Three vendors. One workload. The bill rarely comes out the same. Model 3-year cloud TCO across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud — with reserved-instance commitment strategies, enterprise discounts, and the egress-trap math that decides more vendor selections than the compute rate ever does.
Six reference workloads. Each sets compute mix, storage, egress, and managed-service counts. Every value remains editable. CDN / Media Streaming and Batch / ETL are deliberately included to demonstrate the Egress Trap and commitment-ladder charts respectively. "Custom" leaves current values unchanged.
A single workload specification applied uniformly across all three vendors. The tool maps to the most-equivalent SKU per vendor; if you are running different sizes per cloud, override the per-vendor rates in the next section.
| Family | Reference SKU | Instance count | Hours / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| General purpose | 4 vCPU · 16 GB | ||
| Compute optimized | 4 vCPU · 8 GB | ||
| Memory optimized | 4 vCPU · 32 GB | ||
| GPU (8× H100) | 192 vCPU · 1.5 TB · 8× H100 |
How compute consumption is split across pricing models. The same mix is applied to all vendors for fair comparison. Storage, network, and managed-service rates do not benefit from this mix.
List prices for the equivalent SKUs. Discounts are negotiated reductions. Override any value with your published quote, EDP/EA agreement, or committed-spend rate. The "1-year RI %" and "3-year RI %" are the discount off on-demand for that commitment.
Price is one input. The factors below reshape the verdict without altering the math — they surface what the calculator cannot compute. Toggle anything that applies; the verdict line below adjusts to acknowledge what the price comparison alone cannot answer.
A worked example with sample values, ending with the punchline most cloud-cost calculators miss: when "cheapest vendor" is and isn't the right answer.
Sets the workload shape. Every value remains editable. Six reference workloads cover web platforms, enterprise mixes, CDN/media (egress-heavy), data platforms (storage-heavy), batch processing (spot-friendly), and AI training (GPU-heavy).
| Action | Sample | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Click preset | Enterprise General Mix | Closest match to a 50-person SaaS company with mixed compute, modest GPU usage, and balanced storage. Override individual fields if your actuals differ. |
Production fleet, storage volumes, network usage, managed-service counts. Same workload spec is applied identically to all three vendors for fair comparison.
| Attribute | Sample | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| General-purpose VMs | 50 × 730 hrs | Web tier, application servers (always-on) |
| Compute-optimized VMs | 20 × 730 hrs | API workers, task queues |
| Memory-optimized VMs | 15 × 730 hrs | Cache layer, in-memory analytics |
| GPU (8× H100) | 2 × 500 hrs | Inference workloads, ~70% utilization |
| Block / Object / Archive storage | 50 / 200 / 500 TB | Persistent volumes + content + cold backup |
| Egress / Inter-region | 10 / 5 TB · mo | Customer-facing API + cross-region replication |
| DB / K8s / Other services | 5 / 2 / $2,000 | Catalog DBs, two prod K8s clusters, monitoring stack |
Defines the mix of pricing modes used to run that workload. Same mix applied to all vendors. Must sum to 100%.
| Mode | Sample | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| On-demand | 30% | Burst capacity, dev environments, unpredictable spikes |
| 1-year reserved | 30% | 1-year horizon confidence on production fleet |
| 3-year reserved | 30% | Steady-state production with confidence in capacity |
| Spot / preemptible | 10% | Batch processing, fault-tolerant async workers |
Heuristic: if your spot share is 0% and 3-year reserved is <30%, you're probably overpaying. If 3-year is >60%, you're betting the architecture won't change for three years — verify that bet against your roadmap.
Defaults are verified Q2 2026 list rates. Override with your negotiated quotes as procurement evidence lands. The AWS H100 price cut from June 2025 (~44% off list) is reflected in the default — this materially shifts AI-heavy workload economics versus pre-cut analysis.
| Lever | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| General-purpose $/hr | 0.2016 | 0.192 | 0.194 |
| GPU 8×H100 $/hr | 55.04 | 98.32 | 88.48 |
| 3-year reserved discount | 60% | 55% | 55% |
| Egress $/GB | 0.090 | 0.087 | 0.085 |
| Enterprise discount | 10% | 10% | 12% |
Scroll up to the KPI tile row. With these defaults, the calculator returns three vendor totals and a verdict on the spread.
| 3-year TCO | cheapest |
| Strength | deepest 3y RI |
| GPU rate | leads post-cut |
| 3-year TCO | middle |
| Strength | general compute |
| Watch | GPU ~78% above AWS |
| 3-year TCO | middle |
| Strength | deepest 1y CUD |
| Watch | block storage rate |
The numbers tell you the size of the bill. The charts tell you why one vendor wins — and which lever moves which bill.
Toggle the qualitative factors that price alone can't see. The price KPIs do not move. The verdict text and verdict box border do.
| Decision Context flag | Set to | Why this matters here |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft-stack heavy estate | ON | Production runs on Windows / SQL Server / .NET — Azure Hybrid Benefit (~30–55% off Windows VMs for owned licenses) is not in the price calc |
| Existing committed-spend agreement | ON · Azure | 3-year Microsoft EA already in place — switching costs (remaining commit, retraining, ecosystem rebuild) are real but unmodeled |
| Hard compliance gate | off | Not applicable in this scenario |
| Vendor-specific service dependency | off | Workload is general-purpose, no vendor-only service required |
| Multi-cloud already required | off | Single-cloud production is acceptable here |
| Significant existing data on a vendor | off | Less than 500 TB of existing data — not gravity-bound yet |
After Decision Context applies, the math typically lands here:
| Headline | cheapest |
| But | no MS license credit |
| And | ~12 mo migration off Azure |
| Net | price ≠ decision |
| Headline | 2nd on price |
| + Hybrid Benefit | −30–55% Windows |
| + Zero migration | existing EA |
| Net | likely lowest TCO |
| Headline | middle on price |
| No advantage | no MS credit, no commit |
| Net | out, unless other factors flip |
Capture configuration, computed totals, and the active Decision Context flags for finance review or RFP appendix.
| Format | What it's for |
|---|---|
| JSON | Full nested structure including Decision Context flags. Re-importable into the calculator. Best for programmatic use, version control, or carrying scenarios across team members. |
| CSV | Flat key/value file. Opens in Excel or Sheets. Best for finance modeling, RFP appendices, audit trails. |
A defensible 3-year TCO range across three vendors with documented assumptions. A clear view of which lever — pricing, commitment mix, architecture, or qualitative context — is doing the deciding. The number for the board memo is rarely the cheapest vendor. It's the vendor that's cheapest under the commitment strategy you actually intend to operate, with the qualitative constraints your business actually faces. The Decision Context flags are how price-comparison output becomes vendor-selection input.
Download the current configuration. JSON preserves full structure for re-import or programmatic use. CSV is a flat key/value file that opens directly in Excel or Google Sheets.
| Value | Default | Source & rationale |
|---|---|---|
| AWS general-purpose $/hr | $0.2016 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. AWS m7i.xlarge (4 vCPU / 16 GB) Linux on-demand, us-east-1. |
| Azure general-purpose $/hr | $0.192 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. Azure D4s v5 (4 vCPU / 16 GB) Linux pay-as-you-go, East US. |
| GCP general-purpose $/hr | $0.194 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. GCP n2-standard-4 (4 vCPU / 16 GB) Linux on-demand, us-central1. |
| AWS GPU 8×H100 $/hr | $55.04 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. AWS p5.48xlarge us-east-1. AWS announced ~44% H100 price reduction June 2025; some third-party trackers still show pre-cut $98.32 figures. |
| Azure GPU 8×H100 $/hr | $98.32 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. Azure ND96isr H100 v5 East US — notably ~78% higher than AWS post-cut. |
| GCP GPU 8×H100 $/hr | $88.48 | Reasoned approximation, partially verified. GCP a3-highgpu-8g us-central1 list. Wide variance — verify the SKU and region for your case. |
| 1-year reserved discount | 25–37% | Reasoned approximation. AWS Standard RI no-upfront ~30%; Azure RI ~25%; GCP CUD ~37%. Real discount varies by region, instance family, payment option. |
| 3-year reserved discount | 55–60% | Reasoned approximation. AWS RI all-upfront ~60%; Azure 3-year RI ~55%; GCP 3-year CUD ~55%. |
| Spot / preemptible discount | 65–70% | Reasoned approximation. Spot pricing is dynamic and capacity-dependent. |
| AWS S3 Standard $/GB-mo | $0.023 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. First 50 TB/month tier in us-east-1. |
| AWS Glacier Deep Archive $/GB-mo | $0.00099 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. Retrieval costs and minimum retention NOT modeled here. |
| AWS egress $/GB | $0.090 | Verified Apr 30, 2026. First-tier internet egress (after free 100 GB/month), us-east-1. |
| Other vendor storage / egress | varies | Reasoned approximation. Verify against vendor pricing pages. |
| Inter-region transfer $/GB | $0.020 | Reasoned approximation. Real cost varies significantly by source/destination region pair. |
| Managed K8s $/cluster-mo | $73 | Reasoned approximation. $0.10/hour control-plane fee × 730 hours. |
| Managed DB $/hr | $0.30–$0.34 | Reasoned approximation. RDS db.m6g.large equivalent. Variance across edition and HA. |
| Enterprise discount (EDP / EA / negotiated) | 10–12% | Industry estimate, not vendor-published. Real range 5–25% depending on commit size and competitive pressure. Override with your actual quoted rate. |
| Hours per month | 730 | Standard cloud-bill convention. |
| 3-year horizon | 36 months | Matches RI / CUD term length. |
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