How ServerSearcher works

Where the data comes from

The plan details we show — CPU, RAM, storage, GPU model and VRAM, monthly and hourly pricing, billing currency, and data-center locations — are the specifications and prices published by each hosting provider. We aggregate that information into a single, comparable format; we do not set or negotiate provider prices.

How current it is

Provider data is refreshed on a recurring schedule. Because prices, stock, and availability can change between refreshes, every plan links back to the provider so you can confirm the current offer before you buy. If a figure looks wrong or out of date, treat the provider's own site as the source of truth.

Every public page prints a “Data refreshed” timestamp naming the catalogue version its numbers came from, so a page can always be checked against the moment it describes.

What “tracked” means

A plan counts toward our totals while two things are true: the provider currently lists it, and it carries a current price we can quote — a monthly offer above one unit of its currency. A plan with no price, or a placeholder “contact us” figure, is not counted anywhere: not in search, not on provider profiles, not on comparison or location pages, and not in the sitemap.

Every count on the site is computed with that one definition. Provider profiles, comparison pages, location pages, the price index, and the answer pages all read the same catalogue through it, and each render reads against a single database snapshot, so two pages cannot disagree about the same provider at the same moment.

How locations are named

A location page describes a city or a country — the place a buyer would search for. When a provider sells several zones inside one metro (“Frankfurt 2”, “Tokyo 4”), those fold into the single city page rather than appearing as separate locations; the provider’s own zone name is kept on the facility record behind it.

Currency and pricing

Prices are shown in the currency each provider lists, exactly as published. Where a comparison needs a single currency — sorting by price, the price index, price-band pages — amounts are converted to US dollars at current exchange rates, and the listed figure is always shown alongside.

Listed prices are the provider’s published prices: they may exclude VAT and may be promotional. We label the billing cycle (monthly or hourly) and any minimum term on the row itself rather than folding those into the figure.

When plans leave the catalogue

When a provider withdraws a plan or changes a price, the old record is retired — stamped with the date it stopped being current — rather than deleted. Historical prices stay queryable behind the scenes, which is what lets us build price-history views later without having guessed at them. A retired plan is excluded from every count and table immediately, everywhere at once.

How results are ranked

Search and listing order is driven by the filters and sort you choose — for example lowest monthly price, most RAM, or most CPU cores — computed from the plan data. Rankings are never influenced by whether a provider has an affiliate relationship with us. Where we describe a plan as “lowest-priced,” that is a computed result of sorting the plans we track by price, scoped to our dataset, not an editorial opinion.

What we don't do

We don't publish performance benchmarks, uptime figures, or star ratings, because we don't run an independent test rig to measure them — so we won't imply numbers we can't stand behind. Comparisons are limited to the factual specifications and prices providers publish.

How the site is funded

ServerSearcher earns affiliate commissions when some visitors sign up with a provider through our links. This keeps the comparison free to use and, as noted above, does not affect the prices you pay or the order in which plans appear.