Question: I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1.2 (latest available for my phone apparently). I have about 500 contacts on my iPhone, however only 203 of them appear on iCloud.com. I cannot get the rest to sync with iCloud and you can imagine that manually re-adding about 300 contacts, one by one, sounds rather terrifying. I tried all the tips I could find, i.e. turning off and on the "Contacts" in the iCloud settings on my phone, logging off iCloud on all devices, restarting my phone and Mac, etc. Nothing changed.

Answer: 
Contacts app have groups of contacts, ie. Google contacts, Hotmail contacts, Facebook contacts and then iCloud contacts. To see the different groups, go to Contacts, at the very top you will see Groups, just tick iCloud and untick the rest. Now scroll down to the bottom and see if you have 500 contacts or 203.

If you have 203, it means that all your contacts are there. If you still see 500, make a manual backup:

1. Put your phone on charge.
2. Make sure you are connected to the internet via WiFi.
3. Go to Settings -> iCloud. Turn on Contacts.
4. Now go to Backup -> iCloud Backup: ON
5. If your iCloud Backup is switched on, you get a Back Up Now button.
6. Tap the Back Up Now button to manually back up to iCloud.

> 
> Automatically back up data such as your photo library, accounts,
>  documents, Health data, Home configuration, and settings when this
>  iPhone is plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi.
> 
> 
>
If you have only an iCloud account, it is probable that the contacts that don't appear there are local i.e. On your phone only. 

To upload them, do the following:

1. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
2. Select your iCloud account
3. Find the "Contacts" switch and turn it off; it will ask if you want to keep the contacts on your phone or delete them —select keep
4. Wait till it's done
5. Turn "Contacts" on again for iCloud; it will ask you if you'd like to merge existing contacts with iCloud —select yes or merge