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Cloudways’ Black Friday coupon has said 50% off for years, and on Cloudways that means something narrower than it sounds. You pay half for your first 3 months, then the normal monthly server price for as long as you stay. On the smallest DigitalOcean server, last year’s code BFCM5050 saved $21 in total.
I don’t hold that against Cloudways. It bills by the hour, never jumps at renewal and lets you resize a server without moving a single site, which is why I have put client stores and agency sites on it over the years. The coupon just isn’t a reason to choose it.
The line in last year’s offer that I would have acted on was quieter: Advance Support for $25 a month for life, down from $100. For anyone who runs client sites without a developer on call, that was the actual Black Friday deal.
Cloudways Server Prices With the Black Friday Coupon
Cloudways prices servers, not plans. The DigitalOcean sizes most people choose, with what last year’s code did to the first 3 months:
| DigitalOcean server | Monthly | First 3 months with BFCM5050 | Specs | Total saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | $14 | $7/mo | 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB NVMe | $21 |
| Small | $28 | $14/mo | 2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 50 GB NVMe | $42 |
| Medium | $54 | $27/mo | 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 80 GB NVMe | $81 |
| Large | $99 | $49.50/mo | 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 160 GB NVMe | $148.50 |
Each saving happens once. From month 4 you are on the monthly price, which is also what you would have paid without the coupon in month 4.
The Lifetime Support Offer
Advance Support is Cloudways’ paid add-on that extends its support team to plugin and theme problems and performance tuning. It lists at $100 a month. Last Black Friday it was $25 a month for life, and that changes the math completely:
- Saving per month: $75, every month you stay
- Saving per year: $900, more than 40 times the hosting coupon on a Micro server
- Who it pays off for: agencies and freelancers whose clients call them when a plugin update breaks something
If you would never buy Advance Support at $100, skip it at $25 too. If you would, this is the only time of year it costs a quarter of that.
The rest of the offer was the usual set: the coupon for new customers only, free site migrations, and a window that ran from late November into early December 2025.
Picking a Server Size
DigitalOcean is the cheapest provider on Cloudways for a given amount of RAM. Vultr, AWS and Google Cloud are there for specific regions or networks and cost more for the same specs.
DigitalOcean Micro
Micro is the server for one brochure site, a blog, or a staging copy.
- $14/mo, billed hourly
- 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB NVMe, 1 TB transfer
- Unlimited sites as far as the server can carry them, free staging, cloning and Redis
One gigabyte is not enough for WooCommerce or for more than two or three WordPress sites with real traffic. It is a cheap way to find out whether you like working in Cloudways.
DigitalOcean Medium
Medium is the server I would start a store or a small agency portfolio on, and Cloudways marks it as its most popular.
- $54/mo
- 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 80 GB NVMe, 4 TB transfer
- Object Cache Pro free from 4 GB servers upward, plus Redis and a firewall
The free Object Cache Pro is the reason to jump straight to 4 GB. It is a paid plugin elsewhere, and on WooCommerce it does more for cart and checkout speed than almost anything else you can add. My WooCommerce hosting comparison puts this setup against the alternatives.
Autonomous
Autonomous is the autoscaling WordPress tier, for traffic that jumps without warning.
- Growth $99/mo, Scale $199/mo, Plus $399/mo, Enterprise on request
- Runs on Kubernetes and adds capacity sideways as traffic rises
- Growth includes 20 GB disk and 150 GB bandwidth, with paid overages
- 3-day free trial
A launch, a campaign or a news site that can triple overnight justifies it. Steady traffic does not; a bigger Flexible server is cheaper.
The Add-Ons That Make Up the Real Bill
Cloudways sells the extras separately, and a typical store adds a few:
- Cloudflare Enterprise: from $4.99 per domain per month
- Site Manager: from $3 per app per month
- Malware Protection: from $4 per app per month
- Rackspace email: $1.50 per mailbox per month, because there is no built-in email
- Offsite backups: $0.033 per GB per server
A store on Medium with Cloudflare Enterprise and two mailboxes comes to about $62 a month, not $54. For mail, cheap email hosting lists cheaper routes than Rackspace.
How Cloudways Has Changed
- 2022: Bought by DigitalOcean. Cloudways has run as a DigitalOcean product since, and DigitalOcean servers remain its cheapest option.
- January 2024: Autonomous. The autoscaling tier, announced as Autoscale in 2023, became generally available.
- 2025: The Lightning Stack. The Flexible platform was rebuilt on NGINX and PHP-FPM and became the recommended stack for new servers; Apache remains available.
- November 2025: Autonomous repriced into Growth, Scale and Plus from $99 a month, with usage-based extras.
- Today: Object Cache Pro on 4 GB servers, included free from Medium up.
When a Plain Shared Host Is Better
- One small site on the lowest budget. A $3 to $4 shared plan on a long term costs a fraction of Cloudways; Hostinger is the one I would look at.
- Email on the same bill. Every Cloudways mailbox is an extra.
- You can run Ubuntu yourself. The same server without the management layer is cheaper; Cloudways alternatives and Hetzner vs Vultr vs RackNerd show the gap.
- You want a price fixed for years. WPX with free months gives you that; Cloudways gives you flexibility instead.
Setting It Up During the Sale
- Open an account from the button on this page; the 3-day trial needs no card.
- Launch a DigitalOcean server in the region nearest your readers.
- Enter the Black Friday code at billing once the sale is live. Last year it was BFCM5050.
- Add Advance Support in the same week if you will ever want it.
- Ask for the free migrations and test each site on staging before you switch DNS.
Cloudways Black Friday FAQs
What was the Cloudways Black Friday deal?
Last year: 50% off the first 3 months on all servers with BFCM5050 for new customers, free migrations, and Advance Support at $25 a month for life instead of $100.
What do I pay after the 3 discounted months?
The normal monthly server price: $14 for DigitalOcean Micro, $28 for Small, $54 for Medium and $99 for Large. There is no renewal jump.
Can existing customers use the Black Friday code?
Last year the hosting code was limited to new customers.
Which server should I start on?
Micro for one small site, Medium for a store or several client sites. Resizing later does not require moving your sites.
Does Cloudways include email?
No. Rackspace mailboxes cost $1.50 each per month, or you can use any outside provider.
Is Cloudways good for WooCommerce?
From the 4 GB Medium server up, yes, helped by Redis and the free Object Cache Pro.
Where I Land on Cloudways
Buy Cloudways for what it is, a managed server you can resize any day, and treat the coupon as a small welcome discount. If you look after client sites, the lifetime Advance Support price is the reason to sign up in November rather than in March.