Linode and Vultr are both cloud providers outside the big 3 (AWS, GCP, Azure) that are a fair bit less expensive and have a range of instance types you can spin up, plus custom block storage services - they have a few regions to pick from so you can often get one with a low ping to you.

If you want cheaper than that, and are okay with small providers who might not always be as reliable, try something like Lowendbox and check the listings there.

I don’t like how closed it is - closed source, single company running it, and now even the data is getting locked down so users can be ‘the product’ Reddit sells.