Hetzner’s listings are unusual because none of them is a credit balance. The Buy Hetzner Account page offers a Hetzner 5 Server Limits Account ($50), a Hetzner 10 Server Limits Account ($70) and a Hetzner Open 25 Port Account ($250). The first two are defined by how many cloud servers the account may run at once. This article explains what a server limit is, why it exists, how to choose between five and ten, and how to design a production stack that fits comfortably inside either.
What a server limit is
Hetzner Cloud accounts carry a cap on the number of servers that can exist at the same time. It is a count, not a capacity: a small shared-vCPU instance and a large dedicated-vCPU instance each occupy one slot. Resizing a server does not consume a slot, and deleting one frees it immediately. The limit protects the provider against abuse from brand-new accounts and rises over time through the provider’s own review process as an account builds a clean history.
This is the same family of controls as the vCPU quotas on hyperscalers, just expressed in whole machines; the background is in vCPU limits and service quotas.
The three listed options
| Listed option | Price | Defined by |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner 5 Server Limits Account | $50 | Up to five cloud servers at once |
| Hetzner 10 Server Limits Account | $70 | Up to ten cloud servers at once |
| Hetzner Open 25 Port Account | $250 | Outbound port 25 open for mail delivery |
Because Hetzner bills cloud servers hourly with a monthly cap, a limit account costs nothing to hold idle; you pay for the servers you actually create. The limit simply sets the ceiling on parallelism.
Five or ten: a design question, not a budget question
Count the roles your stack needs, not the servers you might like:
- Five is enough for a web server, a database, a worker or cache, a monitoring host and one staging or spare machine. Vertical resizing covers growth for a long time.
- Ten is warranted when you run two of everything for redundancy behind a load balancer, keep separate staging and production, or host several small client projects on isolated servers.
Agencies usually want ten because client isolation eats slots quickly. Solo developers and early startups usually fit in five and can request an increase from Hetzner later on an account in good standing. Limit-defined options across providers are compared in server-limit accounts compared.
Designing inside the cap
A few habits stretch a small limit a long way. Resize rather than add: Hetzner’s shared and dedicated vCPU ranges and its ARM instances give plenty of vertical headroom before a second machine is needed. Use hourly servers for temporary work and delete them the same day so the slot returns. Put ephemeral CI runners on a single server that scales up during the day rather than on several small ones. And remember that dedicated root servers are a separate product line and not counted against the cloud server limit, which matters for the layer choice discussed in Hetzner cloud servers vs dedicated servers.
Private networks, floating IPs, firewalls, snapshots and volumes are all account features rather than servers, so a rich network layout does not cost slots either.
The Open 25 Port option is a different attribute
The Hetzner Open 25 Port Account is not about counts. Outbound port 25 is commonly blocked on new accounts to limit abuse; this listing indicates the port is open, which is relevant only if you operate your own mail transfer agent for transactional email. If you do, set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, handle bounces and complaints, and stay within Hetzner’s acceptable-use terms. If you send through a mail API instead, choose by server limit and ignore this option.
After access
- Change the password, enable two-factor authentication, and revoke any existing API tokens and SSH keys before creating your own.
- Put your own contact and billing details on the account so it stays in good standing and any future limit request is straightforward.
- Create a project per client or environment; the limit is what it is, but organisation costs nothing.
For the European comparison, Hetzner vs OVH accounts contrasts server-limit options with OVH’s vCPU quota. Recurring questions live in the Hetzner section of the Cloud FAQ.
