If you’ve been running a VPS or dedicated server with cPanel, you’ve probably noticed the licensing bill creeping up year after year. That’s not a coincidence. Since a private equity firm acquired cPanel, pricing has increased annually with no signs of stopping.
What happened to cPanel
In 2018, Oakley Capital, a London-based private equity firm, acquired cPanel. The purchase was made through a holding company called WebPros BV.
Before the acquisition, cPanel offered straightforward licensing. A dedicated server license cost roughly $45 per month regardless of how many accounts you hosted. After the acquisition, cPanel restructured its pricing to an account-based model, and prices have climbed every year since.
They also bought the competition
Here’s the part that concerns hosting providers the most: Oakley Capital didn’t just buy cPanel. They had already acquired Plesk in 2017, and then purchased WHMCS (the leading hosting billing and automation platform) in 2019.
All three products now sit under the WebPros umbrella:
- cPanel - the dominant hosting control panel in North America
- Plesk - the most widely used hosting control panel in Europe
- WHMCS - the leading billing and automation platform for hosting providers, used by over 40,000 businesses
When a single entity owns both of the major control panels and the billing platform that ties them together, hosting providers have limited alternatives. Moving away from cPanel usually means moving to Plesk, which has the same owner.
The price increases, year by year
Here’s how cPanel Premier licensing (up to 100 accounts) has climbed since the acquisition:
| Period | Monthly price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| June 2019 - Dec 2020 | $45.00 | Restructured pricing |
| Jan 2021 - Nov 2021 | $48.50 | +7.8% |
| Dec 2021 - Nov 2022 | $53.99 | +11.3% |
| Dec 2022 - Nov 2023 | $59.99 | +11.1% |
| Dec 2023 - Feb 2024 | $60.99 | +1.7% |
| 2025 | $65.99 | +8.2% |
| 2026 | $69.99 | +6.1% |
From $45 to nearly $70 in about six years. That’s a 55% increase on the Premier plan alone.
Current cPanel pricing (2026)
As of January 2026, cPanel’s direct store pricing is:
| Plan | Monthly price | Accounts included |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $29.99 | 1 |
| Admin | $35.99 | Up to 5 |
| Pro | $53.99 | Up to 30 |
| Premier | $69.99 | Up to 100 |
| WP Squared | $84.99 | Up to 10 WordPress sites |
Additional accounts beyond the Premier plan’s 100 cost $0.49 each per month (up from $0.45 in 2025).
The Solo plan has nearly doubled from its post-acquisition starting price. Hosting providers who pass these costs along to customers face competitive pressure from providers who’ve moved to alternatives.
What this means for VPS users
If you’re running cPanel on a VPS, the license cost is a significant part of your monthly expense. A $29.99 Solo license on top of a modest VPS plan means cPanel alone can represent 30-50% of your total hosting cost.
Some options to consider:
- CyberPanel - free and open-source, built on OpenLiteSpeed. We have a setup guide for installing it on your VPS.
- CloudPanel - free control panel focused on performance
- Virtualmin/Webmin - open-source server management
- Direct server management - many VPS users find they don’t need a control panel at all, especially for single-site deployments
If you do need cPanel, purchasing through your hosting provider often gets you better rates than cPanel’s direct pricing. ColossusCloud offers cPanel licensing for VPS at competitive rates.
The broader pattern
The cPanel situation illustrates a common private equity playbook: acquire a dominant product in a market with high switching costs, then raise prices incrementally. When customers can’t easily migrate (because their workflows, automation, and muscle memory are built around cPanel), each price increase is absorbed rather than triggering a switch.
Acquiring the primary competitor (Plesk) and the billing infrastructure (WHMCS) further reduces alternatives. Hosting providers who want to move away from cPanel face the cost of retraining staff, migrating customers, and rebuilding automation.
For VPS users who manage their own servers, the good news is that alternatives exist and are maturing. Open-source panels have improved significantly, and many workloads don’t require a panel at all.
Running a VPS without cPanel? Check our how-to guides for setting up Node.js, Nginx, and other services directly on your server.