What makes up the cost of a dedicated server
The monthly price covers hardware depreciation, rack space with power and cooling, uplink bandwidth, one IPv4 address and the work of on-site engineers. In the price list this collapses into a single line: from $59 for a Xeon E3 with 16 GB ECC up to $430 for an AMD EPYC 7502P with 64 GB; the dual-socket machine with 64 GB and four NVMe drives in RAID10 is $149. Everything beyond the base configuration counts as an option and is added to the invoice monthly.
- The base plan already includes hardware, uplink, one IPv4, power and hosting — you do not budget for them separately.
- Four price multipliers: CPU generation and socket count, ECC memory size, disk type and count, uplink width with its traffic quota.
- Monthly options: extra IPv4 $5, KVM/IPMI access $5, server administration $300, extra 1 TB HDD $15, backup to external storage $10.
What the base price includes
A server is more than a CPU and disks. You pay for a rack unit, power, cooling and a switch port, and for an engineer walking up to the machine when a drive fails. DDoS filtering is in there too: the German and US sites give L3/L4, the US Pro plans and above add L7, and the French site runs Anti-DDoS Arbor.
Traffic is a separate line in the provider's own costs. That is why plans use different uplink formulas: 1 Gbps unmetered, or 1 Gbps with a 30 TB quota. What those numbers mean in practice is covered in server uplink: Mbps, unmetered and traffic limits.
The four price multipliers
| Plan | Location | CPU | RAM | Disks | Uplink | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated Xeon E-2186G DE | Germany | Xeon E-2186G | 32 GB DDR4 ECC | 2×240 GB SSD or 2×2000 GB HDD | 1 Gbps unlimited | $240 |
| Dedicated Xeon E-2246G FR | France | Xeon E-2246G | 32 GB DDR4 | 2×480 GB NVMe | 1 Gbps unlimited | $240 |
| Dedicated Start US | USA | Xeon E3-1270v6 | 16 GB ECC | 2×500 GB SSD, RAID1 | 1 Gbps, 30 TB | $59 |
| Dedicated Pro US | USA | Xeon E5-2680v4 | 32 GB ECC | 2×1 TB NVMe, RAID1 | 1 Gbps unlimited | $89 |
| Dedicated 2× Xeon E5-2660v4 FR | France | 2× Xeon E5-2660 v4 | 256 GB DDR4 | 5×500 GB SSD | 1 Gbps unlimited | $340 |
| Dedicated EPYC 7401P FR | France | AMD EPYC 7401P | 256 GB DDR4 | 2×1000 GB NVMe | 1 Gbps unlimited | $420 |
| Dedicated EPYC 7402P DE | Germany | AMD EPYC 7402P | 64 GB DDR4 | 2×480 GB SSD, HDD or NVMe | 1 Gbps unlimited | $340 |
| Dedicated EPYC 7502P DE | Germany | AMD EPYC 7502P | 64 GB DDR4 | 2×480 GB SSD, HDD or NVMe | 1 Gbps unlimited | $430 |
| Dedicated Enterprise US | USA | 2× Xeon E5-2680v4 | 64 GB ECC | 4×1 TB NVMe, RAID10 | 1 Gbps unlimited | $149 |
Xeon E-2186G DE to EPYC 7402P DE is plus $100 for double the memory and a move from a high-clock platform to a many-threaded one; EPYC 7502P DE then adds $90 for a stronger CPU at the same memory. Pro US to Enterprise US is plus $60 for a second CPU, another 32 GB of memory, RAID10 instead of RAID1 and KVM/IPMI access included. The identical Pro configuration now exists only in the USA at $89. The difference between countries is no longer the price of the same hardware but the hardware itself: Germany and France run on different platforms.
Paid options
| Option | Price per month | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| Extra IPv4 | $5 | Separate addresses for sites, a mail node, virtual machines |
| KVM/IPMI access | $5 | Any custom OS, BIOS work, reboot and console without support tickets |
| Server administration | $300 | No in-house system administrator |
| Extra 1 TB HDD | $15 | Archives, video, a local copy of backup data |
| Backup to external storage | $10 | Off-server copies are mandatory, not a luxury |
On Enterprise US the KVM/IPMI access is already included and needs no surcharge. Why that access matters on the other plans and what it gives you during an outage is covered in IPMI and KVM-over-IP.
Count the total, not the price-list line
Take a typical online store on Dedicated EPYC 7402P DE. Base $340, plus two extra IPv4 addresses ($10), plus backup to external storage ($10), plus KVM/IPMI ($5). That is $365 per month, or $4,380 per year. With no in-house administrator add $300, and the total becomes $665 per month. That is the figure to compare against alternatives, including colocating your own hardware.
Verify on day one that you got the configuration you paid for:
# CPUs and cores
lscpu | grep -E 'Model name|Socket|Core\(s\)'
# memory modules: size, type, speed
sudo dmidecode -t memory 2>/dev/null | grep -E 'Size:|Speed:|Type:'
# disks and whether they spin (ROTA=1 means mechanical)
lsblk -d -o NAME,MODEL,SIZE,ROTA
# uplink port speed
sudo ethtool eno1 2>/dev/null | grep -i speed
Saving $5 on KVM/IPMI access costs more than the access itself the first time something goes wrong. A failed kernel upgrade, a typo in fstab or a broken network config leaves the machine without SSH, and without a console you see neither the boot screen nor the initramfs prompt. How to confirm you are ready: before touching the bootloader or the network, log into the KVM console, make sure you see POST output, and check that the server starts in rescue mode.
When cheaper is not better value
The $59 Start US plan will serve a corporate site, a small online store or a couple of containerised services. But if the project writes tens of thousands of transactions per hour, the SSD mirror hits its IOPS ceiling long before the CPU does. The cost comparison between a virtual machine and your own hardware under the same load is in dedicated server or VPS, and current configurations are listed under dedicated servers.
Key takeaways
- The base price is hardware, rack, power, uplink, one IPv4 and DDoS filtering.
- CPU generation, ECC size, disk type and uplink formula explain almost all of the gap between plans.
- The Pro configuration on the E5-2680v4 now exists only in the USA, at $89.
- Compare the annual total with the options you need, not the lowest line in the price list.
Frequently asked questions
Why do servers with identical specs cost differently in different countries?
The hardware in those configurations really is the same, and the price gap reflects the cost of the site and transit itself: rack rental, power, traffic filtering, and the uplink of that particular data center. Plans are better compared not by a single price-list figure but by the whole combination of location, uplink, and services included at that site.
Is server administration included in the plan's base price?
No, administration is a separate paid option rather than part of the base configuration. The base price covers hardware, rack space with power and cooling, uplink, and one IPv4 address, but setup, updates, and incident response are handled by the provider's engineer only when that option is purchased separately; otherwise the tenant looks after the whole system alone.
Is it worth saving on KVM/IPMI access to lower the monthly bill?
No, that saving turns into a far bigger loss the first time something goes wrong. A failed kernel update or a broken network setting can leave the server without SSH, and without a console you see neither the boot screen nor the recovery prompt, so you end up waiting for an engineer on site instead of fixing the problem yourself.
Can two plans be compared just by the bottom-line price in the list?
No, the price-list line only shows the base configuration, while real costs are made up of the options you actually need: extra IP addresses, backups, remote console access, and administration. The right comparison is the total for a month or a year with the full set of options included, not the smallest figure printed in bold on the plan's page.