VPS vs managed hosting TCO calculator
Type your own numbers for a self-managed VPS and a managed plan, price the operations hours each one really takes, and get the break-even hourly rate at which the cheaper column flips.
The monthly invoice is not the whole cost: someone patches, monitors and backups the self-managed box. Price both columns with your own numbers and the assumed hour bands, and get the break-even rate your time would have to be worth for the answer to flip.
By Sam Moreton
Researched
Calculator
Assumptions
- Setting up a self-managed server is planned at 4-16 hours, once: operating system, stack, firewall, deploy path, backups, monitoring.
- Steady-state self-managed operations are planned at 2-6 hours per month: updates, certificate renewals, monitoring, backup checks, the occasional incident.
- Setting up on a managed platform is planned at 1-4 hours, once: account, server, application, certificate.
- Steady-state operations on a managed platform are planned at 0.25-1 hour per month: server patching and backups are the platform's job.
- Both columns exclude the work that does not change between them: application development, content, and the cost of an outage. Neither column prices downtime.
Formula vv0.1 / last reviewed 2026-10-10
A hosting bill is half a cost. The other half is the time: installing the operating system, wiring the firewall, renewing certificates, checking that backups actually ran, being the person who gets pinged at 2am. This calculator puts both halves on the page for two columns, a self-managed VPS and an equivalent managed platform, using prices you type and hours you can override.
Who this is for
Anyone choosing between running their own box and paying someone else to run it, especially the second or third time around, when the novelty of apt upgrades has worn off. It works in the other direction too: if you enjoy the operations work, this is how you check that the cheaper column is still cheaper once your hours are priced honestly.
How to read the result
Both cash columns are yours on purpose. The calculator never quotes a market price, because plan lists move and a stale figure is worse than none. You type what the VPS costs and what the managed plan costs, pick a horizon, and the tool folds the one-off setup hours into the monthlies so the two totals always agree.
The hours start as assumed bands, printed under the result, and every one of them accepts your own number. If you have run a self-managed box for a year, your update-and-fix log is better data than any planning band.
The interesting output is the break-even rate: the hourly value at which the two columns cost the same over your horizon. Below it, the VPS wins even with your time priced in. Above it, the managed platform is the cheaper decision, whatever the invoices say on their own.
What it leaves out
Deliberately, the things that do not differ between the columns: building the site, writing the content, and the cost of an outage. Downtime pricing is the big omission. A managed platform does not eliminate outages, and if an hour down costs you real money, neither column of this calculator contains your most important number.
When to trust it
The assumed hours describe an ordinary month on an ordinary site: patching, renewals, backup checks, a small incident now and then. Your reality is lumpier. The month a disk fails or a PHP upgrade breaks a plugin eats months of steady-state hours in one go. Run the bands first, then push the VPS hours up and see whether the answer survives. If it survives, the VPS is genuinely your answer, and now you can say so with numbers attached.
Where to go next
The Cloudways review shows what a real managed bill looks like month to month, add-ons included. The comparisons against DigitalOcean, Linode and Vultr cover the raw-VPS side of the decision, and once the money is settled the server size calculator sizes whichever column won.
FAQ
Why do I have to type my own prices?
Both cash columns are your numbers on purpose. A calculator that quoted market prices would be guessing at plans it has not measured, and would age badly the day a vendor changes its list. You take the cheaper column's cash figure to the provider's own pricing page and check what it excludes.
What does the break-even rate mean?
It is the hourly value at which the two columns cost the same. Below it, the cheaper-in-cash column wins once your time is priced in; above it, the other column does. When your hours are uncertain the answer is a range, and the calculator says which side is unbounded.