Where to host an app you built with AI (2026)
Start from the job
These five hosts answer four different questions. Find the one that matches what you built, then compare only the hosts in that row.
| Your job | Tools in this guide | What sets the bill |
|---|---|---|
| An app with a backend and a database | DigitalOcean | Per resource: Droplets from $4 a month billed per second, App Platform containers from $5 (static sites free), managed databases from $15, backups 20–30% of the Droplet price. |
| A WordPress or PHP site on a managed server | Cloudways, Kinsta | Cloudways: the server you choose, billed hourly, from $14 a month for the Micro server on DigitalOcean. Kinsta: sites, plus bandwidth or visits, from $35 a month or $30 billed annually for one site. |
| A landing page or small site on a budget | Hostinger | The prepaid term: $2.99 a month on the 48-month plan, $143.52 up front, renewing at $10.99. |
| A model that needs a GPU | Runpod | GPU time, billed per second: pods from $0.27 an hour (RTX A5000), an H100 SXM pod $3.49; serverless runs roughly 1.7x the pod rate per compute-hour. |
If you built a site or an app with an AI tool, the next question is where it runs — and the hosts on this page are not interchangeable. A landing page, an app with a backend and a database, a WordPress site and a model that needs a GPU each want a different kind of home, and each host bills for something different: resources by the second, a managed server by the hour, a site on a prepaid term, or GPU time. The headline prices are real, but they are the smallest box. What decides the bill is what you add — backups, a database, bandwidth, the renewal after a prepaid term, or the hours a GPU sits idle. Every figure below was read on the vendor's own pricing page, on the date shown.
How to choose
Decide what has to run before you compare prices. A static site needs no server at all: DigitalOcean's App Platform hosts three static-site apps on its free tier. An app with a backend needs a server or a managed runtime and usually a database, and that is where cloud bills grow — on DigitalOcean a 2 GiB Droplet ($12), daily backups ($3.60) and the smallest managed database ($15) come to $30.60 a month before bandwidth. A WordPress site wants a host that runs the stack for you. A model wants a GPU, and the meter there is time, so an idle GPU still bills. Then price the second year: prepaid shared hosting renews higher (Hostinger's $2.99 renews at $10.99), while cloud and GPU billing has no term but no ceiling either — set a billing alert on day one.
Compared at a glance
| Job | Tool | Best for | Entry price & terms | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An app with a backend and a database | DigitalOcean | running the app itself — an API, a backend or a database — on plain cloud infrastructure with per-second prices, starting from a $4 Droplet or a free static site on App Platform | Droplets from $4 a month; App Platform free for three static sites, containers from $5; managed databases from $15; GPUs from $0.76 per GPU-hour | you want one bill that covers everything: backups (20–30% of the Droplet price), a managed database (from $15) and a load balancer (from $12) are each priced separately |
| A WordPress or PHP site on a managed server | Cloudways | WordPress and PHP sites on a managed cloud server, billed hourly with no annual term, where one server holds as many sites as it can carry | $14 (Micro (DigitalOcean, Premium NVMe)) — per month, billed hourly at $0.0208 over a 672-hour month | you are comfortable running the server yourself — going direct to the cloud provider is cheaper for the same machine |
| A WordPress or PHP site on a managed server | Kinsta | business-critical WordPress sites where speed, uptime and expert support affect revenue | Managed WordPress from $35 a month, or $30 a month billed annually ($350/yr) | you run a small, low-traffic site on a tight budget — you are paying a premium for managed speed and support |
| A landing page or small site on a budget | Hostinger | a landing page or side project on cheap shared hosting, if you are happy to prepay a long term | Premium $2.99 a month (48-month prepaid term, $143.52 upfront), renews at $10.99/mo | you dislike long commitments: $2.99 a month is the 48-month rate, $143.52 up front, and it renews at $10.99 |
| A model that needs a GPU | Runpod | running a model on a GPU you rent by the second, from small cards for experiments up to H100s and H200s | $0.27 (RTX A5000 pod, Secure Cloud) — per hour, billed per second; $0.16/hr on Community Cloud | your GPU will be idle for long stretches on a pod, which bills for wall-clock time — or busy most of the day on serverless, which costs roughly 1.7x the pod rate per compute-hour |
Prices are the entry terms in our dossier for each tool, with the billing basis where the vendor publishes it. Currencies are shown as the vendor lists them; we do not convert. Check the live pricing page before you buy.
The picks, in detail
Developer cloud for running apps, APIs and databases: virtual servers (Droplets), a managed app platform, managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage and on-demand GPUs, billed per second.
Skip it if you want one bill that covers everything: backups (20–30% of the Droplet price), a managed database (from $15) and a load balancer (from $12) are each priced separately.
Visit DigitalOcean →Read our full DigitalOcean review →Managed-hosting layer that rents you servers on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud through one dashboard, with the stack, caching, staging, cloning, backups and 24/7 platform support pre-built on top. You buy a server and put as many sites on it as it holds — no per-site plans and no visit metering — billed hourly and invoiced monthly in arrears with no contract. The trade is control: Cloudways' own documentation states there is no root access and no bring-your-own cloud account, so the server lives in Cloudways' name. Owned by DigitalOcean since September 2022.
Skip it if you are comfortable running the server yourself — going direct to the cloud provider is cheaper for the same machine.
Visit Cloudways →Read our full Cloudways review →Managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud, with free migrations and 24/7 support. Overage bills per 1,000 extra visits; Kinsta gives no partner-only discount codes.
Skip it if you run a small, low-traffic site on a tight budget — you are paying a premium for managed speed and support.
Visit Kinsta →Read our full Kinsta review →Affordable, fast hosting with an AI website builder built in. Free domain, free SSL and 24/7 support — perfect for founders launching their first MVP or side project.
Skip it if you dislike long commitments: $2.99 a month is the 48-month rate, $143.52 up front, and it renews at $10.99.
Visit Hostinger →Read our full Hostinger review →Serverless GPU compute platform. Rent high-end NVIDIA GPUs by the hour to train and deploy your own machine learning models.
Skip it if your GPU will be idle for long stretches on a pod, which bills for wall-clock time — or busy most of the day on serverless, which costs roughly 1.7x the pod rate per compute-hour.
Visit Runpod →Read our full Runpod review →Frequently asked questions
Is a cloud server cheaper than managed hosting?
For the same machine, yes, but you do the work. Our Cloudways dossier compares the same 8 GB machine: $48 a month as a DigitalOcean Droplet against $99 a month on Cloudways, which adds the managed stack and platform support. Whether the difference is worth it comes down to whether you want to look after a server.
Is there a free way to host what I built?
For a static site, yes: DigitalOcean's App Platform hosts three static-site apps on its free tier, with 1 GiB of transfer each (read 3 October 2026). Anything that runs server code — an API, a database, a model — is paid on DigitalOcean, from $4 a month for the smallest Droplet.
What does a GPU cost if I leave it running?
Time is the meter, so an idle GPU still bills. On the rates we read, an H100 SXM pod on Runpod's Secure Cloud is $3.49 an hour (24 September 2026) and an NVIDIA HGX H100 on DigitalOcean is $4.41 per GPU-hour on demand (3 October 2026). Left running for a 720-hour month, that is $2,512.80 and $3,175.20.
Do you earn from these links?
On some of them, and it never changes the ordering or the wording. Every price above was read on the vendor's own pricing page on the date shown, and where we are not in a programme, the link is a plain one and the page says so.
These are our researched picks — not paid placements. Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you, and it never changes our pick. We don't publish fake or “exclusive” prices — verify current pricing on each provider's site. How we review →