GreenGeeks Specs (2026): $69.95 Managed and $9.99 Self-Managed Are Different Products, and VPS Backups Are Not Automatic

An earlier version of this URL ranked a $39.95 VPS-2 plan with CPU, disk and network scores framed as this site's own tests, including 42,000 read IOPS. None of those figures were measured here, and they have been removed.

1. Two ladders on one pricing URL

The live managed GreenGeeks VPS specs sit on greengeeks.com/vps-hosting. The same three cards reprint under the VPS Hosting tab on greengeeks.com/pricing. Self-managed cards sit on that pricing URL's Self-Managed VPS tab. The path greengeeks.com/vps-hosting/self-managed returned 404 in this session, so this page treats the pricing tab as the SKU source, not a Docker app landing that reprints the same four prices.

Amounts are USD as printed. TOS: "All prices listed are in US Dollars ($), for all services & server locations unless otherwise specified." Listed fees "do not include any applicable sales, use, revenue, excise or other taxes"; those taxes "will be added to GreenGeeks' invoice as a separate charge." The tax rate is not on the cards.

The hero line is "From $69.95/month" with "Up to 16 GB RAM, 6 vCPU and 250 GB SSD Storage." Both the 8 GB and 16 GB cards print 6 vCPU. This page quotes that as printed and does not treat it as a typo to silently fix. Shared Lite on the same pricing URL prints "Pre-paid for 12 months. Renews at $13.95/month." The managed VPS cards do not. This page does not copy the 12-month prepaid sentence onto $69.95. Checkout data-term was not opened.

The 4 GB RAM label is shared by two products. Managed 4 GB is 4 vCPU and 75 GB SSD at $69.95 with no second invoice printed. Self-managed VPS 4GB is 2 vCPU and 80 GB SSD at $9.99, and that $9.99 renews at $19.99. The pricing FAQ on the mixed page says providers, "including GreenGeeks, offer a discounted introductory price for your first billing term" and then "your plan renews at the regular rate." That matches the self-managed cards, which print both rates. It does not invent a second managed rate.

2. VPS backups are not automatic

This is the turn. A buyer who arrives from a review that still says free nightly backups on every VPS is reading a different product story than TOS. The Backup Files section states: "GreenGeeks does not offer backup of virtual private servers and/or Dedicated Servers." The same TOS says GreenGeeks "backs up its hosting platform and retains a copy for 24 hours for disaster recovery purposes only," and that it is the customer's job to keep archives.

The backup-policy article is narrower still: regular disaster-recovery backups are described for the "EcoSite & Reseller hosting platform," then "Note that GreenGeeks does not automatically backup VPS or Dedicated Servers." The VPS versus shared table puts the same split in a cell: EcoSite stores 30 sets of user-level backups; VPS backups are "Not taken automatically by GreenGeeks; can be configured on VPS with sufficient free disk space."

Configuration is a WHM checkbox. The enable/disable article: log into WHM, open Backup Configuration, and click the box. That is an account-holder job, not a silent nightly job in the $69.95 price. The pricing page also prints a "24 h Backup interval" / "Daily Backups" block about "Automatic daily backups." That block sits on a URL that also sells shared plans. This page does not paste it onto a VPS SKU.

3. SSD on the cards, NVMe later on the same URL

Do not flatten the disk label. The three managed cards print "75 GB SSD Storage," "150 GB SSD Storage," and "250 GB SSD Storage." Self-managed cards print SSD too. Later on the managed VPS URL, a marketing block says "Your VPS runs on blazing-fast NVMe SSD arrays" and "Dedicated vCPU cores and NVMe SSD storage." A "2.8x Overall performance boost" line sits next to "Dedicated vCPUs, NVMe storage." The data-center page minimum-server list is "RAID-10 SSD storage arrays" and "Solid State Drives (SSD)," with no NVMe on that page. This site measured no IOPS and does not pick a winner between those strings.

Disk overhead is a separate published fact. The VPS-versus-shared table: VPS "Requires 15GB for operating system and cPanel updates, in addition to the cPanel user and a minimum of 5GB free working space." That is vendor copy about operational headroom on a managed cPanel VPS, not a renamed 75 GB plan. Labelled arithmetic on the 4 GB card: 75 minus 15 is 60 GB before that 5 GB working-space note. This page does not sell 55 GB as a SKU.

4. LiteSpeed on the VPS page, Apache in the VPS table

The managed VPS URL prints "100% Faster page load times" next to "Dedicated resources and LiteSpeed web server." The VPS-versus-shared table, on a support article, prints a different stack for VPS: web server "Apache 2.4" against EcoSite "Litespeed," and LiteSpeed Cache "Not supported by default; must provide own Litespeed license or be replaced by alternative plugins such as W3 Total Cache or WP Fastest Cache." OS on that table is AlmaLinux 9 for VPS and CloudLinux for EcoSite. PHP on VPS is "8.0 – 8.4." MariaDB is 11.4 on both rows. This page writes both the marketing sentence and the table. It does not treat "100% Faster" as a measured result.

5. cPanel Solo, support inside cPanel, tickets for VPS

The managed VPS FAQ answers "Is cPanel/WHM License Included?" with: "Yes. All GreenGeeks VPS plans include a cPanel Solo License, which can be upgraded to accommodate more domains as your business grows." That FAQ sits on the managed VPS URL. Self-managed cards do not print cPanel. This page does not extend Solo to the $9.99 ladder. The same FAQ: every Virtual Private Server plan includes a dedicated IP. The page footer CTA also offers "full root access" next to managed support.

Support is scoped. "GreenGeeks provides management and support within the scope of cPanel." "GreenGeeks does not provide support for third-party software installations." TOS on VPS and dedicated servers: a default OS install "that permits super-user server access to our support staff." If the customer restricts that access, "GreenGeeks's ability to provide technical support you may be severely limited." The VPS-versus-shared table then splits the channel: VPS support is "Tickets"; EcoSite/Reseller is "Tickets, Live Chat or Telephone." Dashboard actions listed for VPS: start, stop, reset, change the user root password, and a link to the WHM login page.

The managed-versus-unmanaged FAQ on the VPS URL: "Managed VPS means a professional team handles all software management, security, and server maintenance on your behalf. Unmanaged VPS requires the account holder to maintain performance, security, and software updates themselves." A separate FAQ still says operating a VPS "does require some server knowledge." Free cPanel migrations are marketed on the VPS page; TOS limits the free transfer service to thirty days from initial sign-up, with a charge after that. One complimentary malware cleanup is written for "one (1) cPanel account the lifetime of your EcoSite, Reseller, or Managed VPS service," WordPress only.

6. 30-day money-back, cancel after day 30, tax extra

TOS, last updated 9 November 2022, names VPS in the guarantee: "GreenGeeks offers an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee that covers cancellations on shared hosting, reseller hosting and VPS hosting made during the first 30 days of service, due to the inability to deliver satisfactory services." The refund is hosting charges "minus any setup fees, domain name or add-ons (included and/or purchased) are non-refundable." "Domain name registrations & dedicated servers are also non-refundable." "The 30-day money back guarantee applies only to the start date of the clients' service with GreenGeeks, and does not apply to renewals of service."

After that window: "Refunds are not available for customers after the 30 days of account activation. You may however cancel your account at any time in order to make sure that your account is not renewed." "You will be charged in full for the entire month in which you cancelled your account." Auto-renewal is disabled in the dashboard "at least 5 business days before renewal." If no cancellation arrives, GreenGeeks "will renew the clients' account 24 hours prior to the renewal date." An invoice overdue more than four days suspends the account and adds a $15.00 late fee.

7. Continents, four cities, and a six-city blog

Three official lists, none of them a latency table. The VPS SKU page: "global data center locations across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia-Pacific." No city names on that page. The data-center page heading is "4 Global Data Center Locations," each marked Availability: All: Chicago, US (test IP 108.163.225.126); Montreal, CA (198.72.126.220); Amsterdam, NL (96.127.186.146); Singapore, SG (23.106.55.197). A latency blog lists Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Singapore. A value blog lists Chicago, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Singapore, and also claims VPS "nightly backups"; this page takes the city list and leaves the backup claim, because TOS already answered backups. The pricing page adds a "-38% Latency reduction globally" marketing figure. This site measured no RTT. City-level routing is a checkout question; the US datacenter guide maps US regions without a GreenGeeks performance table.

8. 300% as a REC match, not a speed claim

The VPS page: "We purchase three times the energy we consume from verified wind energy credits." The energy-match chip: "We work with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to match our energy usage, such as servers and staff workstations by 3 times." The going-green page is the method: GreenGeeks tells BEF how many servers and personnel it has; BEF calculates yearly consumption; "We then have BEF purchase RECs 3 times as much than we have consumed, and we put that energy back into the grid." EPA Green Power Partner since 2009. One Tree Planted is a separate per-account tree claim on that page. None of that is a CPU, disk, or network measurement. The 99.9% uptime sentence in TOS is scoped to "GreenGeeks servers and our primary co-location internet connection," with downtime outside GreenGeeks' ability to correct excluded. It is not a figure this site measured.

9. What these pages do not print

• A second invoice on managed $69.95, and no checkout data-term for that card. Shared Lite's 12-month prepaid line is a different product on the same URL.
• Transfer on the managed cards, and a VPS-specific fair-use clause for self-managed Unmetered Transfer. TOS "Unlimited Features" is written around plans marked Unlimited. This page does not paste that shared clause onto Unmetered Transfer, and it does not write that unmetered has no ceiling.
• A CPU model or a plan IOPS integer. Storage is labelled SSD on the cards and NVMe in later copy.
• cPanel Solo on the self-managed cards. The Solo FAQ is on the managed VPS URL.
• A single city list that matches every GreenGeeks page. Continents, four cities, and a six-city blog are three surfaces. Phoenix is on the blog and not on the data-center page read for this article.

10. Measuring the parts that are not published

CPU model, disk IOPS and achievable throughput are measurable on a server you control. The managed VPS URL prints full root on the closing CTA, and the VPS-versus-shared table lists root or user SSH. This site publishes none of those measurements. The benchmarks hub has the commands used on providers that sell a root VPS. SSD versus NVMe is two vendor strings on one URL; a buyer who wants a disk number runs fio on the plan they actually received.

The GreenGeeks VPS review is a separate URL. This page does not take scores, $39.95, 2 GB, 10 TB, or nightly-backup claims from it. For a cheap US VPS with a printed monthly grid, see cheapest VPS. Another managed-panel write-up on this site is the InMotion specs page; it is a cousin, not a ranking. Panel pricing in general is on the control-panel prices page; this specs page does not copy its "cPanel included" line as settled for both GreenGeeks ladders.

Before treating $69.95 as the only GreenGeeks VPS, pick managed or self-managed, read the $9.99 renews-at $19.99 line if that is the cart, turn on WHM backups if you need them, and match the 30-day clock to a first term rather than a renewal. GreenGeeks links on this page are plain official URLs, not affiliate links.