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Which cloud has the best free tier?

GCP gives the most runway: a $300 Welcome credit to spend over 90 days, plus an always-free tier with one e2-micro VM a month, 30 GB-months of disk and 1 GB of outbound transfer. AWS gives up to $200 in credits over 6 months. Azure gives $200 for 30 days, but pairs it with 12 months free on 20+ popular services and 750 hours a month of burstable B-series VMs.

What does egress cost on each cloud?

At 500 GiB a month out to the internet: AWS $36.00 (first 100 GB free, then $0.09 a GB), GCP $59.88 (first 1 GiB free, then $0.12 a GiB), Azure $34.80 on the premium network or $32.00 with ISP routing (first 100 GB free, then $0.087 or $0.08 a GB). GCP is the dearest at this volume; Azure is the cheapest.

How much do committed-use discounts save?

AWS EC2 Instance Savings Plans offer savings up to 72% for a commitment to an instance family in a region. Azure reservations offer up to 72% against pay-as-you-go on one- or three-year terms. GCP committed use discounts save up to 57% on Compute Engine. All three figures are ceilings — the discount on your instance type and region is lower.

What does cloud support cost at $20,000 a month of spend?

AWS Business Support+ costs $1,600 (9% of the first $10,000 plus 7% of the next $10,000). GCP Standard costs $600 (3% of spend, above its $29 minimum). GCP Enhanced costs $1,700. Azure Standard costs $100 flat. At $750,000 a month the order flips hard: AWS Enterprise $52,000, GCP Enhanced $29,400, Azure Professional Direct $1,000 flat.

Is the AWS Developer support plan at $29 a month still available?

No — not as published on November 15, 2026. AWS restructured support into Business Support+, Enterprise Support and Unified Operations, priced as a percentage of monthly AWS charges with a minimum monthly fee. The old $29 Developer, $100 Business and $15,000 Enterprise flat rates no longer appear on the AWS support pages. This guide prices the current ladder only.

Does this guide cover EC2, Lambda or Cloud Run pricing?

No. This is the platform-level comparison: free tiers, billing models, egress, commitments, support and cost tooling. Compute pricing is covered by the service-level comparisons: EC2 vs Compute Engine vs Azure VMs, Lambda vs Cloud Functions vs Azure Functions, and Cloud Run vs App Runner vs Container Apps.

Website & Hosting • 12 min read

AWS vs GCP vs Azure Cloud Pricing Playbook

The three clouds no longer sell the same thing at the platform level: AWS rebuilt its free tier around $200 of credits and priced support as a percentage of spend, GCP still gives the longest free runway, and Azure still posts the cheapest support. Egress is where the bill actually diverges.

By Enow A. Jovial • Published 2026-11-15

Compare the three clouds on one machine and they look interchangeable. Compare them at the platform level — the free tier, the egress tax on every byte leaving, the commitment discount, the support plan that answers at 3 a.m. — and they diverge by thousands of dollars a month. Two of the three rebuilt their pricing in 2026: AWS replaced its 12-month free tier with a credit window and repriced support as a percentage of spend. Prices as read on November 15, 2026; compute pricing lives in the service-level comparisons below.

At 500 GiB of egress a month, Azure is cheapest at $32.00 to $34.80, AWS is $36.00, GCP is $59.88. At $20,000 a month of spend, Azure Standard support is $100 flat while AWS Business Support+ is $1,600. The longest runway is GCP's $300 over 90 days; the worst-scaling support is AWS's percentage ladder.

The free tiers: three different clocks

Vendor	Trial credit	Credit window	Always-free core	What ends the trial	Authority
AWS	Up to $200 ($100 immediately, up to $100 more as you explore)	6 months	Free usage of select services on both plans	Account closes at 6 months or when credits run out	AWS Free Tier page, Nov 15, 2026
GCP	$300 Welcome credit	90 days	1 e2-micro VM/month, 30 GB-months disk, 1 GB outbound transfer/month	Auto-closes; 30-day grace period, then resources permanently deleted	Google Cloud free-tier docs, Nov 15, 2026
Azure	$200 credit	30 days	12 months free on 20+ services; 750 hours/month each of B1s, B2pts v2 and B2ats v2 VMs; 65+ always-free services	Credit expires after 30 days	Azure free account page, Nov 15, 2026

The clocks matter more than the headline credit: it is a burn rate, not a balance:

\text{AWS burn rate} = \$200 \div 6 \text{ months} = \$33.33 \text{ per month}

\text{GCP burn rate} = \$300 \div 90 \text{ days} = \$100 \text{ per month for 3 months}

\text{Azure burn rate} = \$200 \div 30 \text{ days} = \$200 \text{ per month for 1 month}

GCP's $300 buys the most experimentation. AWS's $200 buys the longest runway at the lowest monthly rate, and the account closes on its own at 6 months — no charge unless you convert to a Paid plan. Azure's $200 is the shortest fuse, but the 12-month free services and 750 burstable-VM hours a month are the real offer: a small workload can run free for a year. GCP's grace period is the one to respect: if the trial ends and you do not upgrade within 30 days, resources are deleted.

Egress: the bill that actually diverges

Vendor	Free egress	First paid tier	Next tiers	Authority
AWS	First 100 GB/month free, aggregated across all services and regions	$0.09 per GB (first 10 TB)	Further tiers above 10 TB exist; rates not priced in this guide	EC2 pricing page; S3 pricing page, Nov 15, 2026
GCP (Premium Tier, to North America)	First 1 GiB/month free	$0.12 per GiB (1–1,024 GiB)	$0.11 per GiB (1,024–10,240 GiB); $0.08 per GiB above	VPC pricing page, Nov 15, 2026
Azure (Premium network, NA/Europe)	First 100 GB/month free	$0.087 per GB (next 10 TB)	$0.083, then $0.07, then $0.05 per GB	Bandwidth pricing page, Nov 15, 2026
Azure (ISP routing, NA/Europe)	First 100 GB/month free	$0.08 per GB (next 10 TB)	$0.065, then $0.06, then $0.04 per GB	Bandwidth pricing page, Nov 15, 2026

At 500 GiB a month out, the ranking is set by the free allowance, not the headline rate. All three bill pay-as-you-go; the unit difference compounds — 1 GiB is 1.0737 GB — so the model is stated in GiB throughout. AWS bills EC2 per second with a 60-second minimum and aggregates data-transfer tiers across EC2, S3, RDS and Redshift. GCP bills per GiB by destination region; Azure bills per GB by source continent and routing choice.

\text{AWS, 500 GiB} = (500 - 100) \times \$0.09 = \$36.00 \text{ per month}

\text{GCP, 500 GiB} = (500 - 1) \times \$0.12 = \$59.88 \text{ per month}

\text{Azure premium, 500 GiB} = (500 - 100) \times \$0.087 = \$34.80 \text{ per month}

\text{Azure ISP, 500 GiB} = (500 - 100) \times \$0.08 = \$32.00 \text{ per month}

Two cautions sit under those numbers. First, the AWS figure prices the first 10 TB tier only; further tiers above 10 TB exist but the rendered page did not expose their rates. Second, Azure's egress is priced by source continent: Asia, Australia and the Middle East start at $0.12 per GB, and South America at $0.181 — a workload served from São Paulo pays more than double the North America rate.

Azure's internet egress pricing tables: first 100 GB a month free, then $0.087 a GB on the premium network and $0.08 a GB with ISP routing

Azure's egress tables, above: the first 100 GB a month is free, then $0.087 a GB on the premium network and $0.08 a GB with ISP routing.

Commitments: up to 72%, up to 57%, up to 72%

Vendor	Mechanism	Maximum discount	Term	Authority
AWS	Savings Plans (commit to an instance family in a region)	Up to 72%	1- or 3-year	AWS Savings Plans pricing, Nov 15, 2026
GCP	Committed use discounts on Compute Engine	Up to 57%	1- or 3-year plan	Google Cloud pricing page, Nov 15, 2026
Azure	Reserved VM Instances	Up to 72% vs pay-as-you-go	1- or 3-year terms	Azure reservations page, Nov 15, 2026

On a $1,000-a-month steady compute baseline:

\text{AWS or Azure at 72\% off} = \$1,000 \times (1 - 0.72) = \$280 \text{ per month, saving } \$720 \text{ per month} = \$8,640 \text{ per year}

\text{GCP at 57\% off} = \$1,000 \times (1 - 0.57) = \$430 \text{ per month, saving } \$570 \text{ per month} = \$6,840 \text{ per year}

"Up to" is doing the work in every row: the discount on your instance type, in your region, on your term is lower than the ceiling, and the commitment is a promise to pay whether the workload still runs or not. For the compute rates themselves, see the service-level comparisons: our EC2 vs Compute Engine vs Azure VM pricing, our Lambda vs Cloud Functions vs Azure Functions serverless pricing, and our Cloud Run vs App Runner vs Container Apps pricing.

Support: flat fees against percentage ladders

Vendor	Entry paid tier	Price	Production tier	Price at scale	Authority
AWS	Business Support+	9% of first $10K, 7% of $10K–$80K	Enterprise Support	10% up to $150K, 7% to $500K, 5% to $1M	AWS Support pricing, Nov 15, 2026
GCP	Standard Support	Greater of $29/month or 3% of monthly charges	Enhanced Support	Greater of $100/month or 10% / 7% / 5% / 3% by spend band	Google Cloud Customer Care, Nov 15, 2026
Azure	Developer	$29/month flat	Standard $100/month flat; Professional Direct $1,000/month flat	Professional Direct $1,000/month flat	Azure support plans, Nov 15, 2026

AWS's ladder scales worst: the fee is a percentage of spend with no flat cap. At $20,000 a month of charges:

\text{AWS Business Support+} = \$10,000 \times 9\% + \$10,000 \times 7\% = \$900 + \$700 = \$1,600 \text{ per month}

\text{GCP Standard} = \max(\$29, 3\% \times \$20,000) = \$600 \text{ per month}

\text{GCP Enhanced} = \$10,000 \times 10\% + \$10,000 \times 7\% = \$1,000 + \$700 = \$1,700 \text{ per month}

\text{Azure Standard} = \$100 \text{ per month, flat}

At $750,000 a month the gap becomes the story — AWS's own worked example puts Enterprise Support at $52,000 a month:

\text{AWS Enterprise} = \$150,000 \times 10\% + \$350,000 \times 7\% + \$250,000 \times 5\% = \$15,000 + \$24,500 + \$12,500 = \$52,000 \text{ per month}

\text{GCP Enhanced} = \$10,000 \times 10\% + \$70,000 \times 7\% + \$170,000 \times 5\% + \$500,000 \times 3\% = \$1,000 + \$4,900 + \$8,500 + \$15,000 = \$29,400 \text{ per month}

\text{Azure Professional Direct} = \$1,000 \text{ per month, flat}

Response times follow the pattern: GCP Standard answers a P1 case in 1 hour, Enhanced in 15 minutes; AWS Business Support+ answers a system-down case in under 30 minutes. Every Google Cloud customer, including free-trial customers, gets Basic Support; every Azure customer gets Basic. AWS bills support monthly with a 30-day minimum (90 for Unified Operations), charging the greater of the minimum fee or the percentage of charges.

Do not budget support as a flat line. AWS support at $750,000 a month of spend is $52,000 a month — 6.9% of the whole cloud bill, on top of the usage. A team moving from Azure Standard at $100 flat to AWS Business Support+ at $20,000 of spend multiplies its support bill sixteen times for the same workload.

The cost-management tooling

All three ship a pricing calculator for estimating a workload. GCP adds cost-management tools with cost trends and forecasts, and free 24/7 billing support. Azure adds FinOps guidance, savings plans, reservations and the Hybrid Benefit. One accounting rule matters: AWS calculates support fees on each month's gross charges before discounts or credits, and upfront commitment charges land in the support calculation in the month of purchase — a commitment that cuts the usage bill raises the support bill that month.

The monthly total: 500 GiB out, $20,000 of spend

Putting the platform charges together for a workload moving 500 GiB a month out on $20,000 a month of spend:

Platform charge (monthly)	AWS	GCP	Azure
Egress, 500 GiB	$36.00	$59.88	$34.80 premium / $32.00 ISP
Support, $20,000 spend	$1,600 Business Support+	$600 Standard / $1,700 Enhanced	$100 Standard
Platform subtotal	$1,636.00	$659.88 / $1,759.88	$134.80 / $132.00

Azure wins this profile on support alone: $1,501.20 a month cheaper than AWS, $18,014.40 a year. GCP Standard is the middle of the road; GCP Enhanced is the dearest at this spend because its ladder starts at 10%. The egress ranking never changes the outcome — the support ladder decides it. Our Cloudflare vs Fastly vs AWS CloudFront CDN pricing and latency playbook covers the other way to cut the egress line: serve the bytes from a CDN edge instead of the origin cloud.

Founder & CEO Insight — Enow A. Jovial

"The cloud bill is not the compute bill. It is the egress, the support percentage, and the commitment you signed when you were small. Price the platform first — a $100 support plan against a $1,600 one is a hiring decision."

— Enow A. Jovial, Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Who should pick which — and who should not

Profile	Pick	Avoid	Why
Learning and prototyping, no revenue yet	GCP	Azure's 30-day credit	$300 over 90 days is the longest free runway
Small production site, 12-month horizon	Azure	AWS Business Support+	750 free VM hours a month for 12 months; $100 flat support
Heavy egress, video or downloads	Azure	GCP	$0.08–$0.087 a GB against GCP's $0.12 a GiB
Steady-state compute, 3-year horizon	AWS or Azure	GCP at full list	72% commitment ceilings beat GCP's 57%
Large spend with 24/7 production support	Azure Professional Direct	AWS Enterprise	$1,000 flat against $52,000 at $750,000 of spend

The buying checklist

[x] Step 1: Measure the egress before choosing the cloud. Pull 30 days of data-transfer-out from the current bill: at 500 GiB a month the vendors differ by $27.88.
[x] Step 2: Price support at your real spend. AWS Business Support+ is $1,600 at $20,000 of spend, GCP Enhanced is $1,700, Azure Standard is $100.
[x] Step 3: Take the free tier in the right order. GCP first for the 90-day runway, Azure for the 12-month free services, AWS last for the 6-month credit window — and diary the expiry: GCP deletes resources 30 days after trial end.
[x] Step 4: Commit only the steady state. Reserve the forecastable baseline for 1 or 3 years at up to 72% off on AWS and Azure or up to 57% on GCP; leave the variable peak on pay-as-you-go.
[x] Step 5: Choose the egress route, not just the vendor. On Azure, ISP routing is $0.08 a GB against $0.087 on the premium network; on GCP, destination sets the tier.
[x] Step 6: Check the support-fee basis before signing a commitment. AWS charges support on gross charges before discounts; upfront commitment charges land in the support calculation in the month of purchase.
[x] Step 7: Model the whole month before you migrate. Run the egress, support and commitment figures through the pricing calculator and compare the platform subtotal.

If the workload is leaving a cloud, check the exit egress first: AWS offers free data transfer out when you move all of your data off AWS, and Azure offers free egress for customers leaving for another provider. The exit tax is waived at the moment it would hurt most.

The verdict: at platform level, Azure is the cheapest home for a small production workload — $100 flat support and the lowest egress — and GCP gives the longest runway. AWS is the dearest on support by a wide margin at any real spend, and its free tier is now a $200 credit window over 6 months. Commitments close the compute gap — up to 72% on AWS and Azure, up to 57% on GCP — but they do not touch the support ladder, and that ladder is where the three clouds now differ most.