Most small businesses shouldn’t buy a server for the office anymore. Rent a dedicated server if you need a whole machine, use a VPS if your load is light, and only colocate if you already own hardware you want to keep. The rest of this page shows the numbers behind that, so you can check them against your own situation.
What a small business server actually does
For most small companies it’s one box doing a handful of jobs: shared files, an accounting or line-of-business app, a database behind the website, a Windows desktop or two that staff log into remotely, and backups of all of it. None of that needs to sit under someone’s desk. It needs to stay up, get patched and get backed up.
So the real question isn’t which server to buy. It’s who owns the hardware, who fixes it when it breaks, and where it lives.
Option 1: buy a server for the office
Here’s a real price. On October 13, 2026, Dell’s US store listed the PowerEdge T160 tower “starting at $4,259.01”, configured with a four-core Xeon E-2434, 32 GB of RAM and a single 1 TB hard drive.
Spread over three years that’s about $118 a month for the box alone. Then come the costs that don’t show on the invoice:
- Power and cooling for a machine that runs 24 hours a day, in a room that wasn’t built for it.
- A battery backup, so a flicker doesn’t corrupt the database.
- A business internet line with a static IP if anyone outside the office needs to reach it.
- Someone to patch it, check the backups and notice when a drive starts failing.
- Replacement parts, ordered and installed by you, while the server is down.
Buying makes sense in a few cases: you have a full-time IT person, the data legally can’t leave your building, or your office connection is the only thing that needs to reach it. Otherwise you’re paying to run a tiny data center badly.
Option 2: rent a dedicated server
A rented dedicated server is the same idea, a whole physical machine that’s yours alone, except it lives in a data center and the host owns the hardware. Ours start at $126 a month for a Xeon E3-1230 v1 with up to 32 GB of RAM and 30 TB of bandwidth, with $0 setup and no contract.
What changes is who carries the risk. If a component fails, our SLA says we replace it within 2 hours, and you’re credited if we’re late. Power, cooling, the network and DDoS protection are ours to worry about. New orders include R1Soft backups with 1 TB of space.
No IT person? Our Enterprise Server Management adds OS patching, 24/7 monitoring and troubleshooting for $99 a month per server, or $79 on a server with a cPanel license.
Option 3: colocate a server you already own
If you’ve got a good server in a closet and a lease ending, colocation moves it into a real data center. Our Chicago colocation starts at $99 a month for 1U, plus a $100 setup fee, with power, cooling, a network uptime SLA and free remote hands time in every package.
The catch: you still own the hardware, so a dead drive is still your problem. Colocation wins when the hardware is already paid for. It rarely wins when you’d have to buy new hardware just to colocate it.
Option 4: a VPS, if the load is light
If all you need is a small website, a mail relay or one light app, a whole machine is overkill. Our VPS plans start at $8 a month with dedicated vCPU, guaranteed RAM and SSD storage. You can move up to a dedicated server later without changing hosts.
Side by side
| Buy for the office | Rent a dedicated server | Colocate your own | VPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront | About $4,259 for an entry tower | $0 | $100 setup (Chicago 1U) | $0 |
| Monthly | Power, internet, your time | From $126 | From $99 | From $8 |
| Who fixes hardware | You | We do, within 2 hours | You, or remote hands | We do |
| Where it runs | Your office | Our data center | Our data center | Our data center |
| Best for | Data that can’t leave the building | Most small businesses | Hardware you already own | Light workloads |
Giving staff a desktop on the server
A lot of small businesses want the server so staff can reach the same apps from home. That’s a remote desktop job. Our remote desktop hosting plans start at $25 a month for two RDP users on a cloud VPS, or $248 a month for ten users on a dedicated server. When someone leaves, you switch off one account instead of chasing a laptop.
If you’re a startup
Don’t buy hardware before you know your load. Start month to month on the smallest thing that works, watch the graphs for a few weeks, then size up. With no contract and no setup fee, the only cost of guessing wrong is a month at the wrong size.
My take
For a typical small business, rent. You trade a $4,000 purchase and a closet full of risk for a monthly bill, a written hardware guarantee and backups that run whether or not anyone remembers them. Buy only if you have the staff and a reason the data must stay on site, and colocate only what you already own.
Not sure which fits? Tell us what you’re running and we’ll recommend a setup. For a wider look at pricing, see how much a dedicated server costs.
FAQ
How much does a server cost for a small business?
Buying an entry tower server runs about $4,000 or more before power, internet and upkeep; Dell listed its PowerEdge T160 from $4,259.01 on October 13, 2026. Renting a dedicated server from us starts at $126 a month with $0 setup, and a VPS starts at $8 a month.
Is it better to rent or buy a server?
For most small businesses, rent. You skip the upfront cost and the host replaces failed hardware. Buying makes sense if you have IT staff and a reason the data must stay in your building.
Can I use a rented server as an office file server?
Yes. Staff reach it over the internet, usually through a VPN or a remote desktop session, and it’s backed up in the data center rather than in the office.
What if I already own a server?
Colocate it. Chicago colocation starts at $99 a month for 1U, plus a $100 setup fee, and you keep full control of the machine.