If you run client websites on your own server, your cPanel bill goes up on December 16, 2026. cPanel confirmed the new prices in its 2027 pricing FAQ. It is the seventh increase in eight years.
I build websites for local businesses, and hosting is the line item nobody reads until it changes. So here is the change in plain numbers, and what I would do about it if I were running client sites on cPanel today.
The short answer
Every tier goes up about 10%. On one server, the increase itself is $36 to $84 a year depending on your tier. Annoying, not fatal.
The bigger question is the level you are paying at. At the tiers freelancers actually use, the main alternative, Plesk, is $168 to $300 a year cheaper for the same job, even after its own price increase lands in January. At 100 accounts, that gap nearly disappears.
The new cPanel prices
These are cPanel's direct store prices, monthly, confirmed in the 2027 Store Licensing Guide. If you buy your license through your hosting provider, your numbers will differ. The direction will not.
| License | Accounts | Now | From Dec 16, 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | $29.99 | $32.99 | +10.0% |
| Admin | Up to 5 | $35.99 | $38.99 | +8.3% |
| Pro | Up to 30 | $53.99 | $58.99 | +9.3% |
| Premier | Up to 100 | $69.99 | $76.99 | +10.0% |
| Each account over 100 | Per account | $0.49 | $0.55 | +12.2% |
The part that decides your tier: accounts are not websites
One thing that trips people up: a cPanel account is not a website. You can put 30 client sites inside a single account and stay on the cheapest license forever.
Almost nobody who hosts for clients should do that. One shared account means one login, one resource pool, and no clean way to hand a client their own access or move them off your server later. Give each client their own account, which is the professional setup, and your tier is set by how many clients you host, not how many sites you build.
That is the math that matters. Here it is at the sizes freelancers actually run, using the 2027 prices for both panels.
| Your setup | cPanel, per year | Plesk, per year | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just your own sites | Solo, $395.88 | Web Admin (10 domains), $227.88 | $168 |
| Around 20 client sites, each in its own account | Pro, $707.88 | Web Pro (30 domains), $407.88 | $300 |
| Around 100 accounts | Premier, $923.88 | Web Host, $887.88 | $36 |
Read the table honestly and it tells you where switching pays. One server and a handful of clients: real money. A hundred accounts: the panel is the least of your costs.
Full disclosure: Plesk raised its prices too
Here is the part most comparison posts skip. Plesk's prices go up on January 1, 2027. Web Pro goes from $29.99 to $33.99 a month. I gave Plesk's increase its own full breakdown, with the head-to-head table after both increases land: Plesk went up too.
Same parent company, too. WebPros owns cPanel, Plesk, and WHMCS, and WHMCS prices go up in January as well. Switching panels does not get you out of the annual increase cycle.
What it gets you is a lower level. Plesk Web Pro at $33.99 a month covers 30 domains. cPanel Pro at $58.99 covers 30 accounts. That $25 a month gap exists after both increases, not before. That is the number worth deciding on.
What I would switch to
Plesk is the switch I would make at freelancer scale. It does the same job: accounts, domains, email, DNS, SSL, backups. The WordPress Toolkit is genuinely good, and most client sites I touch are WordPress. And it does all of it at the lower price level in the table above.
Two honest alternatives if you want out of WebPros entirely. DirectAdmin is cheaper and independent. Free panels like Hestia and CloudPanel cost nothing, but they put more of the server work on you. Both are real options; they deserve their own breakdown rather than a paragraph here.
When I would not switch
You are on shared hosting. Then you do not buy this license at all. Your host does. None of this is your bill. Just watch your next renewal for a quiet pass-through and decide then.
Your clients log into cPanel themselves. If clients know the interface and use it, retraining them costs more than the saving. Leave it alone.
You are at Premier scale. The switch saves $36 a year and migration is unpaid work. Moving 20 client sites takes a weekend when it goes well. At Pro scale, $300 a year pays that weekend back. At $36, it does not.
The bottom line
cPanel is still a good product. That was never the question. The question is whether it is $300 a year better than the alternative at your size, and after December 16 that gets harder to say yes to.
Run your own client count against the tables above. If you land at Pro or below, the switch is worth a serious look before the new prices hit.