Business Website Hosting in the EU: Sovereign Options Compared in Berlin for 2026

The verdict in three sentences

For a business website in the EU, hosting costs 5 to 15 EUR a month for shared plans, 20 to 60 EUR for a VPS and 150 to 400 EUR for managed hosting, and the right choice depends on what one hour of downtime costs you. A European-headquartered provider such as Hetzner, OVHcloud or Scaleway removes exposure to the US Cloud Act, which enterprise clients increasingly ask about. Once your site generates more than 50 quote requests a month, managed hosting with a 99.9 % SLA usually pays for itself.

The three hosting families compared

Shared hosting puts hundreds of sites on one server: cheap, with no performance guarantee. A VPS gives dedicated resources, provided someone maintains it. Managed hosting hands everything to a provider: updates, monitoring, backups and restores under contract.

GDPR, Cloud Act and sovereign cloud

GDPR does not ban US providers, but the Cloud Act lets US authorities request data from an American company even when it is stored in Frankfurt. For a brochure site with no sensitive data, the risk is low. For a site collecting CVs, health data or B2B client information under NDA, a European provider simplifies your impact assessment and your clients' security questionnaires.

In Germany, the BSI's C5 attestation is the reference that public bodies and large corporates ask for. A Mittelstand SME rarely needs it unless a client puts it in the tender.

How to decide in 2026

Start from the cost of one hour of downtime: revenue generated by the site, lost quote requests, reputation with clients. Add the hidden cost of an unmaintained VPS: an unpatched WordPress vulnerability typically costs 2,000 to 5,000 EUR to clean up. Finally, check reversibility: full export of site and databases, no exit fees.

Mini case study

Jonas, CFO of an 80-employee industrial SME in Berlin, launches a new site that generates about 60 quote requests a month, with a 15 % win rate and an average deal of 9,000 EUR. Each request is worth 1,350 EUR of potential gross margin. On shared hosting, past data shows about 20 hours of downtime a year, roughly 1.6 lost requests or 2,200 EUR. Managed hosting at 220 EUR a month costs 2,640 EUR a year, versus 120 EUR for shared. It looks tight, but adding one security incident avoided every two years (3,500 EUR clean-up, i.e. 1,750 EUR a year) makes managed hosting the winner, with data hosted at Hetzner to answer his automotive clients' GDPR questionnaires.

FAQ

Which hosting should an SME choose for a brochure site?

Shared hosting at 5 to 15 EUR a month is enough if the site generates few leads and collects no sensitive data. Above 50 requests a month, move to managed hosting.

Hetzner, OVH or Scaleway: which is most reliable?

All three state 99.9 to 99.95 % infrastructure availability. The difference lies in support and ecosystem: Hetzner for price, OVHcloud for managed offers, Scaleway for developer tooling.

Does the Cloud Act really matter for an SME?

Mainly for SMEs handling demanding or sensitive client data. A European-headquartered provider removes the risk, often at no extra cost.

What should a managed hosting contract include?

A 99.9 % SLA with penalties, daily backups kept for 30 days, a guaranteed restore time under 4 h and a reversibility clause.

Do I need backups outside the host?

Yes, a weekly external copy costs 2 to 10 EUR a month. The 2021 fire at OVH's Strasbourg data centre proved why.

Let's scope your project. Tell us your traffic, the data you collect and the uptime you need, and we will recommend the right hosting, from 15 to 400 EUR a month, with a planned migration in 1 to 2 weeks. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.