Questions? Straight answers.
Everything about how ARA works — plans, pricing, support, security and the fine print — in plain language. Can’t find what you need? Talk to us.
General & about ARA
Who we are and how we work.
ARA is an independent, EU-based host. We provide Windows and Linux VPS with optional RDP, single-tenant dedicated servers, NVIDIA GPU servers, and managed-where-it-matters WordPress hosting — all on infrastructure you actually control, with a real team behind it.
We run and maintain the platform for you — provisioning, a security baseline, daily backups, monitoring, and the host, hardware and network. You keep full control of your operating system, applications, users and data. When you want us to work hands-on inside your server, that’s a paid support block.
Agencies, small businesses, founders and developers who want reliable EU hosting and a human to talk to, without hyperscaler complexity or full-managed lock-in. If you need a contractual 24/7 enterprise SLA, we’re honestly not the right fit — and we’ll tell you so.
In EU data centres (Germany and Finland), with transparent data handling. You choose your region at checkout.
Yes — your data stays in EU data centres and we keep our handling transparent. We can’t give you legal advice, but data locality and clear processing are core to how we operate.
We provision on top of established EU providers and add our own automation, security and support layer on top. You get the reliability of proven infrastructure with a small, accountable team in front of it.
We’re a small, focused team. That’s deliberate: it’s why we keep our scope clear, our pricing stable, and our promises ones we can actually keep, rather than selling guarantees we can’t staff.
Plans, products & provisioning
Choosing and setting up the right server.
A VPS is a virtual slice of a host with its own guaranteed CPU, RAM and disk (great value, easy to scale). A dedicated server is a whole physical machine just for you — maximum power and isolation. A GPU server adds NVIDIA acceleration for AI training, inference and rendering.
Pick Windows if you need Remote Desktop, Windows-only software, .NET or MS SQL. Pick Linux if you’re running web apps, dev environments or most server software — it’s cheaper and gives you full root over SSH. If you’re unsure, tell us your use case and we’ll point you the right way.
Provisioning is automated. Most VPS are live within a minute or two of your payment being confirmed. Dedicated servers can take a little longer depending on the configuration.
Yes. You can resize CPU, RAM and disk from your client area as your needs change. Upgrades are usually applied with a short reboot, so you’re never locked into your first choice.
Always. Linux VPS come with full root over SSH; Windows VPS come with full Administrator rights and RDP enabled. The server is yours to configure.
Yes — choose from the major Linux distributions or current Windows Server versions at checkout, and reinstall a different one any time from your client area.
KVM — true hardware virtualisation, so your CPU, RAM and disk are genuinely allocated to you rather than oversold.
We don’t run free trials, but plans are billed monthly with no long contract, so you can start small and cancel if it isn’t right. If you’re not sure what to order, talk to us first.
Pricing & billing
How payment, renewals and invoices work.
Everything runs through your client area. Plans are billed monthly (or annually if you prefer), and invoices are generated automatically each cycle.
Major credit and debit cards and PayPal, with bank transfer available for annual plans. (If you need a specific method, just ask.)
No. The price you sign up at is the price you renew at. We don’t use teaser rates or quietly raise prices on existing customers.
No setup fee on standard plans. One-off hands-on work, such as a complex migration, is quoted up front so there are never surprises on your invoice.
Yes. Monthly plans can be cancelled before the next renewal date from your client area — there’s no long lock-in. Your service stays active until the end of the period you’ve already paid for.
Because plans are billed monthly with no long contract, we generally don’t refund partial months — you simply cancel before the next cycle. If something has gone wrong on our side, talk to us and we’ll make it right.
Hourly billing is ideal for short bursts — you pay only for the hours the GPU is active. Monthly billing suits sustained workloads and gives a lower effective rate. You can switch as your usage changes.
Yes. VAT is applied where applicable, and every payment produces a downloadable invoice with your business details for your records.
We’ll notify you and retry. Your service stays up during a short grace period; if it remains unpaid it may be suspended, and eventually terminated. Your backups are retained for a brief window so nothing is lost the moment a card expires.
Support
What we help with, and how fast.
No — and we won’t pretend to. You get responsive support during business hours (Mon–Fri, CET) plus self-serve docs available any time. For genuine platform outages we respond as fast as we can, whatever the hour.
Included: account and billing help, provisioning or platform issues on our side, outages we’re responsible for, host patching, backup restores, and pointing you to the right guide. Paid block: hands-on work inside your server — app troubleshooting, custom configuration, extra migrations, performance tuning and one-off ops tasks. We always confirm scope and cost before any paid work starts.
General questions typically get a first reply within one business day; billing and provisioning the same or next business day. These are typical times during business hours, not a contractual SLA.
Through your client area or by emailing info@ara-hosting.com. Include your server ID, what you were doing and the exact error message, and we can usually resolve it in one reply.
Yes. A standard migration is included when you move to us. Larger or more complex migrations are handled as a paid support block, quoted up front.
By default, no — your applications, configuration and OS updates are yours to control under our semi-managed model. We can take on specific tasks for you as a paid support block whenever you’d like a hand.
Security, backups & uptime
Keeping your data safe and online.
Every plan includes daily automated snapshots with one-click restore. You can also take manual snapshots before a risky change, and add longer or offsite retention if you need it.
From your client area in a click, or just ask us — backup restores are part of included support, not a paid block.
We run on reliable EU infrastructure and aim for high uptime, but we don’t sell a contractual SLA with credits. We’d rather set honest expectations than attach a number we can’t guarantee as a small team.
We apply a firewall baseline and harden the host platform, hardware and network. Security inside your server — your OS, apps, users and patches — is yours, and we’re happy to help with it as a paid block.
It’s shared. We secure the platform, host and network; you secure your operating system, applications, accounts and data. We’ll always be clear about which side a given issue sits on.
Yes — basic network-level DDoS protection is included via our data-centre partners. For unusually high-risk workloads, talk to us about stronger options.
We monitor platform health, uptime and the underlying infrastructure. Application-level monitoring inside your server you can add yourself, or ask us to set up for you.
If it’s on our side — network, host or hardware — we work it immediately and post updates. If it’s inside your environment, we’ll help you identify it and can take over the fix as a support block if you’d like.
Technical & account
Access, limits, policies and ownership.
Yes. Full root or Administrator access means you can install and configure anything you like, as long as it’s within our acceptable use policy.
Your client area handles billing, provisioning and server actions. Panels like cPanel or Plesk aren’t bundled by default, but you’re free to install one (licence costs apply), or we can set it up for you as a paid block.
Each server includes one IPv4 address (and IPv6). Additional IPs are available on request, subject to justification in line with data-centre policy.
Plans include a generous monthly traffic allowance. We’ll tell you the exact figure for your plan, and we’ll always contact you before anything like an overage becomes an issue rather than billing you by surprise.
Technically yes — you control the server. Note that outbound mail (SMTP port 25) is often rate-limited by default to protect the network from abuse, so if you plan to run a mail server, let us know and we’ll review it with you.
Yes. Reboot, reinstall and console access are all available from your client area, any time, without opening a ticket.
Yes — contact us and we’ll arrange an account or ownership transfer securely.
Anything illegal, abusive, or that endangers the platform or other customers — spam, malware distribution, network attacks and similar — as set out in our acceptable use policy.
After cancellation your server is decommissioned and its data securely deleted following a short retention window. Be sure to export anything you need before the service ends.
Still have a question?
If your answer isn’t here, our team is happy to help — and we’ll always give you a straight answer, even if it’s “we’re not the right fit.”