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Contabo launched US East in New York City and US West in Seattle on July 4, 2021, adding two regional choices to its existing US Central location in St. Louis. The expansion gave customers more ways to place VPS, virtual dedicated server (VDS), and dedicated server workloads nearer to US and Canadian users—but the advertised latency figures were provider claims, and metro locations could carry an additional fee.
What Contabo launched
The July 4, 2021 announcement added two US data-center regions: US East in New York City, New York, and US West in Seattle, Washington. Contabo already operated a US Central location in St. Louis, Missouri, announced in April 2020. The launch therefore expanded the US map from one broad regional choice to three; it was not the introduction of a new VPS product family. HostAdvice’s coverage of the launch reported the new locations and services, while Contabo’s 2020 US-location announcement identified the earlier Central location.
| Region in the 2021 announcement | City | Directional fit |
|---|---|---|
| US East | New York City, New York | Northeast and Mid-Atlantic users, and some eastern Canadian routes |
| US Central | St. Louis, Missouri | Central US workloads or a possible geographic compromise |
| US West | Seattle, Washington | Pacific Northwest and some western Canadian routes |
These are broad geographic starting points, not guarantees that a location will be fastest for every user in a state or country. The announcement said the new regions covered VPS, VDS, and dedicated servers. It does not establish which specific models, operating systems, storage options, or add-ons are available in each location today.
Why adding regions could matter to customers
For an interactive service, shorter network paths can reduce round-trip time: the delay for a request to reach the server and for a response to return. A New York or Seattle server could be a better fit than St. Louis for users concentrated near those cities. That can help with web applications, APIs, frequent database requests, and remote administration. It does not make a server’s CPU, storage, or application code faster, and it may make little difference when the main bottleneck is elsewhere.
Contabo’s launch messaging claimed under 20 milliseconds of round-trip latency for most US metropolitan areas and pings as low as 3 milliseconds in some major metros. These were provider claims, not universal guarantees or independently established results. Actual results vary with the client’s ISP, peering, routing, congestion, protocol, and the precise server and client locations. The archived launch email contains the under-20-ms claim; HostAdvice reported the as-low-as-3-ms claim.
Before choosing a region, measure from networks your customers actually use. ICMP ping is a useful first check, but it is not the same as application performance. For a more representative comparison, check TCP connection time, TLS handshake time, and the response time of the application’s real requests. A nearby data center can still have a poor route from a particular ISP.
How pricing and the launch promotion worked
Contabo said the base specifications and base prices would align with those in its other locations, but warned that a separate location fee could apply because major-city facilities cost more to operate. That makes the relevant comparison the total monthly bill, not just the advertised server plan:
Total cost to compare: plan price + any location fee + backups + licenses + extra IP addresses + storage or bandwidth-related charges, where applicable.
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The launch also included a limited setup-fee waiver. The archived promotion specified quotas of 5,000 VPS orders, 1,000 VDS orders, and 100 dedicated-server orders. Those were finite 2021 promotional limits, not a standing discount or a current pricing policy. The archived email describes the offer.
For a present-day purchase, check the region and full checkout total directly: Contabo locations, Contabo pricing, and the VPS product page. The 2021 announcement is not a reliable guide to current plan names, fees, or regional inventory.
What existing customers were told about migration
At launch, Contabo said eligible VPS and VDS instances without a disk could be moved to a new region by contacting support to schedule a migration. This narrow description should not be read as a promise that every existing server can be moved, or that migration is self-service. The reported offer does not establish how a current migration works or whether a particular product remains eligible. HostAdvice’s launch coverage describes the original limitation.
Before requesting any present-day move, ask support to confirm eligibility, expected downtime, storage handling, IP-address changes, and whether snapshots, backups, licenses, reverse DNS, firewall rules, or private-network settings carry over. Keep an independent backup and confirm that you can restore it before migration begins. A change of region may affect network configuration or external services even when the data itself transfers successfully.
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Contabo’s launch messaging described the new facilities as using the same general hardware, virtualization, software, management, and monitoring approach as its other regions. Launch coverage also attributed to Contabo claims of Cogent or Lumen uplinks, redundant power, security and fire-suppression systems, chilled-water cooling with redundant chillers, rooftop dry coolers, and parallel generators. These are statements about intended facility characteristics, not independently audited uptime results or a guarantee that service will never be interrupted. HostAdvice’s report relays those claims.
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Separate regional locations can help with placement, but a server in one region remains a single-server deployment. For production workloads, assess the provider’s current SLA and support terms along with backups, monitoring, recovery procedures, and any managed-service requirements. Redundant power or cooling at a facility is not a substitute for off-site backups, tested restoration, or an application-level failover plan.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose a region based on users, architecture, and total cost
Start with where users and dependent services are
New York is a sensible first location to test for a user base concentrated in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, or eastern Canada. Seattle is a sensible first test for the Pacific Northwest and some western Canadian users. St. Louis may be worth testing for central US traffic. These are directional recommendations: measure from actual user networks and consider where databases, APIs, and other dependencies run. Geographic proximity alone does not guarantee the best route.
Match the location decision to the workload
- Latency-sensitive applications: A nearby region can help when each user action makes several network or database requests.
- Batch work: Geographic placement may matter less when jobs run without frequent interaction.
- Static downloads: A content delivery network may matter more than moving the origin server closer to every user.
- Compute- or storage-bound applications: A new region does not resolve CPU contention, slow storage, or inefficient queries; evaluate those separately.
- Single-region deployments: Choosing an East, Central, or West location does not by itself provide multi-region failover or disaster recovery.
Account for location and operating costs
Compare the full cost for the region and configuration you need, including any location fee and necessary extras. Also account for the work required to manage the server. Low-cost infrastructure may be attractive for a development environment or a small service, but customers should independently assess support responsiveness, resource guarantees, SLA terms, backup quality, DDoS protection, and recovery processes against their workload’s needs.
What the 2021 announcement does—and does not—tell you now
The launch is historical, not current news. A Contabo post indexed in 2024 still identified US East as New York City, US West as Seattle, and US Central as St. Louis, but later company materials described a broader global footprint. The 2024 location reference is available at Contabo’s post. Current product availability and fees should be checked in the live order flow rather than inferred from either the launch or that later location listing.
Server location also should not be confused with IP geolocation or a legal data-residency commitment. Third-party IP databases may place an address incorrectly, which can affect fraud screening, regional service policies, advertising, or email reputation. The launch announcement alone does not establish a legal residency guarantee, a particular compliance certification, or contractual recovery-time and recovery-point objectives. Check current contracts and compliance documents for requirements in those areas.
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Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
