Calculator

AWS vs Azure vs GCP

Compare real monthly costs across all three major cloud providers for your actual workload. Compute, object storage, managed databases, and egress — side by side, no vendor spin.

⚙️ Virtual Machines / Compute
5 instances
5x m5.large (AWS equiv.)
730 hrs
Full month — always-on
ProviderInstance$/hrMonthly
AWSm5.large$0.0960/hr$350
AzureD2s v5$0.0960/hr$350
GCPn2-standard-2$0.0971/hr$354
💡

Reserved Instances Cut Compute 40–70%

All three providers offer 1- or 3-year reserved/committed-use pricing. On AWS, a 3-year no-upfront reserved m5.large drops from $0.096/hr to ~$0.029/hr — a 70% reduction. The calculator shows on-demand rates; lock in for production.

🌍

Egress is the Hidden Multiplier

Cloud pricing sheets focus on compute and storage, but egress is where bills balloon. AWS's 100 GB free tier helps smaller workloads; at scale (10TB+), all three providers charge $900–$1,200/month just to send data to users. CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly) can route around this.

🔄

Multi-Cloud Adds Ops Overhead

The cheapest provider on paper may not be cheapest when you factor in migration cost, retraining, and multi-cloud tooling. A 10% cost difference rarely justifies switching; a 30%+ sustained difference starts to make sense.

Cheapest for Your Workload
Azure
$755/mo
saves $139/mo vs most expensive
$1,669/year potential savings
Total Monthly Cost
AWS
$894
AzureCHEAPEST
$755
GCP
$865
Cost Breakdown by Category
⚙️ compute
AWS
$350
Azure
$350
GCP
$354
🗄️ storage
AWS
$115
Azure
$90
GCP
$100
🔌 database
AWS
$392
Azure
$271
GCP
$351
🌐 egress
AWS
$36
Azure
$43
GCP
$60
📅 Annual Projection
AWS
$10,726
/year
Azure
$9,056
/year
GCP
$10,384
/year
Pricing Methodology & Notes
Region: us-east-1 (AWS) · East US (Azure) · us-east1 (GCP). Prices vary by region; EU/APAC typically 10–20% higher.
Pricing type: On-demand / pay-as-you-go. Reserved instances / committed-use discounts can reduce compute 40–70%.
Database: Equivalent-tier managed MySQL/PostgreSQL instances. Enterprise features (HA, backups) may add cost.
Last updated: Q1 2026. Cloud pricing changes frequently — verify current rates at each provider’s pricing calculator.