How we rank

As of 2026-10-29, CompareGeeks tracks 2179 server offers from 42 providers, each scored 0–100 by Value Rank (hardware for the money; 50 = a typical plan at that price).

The pledge

Rankings are math, not media buys. No provider can pay for position. Some outbound links earn us a commission; it never affects any score or sort order, and providers with no affiliate program are listed and ranked identically.

Value Rank v2.0 — the headline score

One number, 0–100, answering "how much real hardware am I getting for the money?" 50 = exactly the hardware-per-dollar of a typical plan at that price. Every +25 points = twice the hardware per dollar; every −25 = half. So 10 ≈ a machine you overpay ~3× for, 75 = a genuine 2× bargain, 90+ = the best deals on the site. Tables are ranked by it by default.

Value Rank = clamp(50 + 25 · log₂( capability ÷ (K · price_usdβ) ), 0, 100)

• capability — a geometric (Cobb-Douglas) composite of four dimensions, each divided by its lane's frozen median: CPU0.55 · RAM0.20 · storage0.15 · network0.10. A geometric mean refuses to let one giant spec hide a starved one; a dimension we do not know is dropped and the exponents renormalise — nothing is invented.
• CPU = effective threads^0.93 × sustained clock × generation factor (SMT siblings count 0.25 of a core; more cores are not proportionally more machine). RAM = GB × DDR-generation bandwidth (DDR3 0.75 · DDR4 1.0 · DDR5 1.35) × ECC 1.05. storage = GB × (1 + log₂ media tier) (HDD 1 · SATA SSD 12 · NVMe 40 — one order of magnitude of "feel", not 3,000× IOPS). network = (1 + TB/month) × (1 + log₂(1 + port Gbps)).
• β — the market's measured price elasticity, fitted on our own catalogue: doubling the price buys ~1.49× the hardware on dedicated (β = 0.573) and ~1.40× on VPS (β = 0.485). Dividing by price^β instead of price is why an expensive plan is neither punished nor rewarded by construction (score-vs-price rank correlation −0.02 / −0.05, versus −0.57 / −0.83 for plain points-per-dollar).
• K and the lane medians are frozen, published constants of cg-value-2.0. Adding or removing offers moves nobody else's score; only a version bump refits them. Dedicated and VPS are never mixed.

What it does not measure: GPUs (GPU servers carry unscored value) and real-world benchmarks — every input is a public spec fact. The full study, with six candidate methods, rankings, stability and fairness tests, is in our repo under research/value-score/.

Perf/$ (retired 2026-09-22)

Our earlier value line, cg-index points ÷ monthly price, measured only the CPU and structurally favoured the cheapest plans, which misled readers next to Value Rank. It has been removed from every page, feed and the open data; Value Rank is the one score. Non-USD prices convert at ECB reference rates (currently dated 2026-10-28).

cg-index v1.0

A transparent performance estimate computed only from public CPU specification facts. PassMark CPU Mark scores (© PassMark Software, cpubenchmark.net) are shown on the CPU card for reference with attribution and a link — they never enter cg-index or Value Rank.

score = cores × sustained_clock × generation_factor × SMT_bonus × CPU_count × 10

• sustained_clock = base×0.6 + boost×0.4 (GHz, vendor spec sheets)
• generation_factor — our published per-architecture IPC-era table (Sandy Bridge 1.0 → Zen 5 2.1; full table below)
• SMT_bonus = 1.15 where the CPU has SMT/Hyper-Threading
• VPS lane: score = vCPU × family per-thread index × contention factor (0.7 shared / 1.0 dedicated vCPU) — shared-core honesty is priced in

It is an estimate, labeled and versioned on every table. Scores from different cg-index versions are never mixed (the same discipline applies to external benchmarks — e.g. Geekbench 7 scores are not comparable to Geekbench 6). If you prefer an external number, PassMark's public CPU list is one click away — we deliberately do not republish their data.

Value Rank uses the recurring monthly price. One-time setup fees are displayed per offer but not included in the ratio.

Generation factors (cg-index v1.0)

Data collection

Prices and specs are facts collected from providers' own public pages or official APIs, each offer carrying its source URL and the exact timestamp it was last verified (shown as "verified Xh ago"). We never source from other comparison sites, never scrape behind logins, and honor robots directives. Stale offers get flagged, never silently served.

Corrections

Spot a wrong spec or price? Email [email protected] — corrections ship with the next refresh and we credit reporters who want credit.