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cPanel on a VPS: which licence you need and what a server with WHM will cost
On a VPS, cPanel comes paired with WHM. WHM is the server administrator's panel, where you create accounts and packages and configure services; cPanel is the interface for the owner of an individual account. This kind of server suits web studios with dozens of client sites, small hosting projects and people who have worked in cPanel for years and don't want to relearn. For a single site the combination is almost always overkill: the licence costs more than the server itself.
How the licence is priced
Since 2019 cPanel has been licensed by the number of accounts on the server. An account is a separate user with their own cPanel, not a site: one account can hold several domains. For VPSs the vendor sells three tiers:
- Solo: one account, about $30 a month when paid monthly;
- Admin: up to 5 accounts, about $36;
- Pro: up to 30 accounts, about $54.
The Premier tier (100 accounts and up, with a fee for each additional one) is meant for dedicated servers. Paying annually lowers the price by about 8%. Match the tier to your actual number of clients in advance: once you go over the limit, the panel stops creating new accounts until the licence is upgraded.
A licence from the host or your own
The table lists hosts that let you order cPanel together with a VPS. It is almost always a paid add-on on top of the server price, and the total depends on how it's sold. Partner hosts buy licences in bulk and often resell them below retail, and they install the panel on a clean server for you. The downside is that the licence is tied to the IP address of that VPS, and you can't take it with you when you move to another host. Your own licence, bought from the vendor or a licence reseller, can be moved to a new IP through your account dashboard, but you'll have to handle installation and updates yourself. If you plan to change hosts within a year, this matters more than the price difference.
OS, memory and virtualisation
Current versions of cPanel run on AlmaLinux 8, 9 and 10, Rocky Linux, CloudLinux and Ubuntu LTS. Debian and Windows are not supported. The panel must be installed on a fresh system with no web server or databases: the installer sets up Apache, PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, mail and DNS itself, disables SELinux and changes network settings, so it is never run on a server that already hosts live sites.
The official minimum is 2 GB of memory and 20 GB of disk; the recommended spec is 4 GB and 40 GB. In practice 2 GB is only enough for a couple of small sites without mail antivirus. For a studio with 10–30 accounts it makes sense to take 4 cores and 8 GB of memory or more, with an NVMe disk that has room for backups. Virtualisation must be full, ideally KVM: in LXC containers cPanel needs special configuration, and on OpenVZ it usually isn't offered at all. If the server will host sites belonging to different owners, add CloudLinux: it limits each account's CPU and memory, but it is another monthly licence.
Migrating to and from cPanel
Moving between two servers with WHM is easiest: the built-in Transfer Tool takes whole accounts, including files, databases, mail, DNS zones and SSL. All you need is root access to the old server. Coming from another panel is harder: WHM can restore accounts from cPanel archives, but data from Plesk or DirectAdmin is usually moved with third-party scripts or by hand: files, a database dump, and mailboxes via IMAP sync.
Leaving cPanel is possible too, and many people do it because of the price. A cPanel account backup can be read by the import tools of Plesk, DirectAdmin and several free panels. Before moving, check the PHP and MySQL versions on the new server: an old site engine may not run on a recent PHP, and that only shows up after the DNS switch.
What to check before ordering
- Which licence tier is included and how much the upgrade to the next one costs.
- Whether Softaculous, JetBackup or Imunify are included: these are separate paid add-ons.
- Whether the host takes daily disk snapshots on its side, not just backups inside WHM.
- Whether outbound port 25 is open, if clients will send mail from the server.
- Whether the host offers a second IPv4 address: you may need one for your own DNS servers and for separate SSL for old clients.
Work out the full total for a year: the VPS, the cPanel licence, add-ons and CloudLinux if needed. For a five-account server the sum gets large enough that it's worth comparing with a free panel or with DirectAdmin. But if clients pay precisely for the familiar cPanel interface and you resell hosting to them, the licence pays for itself with the first few accounts, and it usually isn't worth skimping on.