AWS vs Azure vs GCP Price Comparison
Compare real cloud pricing across 17 global regions. Find the cheapest provider for compute, storage, database, and serverless workloads.
Prices updated: March 26, 2026
Select Region
🌎 Americas
🌍 Europe
🌏 Asia Pacific
🌍 Middle East & Africa
| Compute (Virtual Machines) On-demand pricing for general-purpose VMs | AWS | Azure | GCP | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Small (2 vCPU, 1-2 GB RAM) t3.microB1se2-micro | $0.0104 $/hr +19% more | $0.0104 $/hr +19% more | $0.0084 $/hr ✓ CHEAPEST | GCP |
Medium (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) t3.mediumB2se2-medium | $0.0416 $/hr +19% more | $0.0416 $/hr +19% more | $0.0335 $/hr ✓ CHEAPEST | GCP |
Large (2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM) m5.largeD2s_v3e2-standard-2 | $0.0960 $/hr +80% more | $0.0190 $/hr ✓ CHEAPEST | $0.0670 $/hr +72% more | Azure |
XLarge (4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM) m5.xlargeD4s_v3e2-standard-4 | $0.1920 $/hr +30% more | $0.1920 $/hr +30% more | $0.1340 $/hr ✓ CHEAPEST | GCP |
💡 Quick Monthly Cost Reference
Estimated monthly cost for a common web app stack in 🇺🇸 US East: 1× small VM (730 hrs) + 100 GB storage + 1× small DB (730 hrs)
/month estimated
VM: $7.59
Storage: $2.30
DB: $12.41
/month estimated
VM: $7.59
Storage: $2.08
DB: $4.96
/month estimated
VM: $6.13
Storage: $2.00
DB: $10.95
The Developer's Guide to Cloud Pricing in 2026
Choosing between AWS, Azure, and GCP is one of the most impactful infrastructure decisions a team can make. While feature parity between the "Big Three" continues to converge, pricing differences remain significant — especially for compute and database workloads. Our comparison tool normalizes prices across equivalent service tiers so you can make apples-to-apples decisions instead of wrestling with three completely different pricing calculators.
🟠 Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Market share: ~31%
- Strength: Widest service catalog (200+ services)
- Pricing: Pay-as-you-go with Reserved Instances
- Best for: Enterprise workloads, complex architectures
🔵 Microsoft Azure
- Market share: ~25%
- Strength: Deep Microsoft ecosystem integration
- Pricing: Often cheapest for Windows/.NET workloads
- Best for: Microsoft shops, hybrid cloud, enterprise
🔴 Google Cloud Platform
- Market share: ~11%
- Strength: Best-in-class data/ML and Kubernetes (GKE)
- Pricing: Sustained Use Discounts (automatic)
- Best for: Data-heavy workloads, Kubernetes, startups
Frequently Asked Questions
How often is the pricing data updated?
Our pricing data is refreshed daily via an automated pipeline that queries the AWS Bulk Pricing API and Azure Retail Pricing API directly. GCP data is curated from official pricing pages.
Are these on-demand prices or reserved/committed?
All prices shown are on-demand (pay-as-you-go) rates without commitment discounts. All three providers offer 1-year and 3-year commitments that reduce costs by 30-60%.
Why do prices vary by region?
Cloud data centers have varying real estate costs, energy prices, tax structures, and infrastructure costs. US regions are typically cheapest; Asia Pacific and South America tend to be more expensive.
Which cloud provider is cheapest overall?
It depends on your workload. GCP tends to win on raw compute pricing through Sustained Use Discounts, Azure often wins on database and storage, and AWS is competitive on serverless (Lambda). Use the tool above to compare for your specific services and region.