Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison Calculator
Price the same workload on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud across compute, storage, egress and support to find the cheapest home.
About Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison Calculator
Each provider is costed on the same three meters — compute hours, stored gigabyte-months and egress gigabytes — then support is added as a percentage of the whole bill because that is how every major provider prices it. The commitment discount is applied only to compute, since storage and egress are rarely covered by reservations or savings plans. Headline instance rates are within a few percent of each other, so the real differences come from egress, storage tiers and support, and a comparison that ignores those three usually picks the wrong provider. Treat this as a planning estimate: confirm every rate against your own agreement and the provider's pricing calculator before committing.
Formula
Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison
For each provider: (instances × compute rate × hours × commitment factor + storage GB × storage price + egress GB × egress price) × (1 + support%).
- commitment factor
- One minus the reserved or committed-use discount you expect to hold
- support%
- Enterprise support billed as a percentage of usage, not a flat fee
- spread
- Monthly gap between the cheapest and the dearest provider
Worked example
With the default values below, Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison Calculator returns Lowest-Cost Provider of Azure. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Instances in the workloadaccepts 1–20,000 instances
- 20 instances
- Billed hours per monthaccepts 1–744 hours
- 730 hours
- AWS compute rate per instanceaccepts 0–200 USD/hour
- 0.096 USD/hour
- Azure compute rate per instanceaccepts 0–200 USD/hour
- 0.0912 USD/hour
- Google Cloud compute rate per instanceaccepts 0–200 USD/hour
- 0.0949 USD/hour
- Commitment discount applied to computeaccepts 0–90 %
- 30 %
- Object and block storageaccepts 0–10,000,000 GB
- 20,000 GB
- AWS storage priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB-month
- 0.023 USD/GB-month
- Azure storage priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB-month
- 0.0184 USD/GB-month
- Google Cloud storage priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB-month
- 0.02 USD/GB-month
- Internet egress per monthaccepts 0–10,000,000 GB
- 10,000 GB
- AWS egress priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB
- 0.09 USD/GB
- Azure egress priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB
- 0.087 USD/GB
- Google Cloud egress priceaccepts 0–5 USD/GB
- 0.12 USD/GB
- Enterprise support chargeaccepts 0–20 % of spend
- 5 % of spend
Results
- Lowest-Cost Provider
- Azure
- AWS Monthly Total
- $2,458.18
- Azure Monthly Total
- $2,278.57
- Google Cloud Monthly Total
- $2,698.37
- Spread Cheapest to Dearest
- $419.80
- Spread as a Share of the Dearest
- 15.6%
- Annual Saving by Picking the Cheapest
- $5,037.66
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison
- 3Lowest-Cost Provider= Azure
- 4AWS Monthly Total= 2,458.18
- 5Azure Monthly Total= 2,278.57
- 6Google Cloud Monthly Total= 2,698.37
- 7Spread Cheapest to Dearest= 419.80
- 8Spread as a Share of the Dearest= 15.6
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 15 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison calculated?
For each provider: (instances × compute rate × hours × commitment factor + storage GB × storage price + egress GB × egress price) × (1 + support%). Each provider is costed on the same three meters — compute hours, stored gigabyte-months and egress gigabytes — then support is added as a percentage of the whole bill because that is how every major provider prices it. The commitment discount is applied only to compute, since storage and egress are rarely covered by reservations or savings plans.
Why does Multi-Cloud Cost Comparison matter?
Headline instance rates are within a few percent of each other, so the real differences come from egress, storage tiers and support, and a comparison that ignores those three usually picks the wrong provider. Treat this as a planning estimate: confirm every rate against your own agreement and the provider's pricing calculator before committing.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 15 inputs: Instances in the workload, Billed hours per month, AWS compute rate per instance, Azure compute rate per instance, Google Cloud compute rate per instance, Commitment discount applied to compute, Object and block storage, AWS storage price, Azure storage price, Google Cloud storage price, Internet egress per month, AWS egress price, Azure egress price, Google Cloud egress price, Enterprise support charge. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Why is egress weighted so heavily in a multi-cloud comparison?
Egress is the one meter that scales with your users rather than your architecture, and the per-GB rates differ far more between providers than compute does. A workload serving 100 TB a month can see a five-figure monthly swing on egress alone while compute stays level.
