The short version
Every ranking on this site is computed from structured data against weighted, published criteria — never hand-ordered, and never influenced by affiliate payouts. Values we have not verified are labelled, not hidden. If we got something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
How providers are scored
Each ranking scores providers across eight weighted criteria. The exact weights used by a ranking are printed on that ranking's own page (“How we rank”):
- CPU performance
- RAM & storage
- Network speed
- Price per resource
- Data-center coverage
- Management (managed vs unmanaged)
- Support channels
- Refund terms
Scores are recomputed automatically whenever the underlying data changes, and refreshed daily as a backstop. Criteria we cannot score for a provider are left out of that provider's score rather than guessed. A provider's position can be manually overridden only with a stated reason, which is stored with the ranking.
Where the data comes from
Provider, plan, and pricing data enters the database three ways: manual editorial entry, CSV import, and an AI-assisted fetch that extracts published facts from a provider's own pricing page. AI-fetched values are held as pending and are excluded from rankings, the advisor, and headline prices until a human editor verifies them against the source page.
What “pending verification” means
Two honesty labels appear across the site. “Sample data pending verification” marks figures from our initial data load that we have not yet re-confirmed with the provider. “Pending verification” on a plan row marks a value extracted by our AI tooling that an editor has not yet approved. In both cases the value is shown with its label rather than silently treated as fact — and dashes mean we do not know, not zero.
How benchmarks are run
Benchmark pages report stored test runs: time to first byte (TTFB, ms), uptime (%), a CPU throughput score, and network speed (Mbps), each tagged with the test location and date. Charts are drawn proportionally from zero — when real differences between providers are negligible, the page says so instead of exaggerating the bars. Providers without a stored run are listed as unmeasured, not estimated.
Renewal prices are never hidden
The gap between a promotional first-term price and the renewal price is the industry's biggest hidden cost, so it is a first-class field here: rankings, reviews, and the renewal report separate intro from renewal, disclose the billing basis, and label unknown renewals as “not published” rather than pretending they are flat.
Editorial independence
The site earns affiliate commissions (see the Affiliate Disclosure). Commissions have no input into any score, weight, ranking position, or verdict. Providers cannot pay to be included, excluded, moved, or re-scored.
Corrections
If a price, spec, or claim on this site is wrong, we want to fix it. Providers and readers can reach us at [PLACEHOLDER: corrections contact email] — every review page also carries a “report incorrect data” link. Corrections are applied to the underlying data (not just the page), so every view that used the wrong value updates together.
Who writes this site
[PLACEHOLDER: a short byline — who runs the site and relevant background. Cross-link the About page.]