On 16 December 2026, every cPanel license gets more expensive. A Pro license for a VPS with 30 accounts goes from $593.52 to $648.89 a year, and each account above 100 costs 12% more. This post sets the new prices next to the old ones, works out a year of licenses for five typical small-host servers, and lists your options, staying on cPanel included.
All prices are cPanel's own store prices in US dollars before tax, from its pricing page and its Store Licensing Guide 2027, checked in October 2026. Partner prices for data centers and resellers of licenses (cPanel calls them PartnerNOCs) are lower and are not covered here.
What changes on 16 December 2026?
cPanel prices a server by the number of accounts on it, in four tiers. Solo, Admin and Pro are sold for cloud servers (VPS) only and can be billed yearly. Premier is the only tier for a dedicated server, and it is billed monthly.
| Tier | Until 15 Dec 2026 | From 16 Dec 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo 1 account, VPS only |
$29.99/mo $329.52/yr |
$32.99/mo $362.89/yr |
+10% |
| Admin Up to 5 accounts, VPS only |
$35.99/mo $395.52/yr |
$38.99/mo $428.89/yr |
+8% |
| Pro Up to 30 accounts, VPS only |
$53.99/mo $593.52/yr |
$58.99/mo $648.89/yr |
+9% |
| Premier Up to 100 accounts, VPS or dedicated |
$69.99/mo | $76.99/mo | +10% |
| Each account above 100 On Premier |
$0.49/mo | $0.55/mo | +12% |
"/mo" is the monthly price and "/yr" the price of a year with yearly billing, which cPanel offers on Solo, Admin and Pro. Premier has no yearly option, so a year of Premier is twelve monthly payments.
What does a small host pay in 2027?
A 10% rise sounds small until you see it as a year's bill. Here are five servers worked out for a full year at the new prices. Each one links to the license cost calculator, which uses the same price lists, so you can change the numbers to match your own server.
One VPS with 30 accounts
A Pro license billed yearly costs $648.89 a year, $55.37 more than in 2026. That is $21.63 per hosted account per year, before any add-on. Open this case in the calculator.
The same VPS with a 31st account
Pro stops at 30 accounts. Account number 31 moves the server to Premier at $76.99 a month, or $923.88 a year. One new customer adds $274.99 to the license bill. If a server sits just under a tier limit, plan for the jump before that customer signs up. Open this case in the calculator.
A dedicated server with six customers
Solo, Admin and Pro are not sold for dedicated servers, so a dedicated server with 6 accounts pays the same as one with 100: $923.88 a year, $84 more than in 2026. Open this case in the calculator.
A busy server with 250 accounts
Premier covers 100 accounts, and the other 150 cost $0.55 each a month. That makes $159.49 a month, or $1,913.88 a year, $192 more than in 2026. It is the cheapest case here per account, at $7.66 a year. The 30-account VPS pays almost three times as much for each customer: under cPanel's tiers, the smaller the host, the more every account costs. Open this case in the calculator.
Five VPS with 30 accounts each
Five Pro licenses billed yearly cost $3,244.45 a year, $276.85 more than in 2026. Open this case in the calculator.
What are your options?
Stay on cPanel and pass the cost on
Many hosts do this, and it is a reasonable choice. Your customers know the cPanel interface, your billing and add-ons are built around it, and a move costs time. If you stay, check three things before 16 December: that each server is on the smallest tier it needs, that yearly billing is on where cPanel offers it, and whether a partner price is open to you.
Move to another commercial panel
- Plesk raises its prices on 1 January 2027 as well. Web Host, the plan that allows resellers, goes from $62.99 to $73.99 a month on a VPS, according to Plesk's Customer Licensing Guide 2027.
- DirectAdmin charges per server, not per account. Its pricing page listed $5 a month for 2 accounts, $15 for 10 and $29 for unlimited accounts in October 2026, with no 2027 change announced.
Either one still means a migration: new server software, every account moved, and new screens for your customers.
Move to a free panel
ArcPanel is free software under the GPL. It has no paid edition and no license key, so the 250-account server above costs $0 in licenses in 2027 and in every year after. It runs the classic hosting stack (web, mail, DNS, databases, SSL and backups) on Debian and Ubuntu, adds a reseller role and Node.js and Docker apps, and imports cPanel backups.
Before you decide, weigh what a move to ArcPanel asks of you:
- ArcPanel installs on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu server (amd64). It does not convert a cPanel server in place, so a move means a new server and a planned cut-over.
- Your customers will see a new interface, and some of them will ask for cPanel by name.
- There is no WHMCS module yet. Billing systems can call ArcPanel's REST API v2 with scoped access keys.
- ArcPanel is a young project. Its changelog and roadmap show how often it ships and what comes next.
If WHMCS integration, CloudLinux or a cPanel-only workflow is central to your business, stay on cPanel for now. If the license is the biggest line on your server bill, the comparison is worth an afternoon. Start with the side-by-side comparison of cPanel and ArcPanel.
Check your own numbers before 16 December
Your servers will differ from the five above. Enter your servers, accounts and domains in the license cost calculator. It shows this year's and the 2027 prices of cPanel, Plesk and DirectAdmin side by side, and the page address keeps your numbers, so you can send the result to a business partner.
If the numbers point to a move, install ArcPanel on a test server in about fifteen minutes and restore a copy of one cPanel account on it. If you would rather have us do the move, we migrate servers from cPanel from $199 per server: see support and services.
