price of its reserved AI compute capacity (EC2 Capacity Blocks) twice in six months: around 15% in January 2026 and another 20% in July. Its explanation: prices "change periodically based on supply and demand".
• In April, AWS itself acknowledged that the server memory shortage is pushing companies to the cloud because they cannot get their own hardware.

Leaseweb (Netherlands, enterprise infrastructure since 1997):

• August 1, 2026: a new VPS list for new contracts, 7% to 41% higher depending on the region (16% in Europe, 24% in the UK, 41% in the United States). In the US, the VPS 5 went from US$36.70 to US$55.99 per month.
• Existing contracts renew at the current price until the customer changes them. Stated reasons: AI-driven memory and storage shortage, IP address shortage and inflation.

The visible result: buying a new server today costs 15% to 30% more than a year ago, and whoever bought at the new price is already passing it on to their list.

Our published prices today are the same we had before the increase started. We do not know how long we will be able to hold them; what we do know is that today they still stand:

The full list is on VPS.

We can hold them because the infrastructure we already operate does not change its cost: the increase hits new hardware. Our decision is to keep the list as long as installed capacity lasts, instead of buying servers at today's prices and passing that on to you.

That has one consequence you will notice from time to time: when a plan uses up installed capacity, the page shows it as "delayed setup" or "unavailable" until we restock. If the plan you want is in that state, the "Notify me" button writes to you when it is back.

An adjustment does not reach cycles already paid. A one-year, two-year or three-year plan contracted today keeps its price until the end of that cycle, whatever happens to the list. Monthly plans are billed at the price in force at each renewal, and any change is announced in advance by email. If you want to lock in today's price, the long cycle is the way to do it.