Over $44.5 billion in cloud spend goes to waste annually, per the FinOps Foundation. No wonder reducing unnecessary costs is critical to protecting your margins.
A logical place to start? Cloud service pricing.
Providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud continue to evolve their pricing models. They are offering new discounts, regional rates, and shifting commitments. All to win your business.
Yet, a cloud pricing comparison alone doesn’t give you a complete picture. The cheapest option upfront could cost more over time if it impacts your performance, scalability, or cloud cost optimization efforts.
Also, pricing optimization doesn’t stop at choosing the right provider. So, we’ll share how to take control of your cloud spend with a cost-intelligent approach — the same approach industry leaders like Upstart, Moody’s, and Expedia trust.
The State Of Cloud Infrastructure: A Quick Look At The Top Cloud Providers Today
For CTOs and CFOs, knowing where each provider stands can offer valuable context and a way to calculate Total Cost of Ownership. This is especially true when weighing factors like vendor maturity, global reach, service offerings, and pricing strategies.
For software engineers, you can better gauge tooling maturity, ecosystem support, and performance consistency across providers. In turn, this context can help you choose a platform that fits your workload demands, scalability needs, and preferred tech stack.
Let’s kick our cloud pricing comparison off with a look at market share.
Consider this:
Image: Synergy Research cloud services market share report
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud lead the pack with 32%, 23%, and 12% of the market, according to Synergy Research Group.
Other cloud service providers like Alibaba Cloud (6%), Oracle Cloud (3%), IBM Cloud (2%), Salesforce (2%), and DigitalOcean (1%) have carved out niches. They offer regional dominance, specialized services, and competitive pricing.
If you want to explore even more niche cloud providers today, see our guide on 21+ Top Cloud Service Providers Globally. Or, check out 10 AWS Alternatives To Consider when Amazon Web Services just isn’t cutting it.
Some key trends to note here:
- Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud adoption: More enterprises are spreading workloads across multiple providers for flexibility, redundancy, and cost optimization.
- Regional expansion: Providers like Alibaba Cloud continue to expand outside Asia. AWS, Azure, and GCP invested over $48 billion in Q2 of 2024 alone. That, to bolster their global footprints and localized pricing and compliance.
- SaaS dominance: Salesforce is still the go-to for cloud-based CRM, sales, and customer engagement.
- Industry specialization: Oracle Cloud is pushing aggressively into enterprise databases. IBM Cloud focuses on hybrid cloud and AI workloads, and DigitalOcean remains popular among startups and SMBs for its simplicity, developer-friendliness, and pricing transparency.
An Overview Of Cloud Pricing
Here’s a snapshot of the latest cloud pricing models across top providers. We are including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Salesforce, and DigitalOcean.
Pricing Model | Description | Providers Offering |
On-Demand / Pay-As-You-Go | Pay for resources by the second, minute, or hour with no upfront commitment. | AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, DigitalOcean |
Reserved Instances / Commitments | Pre-pay for resources for 1-3 years in exchange for discounted rates. | AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, IBM, Salesforce |
Savings Plans / Flexible Commitments | Commit to a specific spend level over 1-3 years (flexible across instance types, operating systems, regions, etc.). | AWS (Savings Plans), Azure (Savings Plans), Google Cloud (Committed Use Discounts) |
Spot / Preemptible Instances | Buy unused capacity at steep discounts, but resources can be reclaimed at any time. | AWS (Spot), Azure (Spot), Google Cloud (Preemptible), Alibaba |
Sustained Use Discounts | Automatic discounts for consistent usage over time — no commitment needed. | Google Cloud |
Volume Discounts | Discounts are applied as usage scales across services. | AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce |
Custom Enterprise Agreements | Negotiated contracts for large-scale customers with tailored pricing and terms. | All major providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, IBM, Salesforce) |
Now let’s take a closer look at each provider’s pricing models, without getting too complex.
1. AWS cloud pricing
Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the market leader in cloud infrastructure (IaaS). Its pricing is famously complex, with countless service options (240+), AWS regions (35+), instance types (100s), and discount programs.
Yet, complexity can also mean flexibility.
AWS pricing models include:
- On-Demand: This pay-as-you-go option lets you pay per second (for most services) without any upfront commitment. Ideal for short-term, unpredictable workloads.
- AWS Reserved Instances (RIs): Commit to using specific instance types for one or three years in exchange for up to 72% off on-demand rates.
- AWS Savings Plans: Commit to a specific dollar spend per hour over one or three years. More flexible than RIs as they apply across instance types, regions, and operating systems.
- Spot Instances: Access spare AWS compute capacity at discounts of up to 90%. AWS Spot Instances are ideal for fault-tolerant workloads like batch processing or data analysis.
- Free Tier: Offers limited free usage of core services like EC2, S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB for 12 months.
- Tiered pricing: Many services, like S3 storage, offer lower rates as usage scales.
- Regional pricing differences: Prices vary significantly between regions. For example, US East is typically cheaper than Asia Pacific.
See: How AWS Regions Affect Cloud Costs (And How To Reduce Fees)
Want a deeper dive into AWS pricing specifically? Check out Choosing The Best AWS Pricing Model: A Complete Look At AWS Pricing (With Examples).
Related reads:
2. Azure Cloud pricing
Microsoft Azure is particularly strong among enterprises with existing Microsoft licenses and investments. Think of Microsoft 365, Windows Enterprise E3/E5, and Windows VDA. Azure’s pricing structure is also robust, offering discount programs, flexible commitments, and hybrid licensing benefits.
The key Azure pricing options are:
- Pay-As-You-Go (On-Demand): Pay for compute, storage, and other services per second or minute, depending on the resource.
- Reserved Virtual Machine Instances (RIs): Save up to 72% by committing to specific VM types for one or three years, similar to AWS Reserved Instances.
- Savings Plans: Similar to AWS, Azure offers savings plans where you commit to a specific hourly spend across VM types, sizes, and regions for one or three years.
- Spot Virtual Machines: Access surplus Azure compute capacity at significant discounts, ideal for interruptible workloads.
- Azure Hybrid Benefit: Use your existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses in the cloud, reducing costs by up to 85% for some workloads.
- Dev/Test pricing: Offers discounted rates for non-production environments (available to customers with an active Visual Studio subscription).
- Global reach with regional pricing: Azure now operates data centers in more global regions than any other provider, impacting localized pricing.
Azure Hybrid Benefit, combined with Azure Reserved Instances, can offer some of the deepest discounts in the market for enterprises running Microsoft workloads.
Related reads:
Up next, GCP to round out the top three cloud providers.
3. Google Cloud (GCP) pricing
GCP boasts a transparent and competitive pricing structure, especially for data-heavy workloads. Its pricing also features automatic discounts that reward sustained use.
Consider these:
- Pay-As-You-Go (On-Demand): Pay per second for compute, storage, and other resources ensure you only pay for what you use. No upfront commitments are required either.
- Committed Use Discounts (CUDs): Commit to using a specific amount of resources (e.g., vCPUs, memory) for one or three years in exchange for discounts of up to 57%.
- Sustained Use Discounts: Automatically apply to workloads running consistently throughout the month. Discounts increase as your usage duration extends.
- Preemptible VMs: Similar to AWS Spot Instances, these temporary VMs offer up to 80% off, and are designed for fault-tolerant workloads.
- Free Tier: Includes generous always-free usage limits for services like Compute Engine (e2-micro instance), Cloud Storage, and BigQuery.
- Network Egress Discounts: Google offers discounted outbound data transfer rates to internet destinations and other Google services.
Additional resources:
4. Alibaba Cloud pricing
Alibaba Cloud is the leading cloud provider in China and a strong competitor across Asia-Pacific. Alibaba’s growing expansion into Europe and the Middle East is also notable. And it’s designed to attract businesses seeking localized services in Asia, the largest market by population, or when you are looking for an alternative to AWS, Azure, or GCP.
The Alibaba Cloud pricing structure is as follows:
- Pay-As-You-Go (On-Demand): Pay for resources per second or hour, with no upfront commitment.
- Reserved Instances: Commit to specific instance types and receive discounts for one- or three-year terms, similar to AWS and Azure.
- Preemptible Instances: Alibaba Cloud’s version of spot instances (buy unused compute capacity at up to 90% off) is suitable for flexible, fault-tolerant workloads.
- Subscription model: This lets you subscribe to specific services for a fixed monthly or yearly rate, which promotes some level of predictability.
- Data transfer discounts: Competitive rates for both inbound and outbound data transfers, especially within China and Asia-Pacific.
- Free Tier: Includes a 12-month free trial with access to Elastic Compute Service (ECS), Object Storage, and databases.
In addition, Alibaba Cloud’s regional pricing is often cheaper than AWS or Azure in the Asia-Pacific regions. Plus, its regulatory alignment in China makes the provider an attractive option for expanding into Asia.
5. Oracle Cloud pricing
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has gained traction among enterprises, especially those running Oracle databases and applications. It positions itself as a cost-effective, high-performance alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP, particularly for data-intensive workloads.
Here’s how the Oracle Cloud pricing structure works:
- Pay-As-You-Go (On-Demand): Standard per-hour or per-second pricing with no upfront commitments.
- Reserved Instances (Preemptible Compute): Commit to specific compute instances for one or three years to unlock discounts of up to 65%.
- Bring Your Own License (BYOL): Allows you to use your existing Oracle software licenses in the cloud, significantly reducing total costs.
- Preemptible Instances: OCI offers preemptible compute instances at up to 70% off the on-demand rates (best used for fault-tolerant workloads).
- Universal Credits Model: You can purchase credits that apply across any OCI service, offering flexibility and ease of budgeting.
- Aggressive data egress pricing: Expect some of the lowest outbound data transfer rates among major cloud providers. The first 10 TB is free per month, then low flat rates.
- Enterprise Discounts: OCI often negotiates significant custom discounts for large-scale enterprise deployments.
We are on to a slightly different provider next.
6. Salesforce Cloud pricing
Salesforce is not a general-purpose cloud provider like AWS or Azure. Instead, it offers a broad suite of SaaS products that cover sales, marketing, service, analytics, and app development. Pricing for Salesforce is structured differently, too — per-user licenses and feature tiers rather than resource-based consumption.
Salesforce pricing components include:
- Subscription-based licensing: Most Salesforce products are priced per user, per month, with different feature tiers (such as Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited).
- Add-on products: Additional charges apply for products like Salesforce Data Cloud, Einstein AI features, MuleSoft integrations, or Slack.
- Enterprise Agreements: Larger organizations can negotiate custom contracts based on user count, add-ons, and multi-year commitments.
- Bundled features: Salesforce pricing tiers bundle varying levels of functionality, integrations, and support.
- Add-on flexibility: Modular add-ons for analytics (Tableau), integration (MuleSoft), automation (Einstein AI), and more.
- Volume discounts: This is available for large organizations with high user counts or multi-product adoption.
Costs can add up quickly with Salesforce as you layer on add-ons like Einstein AI, Data Cloud, or MuleSoft. So, you’ll want to negotiate custom enterprise agreements for large deployments.
7. IBM Cloud pricing
IBM Cloud caters primarily to hybrid cloud and AI/ML workloads (powered by Watson). It’s positioned as a flexible and compliance-friendly provider, although its global footprint is smaller than the likes of GCP. Here’s how IBM Cloud pricing works:
- Pay-As-You-Go: Standard/On-Demand billing by the hour or month for compute, storage, and services with no upfront commitment.
- Reserved Capacity: Commit to long-term usage of specific resources (like compute or storage) for one to three years in exchange for discounts (similar to AWS or Azure RIs).
- Subscription pricing: Fixed pricing models for specific services such as Kubernetes Service, Cloud Databases, or Watson AI features.
- Hybrid Cloud Discounts: These are incentives for customers running both on-premises and cloud workloads (particularly with IBM hardware/software integrations).
- Data transfer savings: IBM offers competitive outbound data transfer rates, particularly attractive for hybrid workloads.
- AI/ML service pricing: Watson AI services (natural language processing, machine learning) have unique per-use or subscription-based pricing.
IBM Cloud is often the go-to provider for regulated industries like finance and healthcare with its custom compliance solutions and Watson AI integrations.
8. DigitalOcean Cloud pricing
The “developer-friendly cloud platform” focuses on simplicity, predictable pricing, and ease of use. DigitalOcean is also popular among startups, SMBs, and individual developers for its focus on core infrastructure services, which reduces complexity.
Consider these pricing components:
- Simple Pay-As-You-Go: Flat, predictable pricing; per second for compute, but billed hourly or monthly based on usage.
- Droplet Pricing (Virtual Machines): DO’s VMs come in several categories (Standard, General Purpose, CPU-Optimized, Memory-Optimized), each with fixed monthly or hourly rates.
- Reserved IPs, load balancers, and volumes: Add-on services like storage volumes and networking features are also predictably priced per hour or month.
- Marketplace apps: Additional charges may apply for managed apps or marketplace tools (including databases and Kubernetes clusters).
- No Preemptible Instances: Instead, its pricing is designed to be predictable from the start.
- Free bandwidth allowance: Each droplet includes a certain amount of free outbound data transfer, with overage fees applied after.
Like others on this list, DO’s website also offers an interactive pricing calculator to help you estimate costs.
Now, with pricing for all the top cloud service providers covered, we’ll keep the next section short and sweet.
Cloud Pricing Comparison: Which Provider Should You Choose?
As you’ve noticed by now, choosing the right cloud provider goes far beyond just comparing price tags.
AWS remains the top choice for large enterprises and complex workloads that demand a broad array of services, global infrastructure, and a mature partner ecosystem. With flexible pricing options like Savings Plans and Spot Instances, AWS offers plenty of cost control opportunities.
Just keep in mind that AWS pricing can get complicated. For your convenience, we’ve broken down pricing for key AWS services like EC2, S3, Redshift, RDS, and more in detailed guides, including:
- Amazon EC2 Pricing Uncovered: Key Cost Factors In 2025
- The No BS Guide To Amazon S3 Storage Pricing
- A Beginner-Friendly Guide To RDS Pricing
- AWS Data Transfer Pricing: 7 Ways To Reduce Unexpected Costs
- Redshift Pricing Guide: Cost Factors And Savings Tips
- A Simple Guide To AWS Lambda Pricing (Plus Cost Management Tips)
- AWS Aurora Pricing (And How To Save Costs Today)
- Amazon Bedrock Pricing: How Much It Costs (+ Cost Optimization Tips)
Microsoft Azure is a natural fit for businesses heavily invested in Microsoft technologies, such as Windows Server, SQL Server, and Microsoft 365. Azure’s close integration with on-premises systems and hybrid environments, along with cost-saving features like Azure Hybrid Benefit, also make it a compelling option for organizations transitioning to the cloud.
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Google Cloud (GCP) excels at data-heavy workloads, AI/ML projects, and advanced networking needs. GCP also automatically rewards consistent usage with sustained use discounts, which is attractive if you run steady-state workloads.
Alibaba Cloud stands out for companies operating within or expanding into Asia-Pacific, especially China. Plus, its competitive regional pricing and alignment with local regulatory requirements make it a strategic choice.
Choose Oracle Cloud (OCI) if you are an enterprise running Oracle databases and mission-critical applications. Expect aggressive pricing on compute resources, some of the lowest data egress fees in the industry, and Oracle’s Bring Your Own License (BYOL) program.
Look into IBM Cloud if your focus is on hybrid cloud deployments and AI/ML workloads (especially those leveraging Watson AI). It is also reputed for robust compliance, security, and governance capabilities. Great for highly regulated industries like finance and healthcare.
Salesforce, the largest SaaS company today, is the go-to platform for CRM, sales automation, marketing, and customer service apps. Expect a SaaS pricing model based on per-user licensing with various feature tiers.
DigitalOcean is your budget-friendly, developer-centric platform, appealing to startups, SMBs, and individual developers who want straightforward, predictable pricing and ease of use.
Ultimately, the right choice comes down to your workload and business goals. And don’t overlook multi-cloud strategies. More organizations now use different providers for different workloads to balance cost, performance, and risk.
And with a robust cloud cost optimization platform like CloudZero, you can manage and control spend across multi-cloud environments without the headache.
Take The Smarter Approach To Cloud Cost Control — No Matter Your Provider
No matter which cloud provider (or combination of providers) you choose, managing cloud costs is just as important as choosing the best platform.
Pricing models are complex. Workloads fluctuate. Without clear visibility, it’s easy for costs to spiral out of control — even when you lock in a good rate upfront.
CloudZero puts you in control, no matter where you go.
CloudZero delivers real-time, granular visibility into your cloud spend. And we cover all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle) and platforms like Kubernetes, Snowflake, MongoDB, New Relic, and more. Truly your single source of truth for everything cloud costs — in a single pane of glass.
You’ll see costs broken down by individual customer, product, team, environment, or feature, not just total and average costs. Meaning, you can pinpoint exactly where your money is going and where to optimize without sacrificing performance or engineering velocity.
Innovative teams at Duolingo, Moody’s, and Coinbase already use CloudZero to spend smarter, scale confidently, and stay in control — across any provider or multiple clouds. Ready to take control of your cloud spend as well? 
and see CloudZero in action with your very own free demo. Yes, it’s on us.
The Cloud Cost Playbook
The step-by-step guide to cost maturity
