A dedicated server is an advanced form of web hosting in which the customer maintains complete control of the server for a nominal monthly fee. The dedicated server is owned and maintained by the web hosting and they are responsible for initial setup of the operating system and Internet connectivity. The customer can configure the server based on their requirements and are responsible for maintaining user accounts, monitoring resources, detecting intrusion and protecting their data. The server provider will normally provide data backups at an additional charge. A dedicated server makes server utilization much more predictable since you do not share system resources such as CPU, memory or hard disk space with any other users and can therefore manage resources in a much more efficient way.

Dedicated server plans range in price depending on the processing power of the server, the hosted operating system, bandwidth requirements, and available disk space. You can expect to pay between $30 and $350 a month for a basic plan with a fairly powerful server. Very high performance servers or managed service will set you back up to $3500 per month.