We scraped VPS prices nightly for up to 196 nights. 273 plans never moved, and our first query missed a 40% increase

Description and use

A nightly VPS price scraper found that 273 plans stayed price‑stable, while netcup, Hetzner, OVHcloud, IONOS, Hostinger, and Contabo raised prices in 2026. Netcup’s 40% increase was missed by the first query because the plan generation changed.

Problem

Initial automated price‑tracking query reported no changes for netcup in September, but a 40% price increase actually occurred.

Outcome

The scraper revealed that 273 VPS plans remained price‑stable, while netcup, Hetzner, OVHcloud, IONOS, Hostinger, and Contabo raised prices in 2026. Netcup’s 40% increase was missed by the first query because the plan generation changed rather than the price of an existing plan.

Workflow

• 1. Deploy nightly scraper to collect VPS price data from provider websites.
• 2. Store each plan’s price, billing term, and timestamp in a database.
• 3. Run a query to detect price changes per plan over time.
• 4. Flag any plan whose price differs from the previous night’s reading.
• 5. Cross‑reference flagged changes with provider announcements or price‑adjustment pages.
• 6. Update the public price‑history dashboards and issue alerts for significant changes.

Evidence

Our first query said netcup changed no prices in September. That was wrong.

Source

On 22 September netcup replaced its G12 plans with a G12.5 generation that costs 40% more on the x86 VPS line and has half the disk

Source

Every active VPS and cloud plan at DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS Lightsail and Hostwinds has held a single price for the whole time we have tracked it, 273 plans in all

Source