Cloudways
Cloud
From$99/mo
10 people: $99 a month · $1,188 a year
- No free plan
- No yearly discount listed
- No startup credits listed
- 3 plans · priced per plan
Cloudways vs WP Engine: pricing compared
Plans, list prices and what a team of 5, 10 or 25 pays on each, from Surba's catalog of Cloud tools. Updated for 2026.
At a glance
Side by side
Cloudways starts at $99/mo (Autonomous Growth) and WP Engine at $28/mo (Essential). For 10 people that's $99 vs $28 a month: WP Engine is $71 a month (72%) cheaper than Cloudways on list price.
WP Engine
Cheaper for 10 people
From$28/mo
10 people: $28 a month · $336 a year
- No free plan
- Up to 20% off yearly
- No startup credits listed
- 2 plans · priced per plan
Plans
Cloudways and WP Engine plans
Every plan with a public price, in US dollars.
Cloudways
Autonomous Growth
Autoscaling WordPress hosting · 1 baseline server · 150 GB bandwidth, 20 GB disk
$99/mo
Autonomous Scale
2 baseline autoscale servers · 250 GB bandwidth · 50 GB disk
$199/mo
Autonomous Plus
3 baseline autoscale servers · 1,000 GB bandwidth · 100 GB disk
$399/mo
Autonomous overages: disk $1/GB, bandwidth $0.04/GB, extra autoscale servers $0.07-$0.12/hour; 3-day free trial; Enterprise is custom. Cloudways Flexible (pick a DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud server) is billed hourly in arrears, e.g. DigitalOcean 2 GB/1 vCPU at $0.0357/hour; the page also showed a '30% off for 3 months' promo with an unclear $11/mo display, so Flexible tiers are not listed as plans. Add-ons: Cloudflare Enterprise from $4.99/domain/mo, Rackspace email $1.50/mailbox/mo, DNS Made Easy $0.50/domain/mo.
Prices from Cloudways's pricing page, checked 26 Oct 2026.
WP Engine
Essential
1 site, 25K visits/mo · 10 GB storage, 75 GB bandwidth · Daily backups, free SSL
$28/mo
Business
Isolated resources · Chat and phone support · Managed migrations
$400/mo
Essential: $28/mo billed annually ($336 today; first-year price for new Essential customers). Business: from $400/mo billed annually. Managed Hosting Platform capacity tiers (1, 3, 10, 30 sites) offer monthly or annual billing with 'Save 20%' on annual, but the tier prices are not rendered in the page text; WP Engine's own pages also cite plans 'starting at $30/month'. Enterprise: contact sales.
Prices from WP Engine's pricing page, checked 26 Oct 2026.
Team cost
What each costs your team
Entry paid plans, per month and per year at list price.
| Team | Cloudways (Autonomous Growth) | WP Engine (Essential) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 people | $99/mo$1,188/yr a year | $28/mo$336/yr a year | WP Engine $71 less a month |
| 10 people | $99/mo$1,188/yr a year | $28/mo$336/yr a year | WP Engine $71 less a month |
| 25 people | $99/mo$1,188/yr a year | $28/mo$336/yr a year | WP Engine $71 less a month |
Cloudways is priced per plan. WP Engine is priced per plan. Per-user prices are multiplied by the team; per-plan prices aren't. Before tax; yearly discounts not applied.
FAQ
Cloudways vs WP Engine: questions
Which is cheaper, Cloudways or WP Engine?
Cloudways starts at $99/mo (Autonomous Growth) and WP Engine at $28/mo (Essential). For 10 people that's $99 vs $28 a month: WP Engine is $71 a month (72%) cheaper than Cloudways on list price. Compare features too: the cheaper plan isn't always the closer match.
Do Cloudways and WP Engine have free plans?
Cloudways has no free plan in Surba's catalog. WP Engine has no free plan in Surba's catalog.
Are Cloudways and WP Engine cheaper if you pay yearly?
WP Engine lists up to 20% off yearly billing. Surba's catalog lists no yearly discount for Cloudways.
More comparisons
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