Amazon Web Services (AWS) Pricing 2026
Complete pricing guide with plans, hidden costs, and negotiation tips
Amazon Web Services (AWS) pricing varies by team size and features, ranging from $0 to $10K per month in 2026. Your actual cost depends on the tier you choose, contract length, and negotiated discounts.
Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.
- Free tier: Yes
- Billing: Monthly and annual (save 15-20%)
- Hidden costs: Add ~35% for implementation, support, and training
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers 5 pricing tiers: Free Tier, On-Demand (t3.micro), On-Demand (t3.medium), Savings Plans (1-Year Compute), Enterprise Support. Standard paid plans include Free Tier at $0/month, On-Demand (t3.micro) at $7.59/month, On-Demand (t3.medium) at $30.37/month. The On-Demand (t3.micro) plan is small workloads, development servers, and microservices.
Compared to other cloud infrastructure software, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is positioned at the premium price point.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud infrastructure provider, commanding roughly 31% of the global cloud market. AWS offers over 200 fully-featured services spanning compute, storage, databases, networking, machine learning, and more. Its EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) service is the backbone of cloud computing, providing resizable virtual machines with per-second billing.
AWS pricing follows a pay-as-you-go model with no upfront commitments. A basic t3.micro instance starts at $7.59/month, while production workloads typically range $100-$5,000/month. Savings Plans and Reserved Instances offer up to 72% off On-Demand pricing for committed usage. In January 2026, AWS raised EC2 Capacity Block prices for ML workloads by 15%, though standard On-Demand and Savings Plan rates remain unchanged.
All Amazon Web Services (AWS) Plans & Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Free | Free 0 | Developers learning AWS, small experiments, and proof-of-concept projects |
| On-Demand (t3.micro) | $7.59 /month | $91.08 /month | Small workloads, development servers, and microservices |
| On-Demand (t3.medium) | $30.37 /month | $364.44 /month | Small production applications, web servers, and staging environments |
| Savings Plans (1-Year Compute) | Contact | Contact | Predictable production workloads running 24/7 with committed usage |
| Enterprise Support | $15000 /month | $180000 /month | Large enterprises running mission-critical workloads on AWS |
View all features by plan
Free Tier
- 750 hours/month t2.micro or t3.micro EC2 instance
- 5 GB Amazon S3 standard storage
- 750 hours Amazon RDS (db.t2.micro)
- 1 million AWS Lambda requests/month
- 25 GB DynamoDB storage
- 1 GB CloudFront data transfer/month
- Available for 12 months after signup
- Some services always free (Lambda, DynamoDB)
On-Demand (t3.micro)
- 2 vCPUs, 1 GiB memory
- Up to 5 Gbps network bandwidth
- Pay-per-second billing (60s minimum)
- No upfront commitment required
- Elastic IP address available
- Burstable CPU performance
- Multiple OS options (Linux, Windows)
On-Demand (t3.medium)
- 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB memory
- Up to 5 Gbps network bandwidth
- Pay-per-second billing
- Burstable performance with CPU credits
- EBS-optimized by default
- Multiple storage options (EBS, Instance Store)
- Auto Scaling compatible
Savings Plans (1-Year Compute)
- Up to 72% savings vs On-Demand
- Applies to EC2, Lambda, and Fargate
- Flexible across instance families and regions
- 1-year or 3-year commitment options
- All Upfront, Partial Upfront, or No Upfront payment
- Automatic application to qualifying usage
- Compute or EC2 Instance plan types available
Enterprise Support
- Dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM)
- 15-minute response for critical issues
- Infrastructure Event Management
- Well-Architected Reviews
- Operations Reviews
- Training and certification credits
- Trusted Advisor with full checks
- Third-party software support
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Frequently Asked Questions
01 How much does AWS cost?
AWS uses pay-as-you-go pricing with no upfront commitments. A basic t3.micro instance costs about $7.59/month, a t3.medium costs $30.37/month, and production workloads typically range from $100-$5,000+/month. Free Tier includes 750 hours of t2/t3.micro instances for the first 12 months.
02 Does AWS have a free tier?
Yes, the AWS Free Tier includes 750 hours/month of t2.micro or t3.micro EC2 instances, 5 GB S3 storage, 750 hours RDS, and 1 million Lambda requests per month. Most services are free for 12 months after signup, while some (like Lambda and DynamoDB) have always-free tiers.
03 What hidden costs should I expect with AWS?
Common hidden costs include data transfer out ($0.09/GB), NAT Gateway fees ($0.045/hour + data), EBS storage ($0.08/GB/month), Elastic IP charges for idle addresses, CloudWatch monitoring, and cross-region transfer. Data egress is often the largest surprise cost.
04 How can I save money on AWS?
Use Savings Plans or Reserved Instances for up to 72% off On-Demand. Spot Instances save up to 90% for interruptible workloads. Right-size instances, use auto-scaling, delete unused resources, and leverage the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate costs before deployment.
05 AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: Which is cheapest?
Pricing is comparable across hyperscalers for similar instance types. AWS t3.micro costs $7.59/month, Azure B1s costs $7.59/month, and GCP e2-micro costs $6.12/month. GCP offers automatic sustained-use discounts, Azure has Hybrid Benefit for Windows, and AWS has the broadest Savings Plans coverage.
06 How does AWS billing work?
AWS bills per-second for most compute services (60-second minimum) and monthly for storage and data transfer. Bills are generated monthly. You can set billing alerts, use AWS Budgets for forecasting, and leverage Cost Explorer to analyze spending patterns.