Cloudways Tutorial: Step-by-Step Setup Guide

Step 1: Create Your Free Cloudways Account

Unlike many web hosts that force you to pay upfront for an entire year to get the best price, Cloudways operates on a strictly pay-as-you-go hourly model. Even better, they offer a completely risk-free 3-day trial so you can deploy a server and test their speeds before committing a single penny. No credit card is required to start the trial.

Here is how to register:

• Click this special link to go to the Cloudways registration page.
• You will see a sign-up form. You can register using your LinkedIn, Google, or GitHub account for a 1-click login, or simply use your email address.
• Fill in your first name, last name, and a strong password.
• It will ask you to best describe yourself (e.g., "Blogger", "Agency", "Ecommerce"). This does not change the pricing; it just customizes your onboarding experience.
• (Optional) If you have a Cloudways promo code, click the "Got a Promo Code?" text below the password field and paste it there to lock in your discount.
• Agree to the Terms of Service and click "START FREE".

Cloudways will send a verification email to your inbox. You must click the activation link in that email before you can log into the dashboard and launch your server.

Step 2: Deploy Your Server & Application

Once you verify your email and log in, Cloudways will immediately take you to the server deployment screen. This page might appear intimidating at first, but it is actually very straightforward. Think of it as ordering a custom computer.

(If you feel this dashboard is too technical and you prefer a traditional cPanel, you might want to read our Cloudways vs Hostinger guide to see if shared hosting is better suited for your needs.)

You need to configure five main settings on this screen:

A. Select Your Application

Cloudways organizes things into "Servers" and "Applications". Your server is the physical hardware, and the application is the software running on it. From the dropdown menu labeled "Select Application", choose the latest version of WordPress.

(Note: If you are building an online store, select "WooCommerce" instead. Cloudways is widely considered the best WooCommerce hosting platform because of its dedicated caching stack.)

B. Name Your Server and Application

Underneath the application dropdown, you will see three text fields where you can name your App, Server, and Project. These names are purely for your own internal organization. For example:

• App: "Personal Blog WP"
• Server: "DigitalOcean Primary"
• Project: "My Websites"

C. Select Your Cloud Service Provider

This is where Cloudways shines. Instead of locking you into their own hardware, they let you choose from five world-class infrastructure providers: DigitalOcean, AWS (Amazon), Google Cloud, Vultr, and Linode.

For 90% of beginners and intermediate users, we highly recommend selecting DigitalOcean. It provides the absolute best balance of premium speed and affordability, which is why it constantly tops our managed cloud hosting benchmark tests. If you have an enterprise budget, you can opt for AWS.

D. Choose Server Size

Use the slider to select your server's RAM. If you are launching a brand new blog or a small business website, the 1GB plan (or 2GB for WooCommerce) is perfect. Because Cloudways gives you dedicated resources, a 1GB cloud server can handle significantly more traffic than a 1GB shared hosting plan elsewhere.

You can easily scale this up with one click later if your traffic explodes.

E. Select Server Location

Finally, select the data center location. Always choose the city that is physically closest to your target audience to ensure the fastest possible "Time to First Byte" (TTFB). For example, if your audience is primarily in the UK, select London.

Once everything is selected, look at the bottom right corner of the screen where the hourly and monthly estimated price is displayed, and click the green "LAUNCH NOW" button.

You will now see a progress bar. It takes approximately 7 to 10 minutes for Cloudways to provision the server from the provider, optimize the operating system, set up the firewall, and install WordPress.

Step 3: Access Your New WordPress Site

When the progress bar finishes, your server and WordPress site are officially live! By default, Cloudways places your site on a temporary staging URL (e.g., `wordpress-98334.cloudwaysapps.com`). This allows you to build the site or migrate your old site over before going public.

To access your new WordPress dashboard:

1. In the top horizontal menu of the Cloudways dashboard, click on "Applications".
2. Click on the name of the app you just created.
3. You are now in the Application Management Details panel.
4. Under "Access Details", you will see the "Admin Panel" section. This contains your temporary URL, your admin username, and a randomly generated hyper-secure password.
5. Click the URL to open your WordPress login page in a new tab. Click the username and password in the Cloudways dashboard to copy them to your clipboard, and paste them into the WordPress login screen.

You are now logged into the backend of your lightning-fast WordPress site! If you want to see exactly how fast it is compared to the competition, read our exhaustive Cloudways review.

Step 4: Connect Your Custom Domain

While the temporary Cloudways URL is great for testing, you obviously want your site to load when people type `yourdomain.com` into their browser.

To connect your domain, you need to do two things: tell Cloudways to accept traffic for your domain, and tell your domain registrar (where you bought the name) to send traffic to Cloudways.

A. Configure Domain in Cloudways

• Go back to the Application Management screen.
• On the left sidebar, click "Domain Management".
• In the "Primary Domain" field, delete the temporary URL and type in your exact domain name (e.g., `myblog.com`).
• Click the green "Save Changes" button. Cloudways will take a few moments to update the database references.

B. Point DNS at Your Registrar

Next, you need to update your Domain Name System (DNS) records. You do this wherever you registered the domain (Namecheap, GoDaddy, HostGator, Cloudflare, etc.).

• First, find your server's Public IP Address. It is visibly listed on both the Server Management and Application Management screens in Cloudways. Copy this IP.
• Log into your domain registrar's website and navigate to your DNS Settings (sometimes called Advanced DNS or Zone Editor).
• Create a new "A Record".
• Set the "Host" or "Name" field to `@` (which represents your root domain).
• Set the "Value" or "Points To" field to the Cloudways IP address you just copied.
• Save the DNS record.

Note: DNS propagation can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours depending on your registrar. However, if you use a premium DNS provider like Cloudflare, it is usually completely instantaneous.

Step 5: Install a Free SSL Certificate

You never want a user to visit your site and see a red "Not Secure" warning in their browser. You need an SSL certificate to serve your site over encrypted HTTPS.

In the past, installing SSL certificates was difficult and expensive. Cloudways includes a built-in integration with Let's Encrypt that makes deploying a premium SSL certificate completely free and requires only a single click.

1. In the Cloudways dashboard, ensure you are still in the Application Management menu for your specific site.
2. From the left-hand sidebar, click on "SSL Certificate".
3. Ensure the provider is set to "Let's Encrypt" (the default option).
4. Enter your email address (this is just for expiry notifications).
5. Enter the exact domain name you mapped in Step 4.
6. Click "Install Certificate".

The installation will take roughly one to two minutes. Once it completes, a popup box will appear asking if you want to explicitly "Force HTTPS." We highly recommend clicking Yes. This ensures that even if a user accidentally types `http://` instead of `https://`, Cloudways will automatically redirect them to the secure version of your site.

Step 6: Upgrade to a Paid Account

Congratulations! Your website is now fully live on premium cloud infrastructure.

Remember that you are currently on a 3-day free trial. If you do not attach a payment method before the 72 hours expire, the server and your site will be automatically deleted by the system.

To upgrade, click the "Upgrade My Account" button located at the top bar of the Cloudways dashboard. You will simply need to enter a valid credit card. You won't be charged anything today—Cloudways operates on post-paid hourly billing, meaning you will receive your first invoice at the beginning of the next month solely for the hours you used.