Netcup Review: Cheap German Hosting and Servers, With No Renewal Surprise

Most hosts lure you in with a low first year price and double it at renewal. Netcup doesn’t. The price on its website is the price you keep paying, and the only way to make it cheaper is to commit to a longer term.

Add plenty of server power for very little money, and it’s easy to see why the German host is popular with developers and people who run their own projects. There are catches, though. Support only works on weekdays, backups on web hosting come with caveats, and the contracts are stricter than many people expect.

This review is based on Netcup’s current plans, terms and published data from October 2026, together with independent user reviews. It covers Netcup’s Plesk web hosting as well as the VPS and root servers it’s best known for.

About Netcup

Netcup started as a one person business run by Felix Preuss and became netcup GmbH in 2008. The company is based in Karlsruhe, Germany, and has been part of the Austrian Anexia group since 2016. Today it serves more than 300,000 customers with over 400,000 hosting products and more than 550,000 domains, with a team of over 100 people.

The company holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications, and says it uses electricity from renewable sources wherever possible. In 2026 it was named Web Host of the Year in the VPS category by the German comparison site HOSTtest.

Most of its customers are in the German speaking market, but its website, control panels and support are also available in English.

Data Centres

The main data centre is in Nuremberg, Germany. It also runs servers in Vienna, through the Anexia network, and added Amsterdam and Manassas, near Washington DC, in 2024. Singapore is available as well.

Not every product is available everywhere. For web hosting, you can choose Nuremberg, Vienna or Manassas when you order. VPS are available in all five locations, and root servers in Nuremberg, Vienna, Manassas and Singapore. You can’t move a server to another location after it’s set up, so choose carefully.

For European websites, the German and Austrian locations help: your data stays in the EU, with a German company and ISO 27001 certified data centres. Uptime guarantees depend on what you buy. Root servers come with a guaranteed minimum availability of 99.9% on an annual average. Web hosting is only guaranteed 99.6%, which allows about 35 hours of downtime a year, against under 9 hours at 99.9%. VPS plans have no availability guarantee at all. There are no service credits either: if web hosting falls below its level, your remedy is to cancel and get back what you’ve paid in advance. Users generally describe Netcup’s uptime as stable, and businesses that need more can ask support for a custom SLA.

Netcup Pricing: No Intro Rate, No Renewal Jump

This is what sets Netcup apart. There’s no special price for the first year that ends at renewal. Instead, the price depends on how long you commit:

• Paying per month costs the most
• A 12 month term is about 13% cheaper on root servers
• A 24 month term is about 26% cheaper

Whatever you sign up for, the same price applies when the term renews. Compare that with most budget hosts, where the renewal price is often two to four times the advertised rate.

All prices below are in euros and exclude VAT. Customers in Germany and private customers elsewhere in the EU pay VAT on top, at their local rate. Business customers with a valid VAT number in another EU country usually don’t.

Web Hosting Plans

Netcup’s shared web hosting is managed through Plesk. It’s less known than its servers, but the prices are just as low.

All plans include SSH access, free SSL certificates and PHP versions from 7.2 up to 8.5. Even the entry plan comes with 100 email addresses and 25 GB of mail storage. Webhosting 4000 and 8000 add Ruby and Node.js.

Watch the domain allowance. German .de domains are counted differently from other extensions such as .com, .eu or .net. Webhosting 2000 includes three .de domains, but only one if you choose another extension instead. There’s no setup fee, and the minimum term for web hosting is 12 months.

Reseller hosting and Plesk licences

Agencies can resell Netcup’s web hosting under their own name. The reseller service runs on Plesk, where you create your own hosting packages, add customers and apply your own branding, without managing any servers. If you’d rather run Plesk on your own VPS or root server, Netcup also sells Plesk licences, from Web Admin Edition for up to 10 domains to Web Host Edition for unlimited domains with reseller features.

Domains

Netcup is also a big domain registrar, with more than 550,000 domains under management and over 450 extensions to choose from, including .eu, .net, .org, .nl and .ch. Domains are priced per month and, like the hosting, keep the same price for the whole contract term. Excluding VAT, prices start at:

That makes Netcup one of the cheapest places to keep German domains, especially during its sales, when .de domains are often discounted further. For a .com, specialist registrars can be cheaper, so compare before you move a whole portfolio.

VPS and vServer Plans

If you need more control than shared hosting gives you, Netcup’s virtual servers are where it really stands out. It calls them vServers, and there are three types:

• vServer Lite: the cheapest option, from €1.85 a month, for small projects that don’t need much power
• VPS x86: the main range, from €5.90 a month on a 24 month term
• VPS ARM64: the same plans on Ampere Altra Max ARM processors, at the same prices

These are the current VPS x86 plans on a 12 month contract. The second price is what you pay on a monthly contract.

Traffic is included on all plans, and so are snapshots and a remote console, which lets you reach your server even if its network settings break. Few European providers give you this much RAM and storage for the price. A server with 8 GB of RAM for around €12 a month has room for several websites, a database and some background tasks.

These are unmanaged servers. The host keeps the hardware and network running, but installing, securing and updating the operating system is up to you. If that sounds unfamiliar, our guide to VPS hosting explains what’s involved.

VPS Lite: the cheapest servers

The VPS Lite range is built for small projects on a tight budget. These plans have lower network speeds than the main VPS range, and each one comes with its own minimum term. Prices below exclude VAT.

VPS pico and nano are only available in Nuremberg. The Lite plans run in Nuremberg, Vienna or Amsterdam, depending on availability, and can be expanded with up to 4 TB of extra storage.

ARM servers

The ARM64 range uses Ampere Altra Max processors and mirrors the x86 plans in cores, RAM, storage and price. ARM servers suit software that’s built for ARM, such as many container images and newer Linux tools, and they tend to be more energy efficient. Check that everything you plan to run supports ARM before you choose one.

Root Servers

Root servers sit between a VPS and a full dedicated server. They’re still virtual servers, but the processor cores are reserved for you alone, so other customers can’t slow you down. They run on AMD EPYC 9645 processors with NVMe storage.

A root server is the better choice for busy shops, game servers or anything that needs steady performance around the clock. Root servers come with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee, which refunds the basic fee if you return the server within 30 days. The VPS range doesn’t have this guarantee.

Above RS 12000 there’s also RS 16000, with 24 dedicated cores, 128 GB of RAM and 2 TB of NVMe storage.

vGPU servers and extra storage

For AI and graphics work, Netcup rents root servers with a share of an NVIDIA H200 graphics card. RS 2000 vGPU 7 comes with 7 GB of dedicated video memory, 8 dedicated cores and 16 GB of RAM, while RS 4000 vGPU 14 doubles the video memory to 14 GB with 12 cores and 32 GB of RAM. Both run on AMD EPYC 9535 processors in Nuremberg, with a one month minimum term. Prices are shown when you order.

If a server runs out of space, you can add Local Block Storage for about €0.012 per GB a month plus VAT, roughly €12 per extra terabyte, without a long contract.

What Netcup Doesn’t Do Well

The low prices come at a cost elsewhere. Check these four points before you order.

Backups on web hosting

Netcup makes daily backups of its web hosting and keeps them for up to seven days, but its terms describe them as voluntary, without a guarantee. Restoring one costs extra, and files are only covered up to 10 GB. The Backup Manager, which lets you make your own backups, for example to an external FTP server, is only included from Webhosting 2000, and it doesn’t cover email. Treat your own backups as the only ones you can count on. Our guide to backing up a WordPress site shows how.

Contracts and cancellation

Web hosting needs a 12 month commitment, paid upfront. Servers can be rented by the month, but the lowest prices need 12 or 24 months. Either way, the contract renews unless you cancel in time, and some users report notice periods of up to 60 days on certain products, with no reminder before renewal. Check the notice period for your product when you order, and put it in your calendar.

No weekend support

Support only works on weekdays, which is covered in the next section. For a business site, that’s a real limitation.

Dated control panels

There are separate panels for your account and for your servers. They work, but some users find them old fashioned and less intuitive than the dashboards of larger cloud providers.

Black Friday and Other Sales

Netcup is known for its sales. Every year it runs a Black Week at the end of November, with a new deal each day across root servers, VPS, web hosting and domains. In 2025, web hosting was up to 50% off and domains up to 74% off. It also runs offers at Easter and on the last Tuesday of most months. Many of these deals are permanent prices rather than first term discounts, which makes them better than they first look. Check the details of each offer before you order. Our Black Friday hosting deals page covers this year’s offers as they go live.

Customer Support

You can reach support by ticket or email from Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 22:00, and by phone from Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00, German time. Outside those hours there’s an emergency number for technical outages and a chatbot. There’s no live chat with a person and no regular support at weekends. The company itself currently warns that response times may be longer than usual because of high demand.

On Trustpilot, it scores 3.7 out of 5 from more than 3,100 reviews. Most positive reviews mention the low prices, good value for the specs and stable servers. The negative ones keep coming back to slow support, with some tickets taking days, delays in setting up new servers, problems at checkout and strict cancellation terms. The support model works for people who fix most things themselves, but less so when you need help quickly.

Netcup vs Hetzner

Netcup’s closest rival is Hetzner, another German provider with low prices and data centres in Germany. Both are popular with developers, and both sell unmanaged servers rather than hand holding.

Netcup usually gives you more RAM and storage per euro, especially on 12 and 24 month contracts, and its Plesk web hosting is a simple add on if you also need a regular website. Hetzner is the larger company, with a more polished cloud console and more tools for developers who create and delete servers often. On Trustpilot, Netcup scores higher, but both get similar complaints about support.

If you want the most server for your money and are happy with a longer contract, Netcup is the stronger pick. If you want flexible cloud servers you can spin up by the hour with a modern interface, Hetzner is easier to work with. For another budget option with large plans, see our Contabo review.

Who Should Use Netcup?

Netcup suits developers, self hosters and small businesses who know their way around a server and want European data centres for very little money. It’s also a good fit for anyone tired of renewal price shocks, as long as a 12 month commitment isn’t a problem.

It’s not the right choice if you’re new to hosting and want someone to call on a Sunday, or if you need managed WordPress with automatic backups you can restore yourself. For that, a host with 24/7 support and managed hosting is the better fit.

Common Questions About Netcup

Is netcup a good host?

For value, yes. It offers more server resources for the money than most European providers, and its prices don’t jump at renewal. The downsides are support that only works on weekdays and strict contract terms.

Does netcup raise prices at renewal?

No. There are no intro prices, so your plan renews at the same rate you signed up at. Longer terms are cheaper, but the discount stays for the whole term.

Where are netcup’s data centres?

The main data centre is in Nuremberg, Germany, with more locations in Vienna, Amsterdam, Manassas in the US, and Singapore. Not every product is available in every location.

Does netcup have a money back guarantee?

Partly. Web hosting and root servers come with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee on first orders, which refunds the basic fee. The VPS range doesn’t have this guarantee, and it doesn’t apply to upgrades of existing products.

Is netcup better than Hetzner?

It depends on what you need. Netcup gives you more resources for the money on longer contracts, while Hetzner offers more flexible cloud servers and better developer tools.

Final Verdict

Netcup tells you the real price up front and keeps it there, which is still rare in hosting. Combined with generous VPS and root server specs, German data centres and ISO certified infrastructure, that makes it excellent value for European projects. The weak points are around the servers rather than in them: weekday only support, backups you can’t fully rely on, and contracts you need to keep an eye on. For anyone who manages their own server and plans ahead, those are easy to live with.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5