IONOS Cloud
Germany's largest hosting group, contracting UK cloud customers through IONOS Cloud UK Ltd, with London and Worcester data centres, BSI C5 and ISO 27001, "100% independent from US and Chinese jurisdictions", a 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 120 GB Cloud Cube for £9.36 a month, an official MCP server, and the same billing reputation as the rest of the IONOS group.
How we testIONOS (IONOS Group SE, Montabaur, Frankfurt-listed since 2023, United Internet the majority owner, the group behind 1&1 and Fasthosts) runs two compute lines under one brand: fixed-plan VPS, sold on a £3-for-three-months promotion with a £10 setup fee and a £9 regular price, and IONOS Cloud, the pay-as-you-go line with Cloud Cubes, Compute Engine, managed Kubernetes and databases. For a UK business the Cloud line has a distinction none of the other EU providers here can match: the contract is with IONOS Cloud UK Ltd, registered in Gloucester, and the data can sit in London or, since December 2024, the Tier IV Worcester data centre, alongside Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris and Logroño in the EU and three US sites. IONOS Cloud states it is "100% independent from US and Chinese jurisdictions", co-founded the SECA sovereign European cloud API, and holds ISO 27001, ISO 50001 and BSI C5; SOC 2 and SecNumCloud were not found.
Prices in GBP, ex VAT, read 8 September 2026. A Basic Cube XS is 1 vCPU, 2 GB and 60 GB SSD for £5.04 a month (£0.007 an hour); a Basic Cube S is 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 120 GB for £9.36 (£0.013 an hour), billed to the minute, one IPv4 included and extra ones £5 each. Backups are the expensive part: the Automated Backup Service is £0.07 per GB per 30 days, so backing up the Cube's 120 GB volume adds £8.40 and the real monthly cost of the reference server is £17.76, nearly double the instance price. Snapshots are £0.04 per GB, outbound transfer is free to 2 TB then £0.03 per GB falling to £0.015, block storage from £0.063 per GB, S3 object storage £0.0063 per GB, managed PostgreSQL and MongoDB priced by core and gigabyte, and managed Kubernetes with a free control plane. The developer tooling is complete: an API, the ionosctl CLI, an official Terraform provider and an official MCP server on GitHub. No one-click app catalogue was found on the Cloud line.
Support is 24/7 by UK phone and chat, with Business and Enterprise account tiers promising six-hour and one-hour initial responses; no uptime SLA was found. Trustpilot is 4.7 on 41,660 invited reviews for ionos.co.uk as a whole, and the one-star themes in September 2026 are the ones we found for IONOS as a registrar: charges continuing after cancellation, surprise renewals, debt-collection calls during a dispute, an account blocked after a refund request. The status page logs several short incidents a week, mostly on the shared-hosting side. For a UK company that wants a UK contract, a UK data centre and EU ownership at a low instance price, IONOS Cloud is the one; budget the backups.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +A UK contracting entity and UK data centres (London, Worcester) from an EU-owned group with BSI C5 and ISO 27001
- +£9.36 for 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 120 GB billed to the minute; managed Kubernetes and databases; API, CLI, Terraform and an official MCP server
- +24/7 UK phone support
Cons
- −Backups at £0.07 per GB nearly double the real monthly cost; extra IPv4s £5 each
- −VPS line sold on a three-month promotion with a setup fee
- −Group-wide Trustpilot one-star themes of cancellation and billing friction; no published SLA
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £5.04 (£5.04/mo × 1 seat × 1 month (no commitment)). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Cloud Cube XS
£5.04/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓1 vCPU / 2 GB / 60 GB SSD, £0.007/hr, billed to the minute, one IPv4 included, ex VAT. VPS line: £3/mo for 3 months then £9, £10 setup.
Cloud Cube S
£9.36/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓2 vCPU / 4 GB / 120 GB SSD, £0.013/hr. Backups £0.07/GB/30 days (£8.40 for the volume), snapshots £0.04/GB, transfer 2 TB free then £0.03/GB. Real monthly cost with backups: £17.76.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.6 |
| Smallest instance | £5.04/mo (1 vCPU / 2 GB / 60 GB SSD (Cube XS)) |
| Reference instance | £9.36/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 120 GB SSD (Cube S)) |
| Real monthly cost* | £17.76/mo |
| Hourly billing | ✓ |
| Transfer included | 2 TB |
| Egress overage | £0.030/GB |
| Public IPv4 | Included |
| Backups | £0.07 per GB per 30 days (Automated Backup Service) |
| UK location | ✓ |
| EU locations | 5 |
| Locations | 10 |
| Owned in** | EU-owned |
| Sovereign offering | Local contracting entity |
| Owner | United Internet AG (majority) |
| Vendor-maintained images | No |
| Managed databases | ✓ |
| Kubernetes | ✓ |
| Object storage | ✓ |
| API | ✓ |
| Terraform | ✓ |
| MCP server | ✓ |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 4.7 (41,660) |
| Snapshots (per GB/mo) | £0.040 |
| Free credit | 30-day trial (VPS line) |
| UK cities | London, Worcester |
| HQ | Germany |
| Publicly listed | ✓ |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ |
| SOC 2 | No |
| Block storage | ✓ |
| Load balancers | ✓ |
| Bare metal | ✓ |
| GPU instances | No |
| ARM instances | No |
| Image marketplace | No |
| DDoS protection included | No |
| Private networking | ✓ |
| CLI | ✓ |
| 2FA | ✓ |
| Phone support | ✓ |
| Support channels | Phone 24/7 (UK number), Live chat, Cloud support portal |
*Real monthly cost: the reference instance (the nearest to 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB) with automatic backups switched on and a public IPv4 address, per month at the monthly or capped-hourly rate, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date; see each profile for the VAT basis, the backup rule and the egress bill on top.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the provider answers to. A US-owned provider is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the data centre is; a local data centre is not the same thing as local jurisdiction. "Sovereign offering" records what the vendor offers beyond a local data centre.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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