7 things to check before buying an 'unlimited' VPS: what fair use really means

A VPS or hosting plan that promises unlimited bandwidth, storage or email is not a technical lie: it's a commercial formula that refers to another document, almost always separate from the price list, called a Fair Use Policy or Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). That's where the real numbers are. Before signing an annual contract, it's worth reading them—not after the first suspension notice.

1. "Unlimited" doesn't mean without physical limits

It's stated clearly by a major Italian provider like Aruba in its Terms of Service: any wording such as "unlimited space" indicates exclusively the possibility of progressive increase of the space made available under the terms described above and does not imply the availability of space without physical or technical limits. The same document specifies that the space made available to the Customer adapts dynamically to the actual service usage and can be increased if necessary, or reduced exclusively in case of non-use, always in units of 1 (one) Gigabyte (GB). It's not infinite space: it's space that grows in increments, with a defined mechanism.

2. Where to find the fair use clause

Almost never in the price list. Aruba publishes it as a separate document, referenced in the contract: the document drawn up by the Provider [...] in which the behavioural norms and usage limits of the Service are indicated, to which all Customers are subject. Other providers, such as Hetzner for hosting packages, dedicate a technical documentation page to the topic: if you overload the web hosting server, we must take action to ensure that other customers on the server are not affected.

3. The seven points to check

What to look at	What to ask for / search in the contract
"Unlimited" bandwidth	Threshold beyond which throttling kicks in: Hetzner defines it as normal and reasonable use. Usage that generates a load constantly above average or that significantly impairs other customers is not permitted
"Unlimited" disk space	Increment mechanism (e.g. Aruba: steps of 1 GB) and whether there are limits on file types (archives, backups)
CPU and RAM	Numerical thresholds if declared. A well-known example of a quantified clause from an international host: bars any account from using 25% or more of system resources for longer than 90 seconds
Inode / file count	Some providers declare them by plan tier; if they don't appear in the ToS, ask support before purchasing
"Unlimited" email	Storage limit per mailbox and overall limit on the account, often not mentioned on the pricing page
Backups and inactive archives	Whether files not linked to an active site (backups, archives) fall under "unlimited" space or are excluded
Suspension rights	Whether the contract provides notice before suspending the account for excessive use, or if suspension is immediate

How to read the contract in practice

Before buying: open the Acceptable Use or Fair Use Policy document (not just the pricing page) and search for the words CPU, inode, entry process, backup, fair use. If the document doesn't quantify anything, email support explicitly asking what happens if you exceed average usage: a written response serves as a reference in case of future dispute. For a VPS, where resources are nominally dedicated, the question to ask is different: if the provider talks about "unlimited traffic" but the node has a fixed-capacity network port, that's the real threshold, regardless of what the price list says.