Cloud Cost Calculator: AWS vs GCP vs Azure vs Indian Clouds — True Monthly Cost

• Cloud bills surprise 70% of first-time users — not because compute is expensive, but because egress (data transfer out), storage I/O, load balancers, and idle resources silently add 40–80% to the base compute cost.
• AWS, Azure, and GCP are within 5–15% of each other on raw compute. The real differentiators are: reserved instance discounts (up to 72% off on-demand), ecosystem lock-in, support costs, and which services your team already knows.
• The cheapest cloud for most Indian startups: GCP (best sustained use discounts with zero commitment) or AWS (largest ecosystem, best documentation). Azure wins for Microsoft-stack enterprises.
• Indian cloud providers (Jio Cloud, E2E Networks, CtrlS, Yotta) offer 30–50% lower cost in INR for compute — but lack the managed services, global CDN, and reliability track record of hyperscalers.

Use our free Cloud Cost Calculator to estimate monthly cloud spend for any workload — compute, storage, database, networking — across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Indian providers.

Cloud Cost Components: What Actually Drives Your Bill

Most people budget only for compute (EC2/VM instances). The full cost picture:

Cost Category	Typical % of Total Bill	Notes
Compute (VMs/instances)	35–50%	The visible cost
Storage (S3, EBS, GCS)	10–20%	Scales with data volume
Database (RDS, Cloud SQL)	15–25%	Often more expensive than compute
Data egress (outbound transfer)	10–20%	The biggest surprise for Indian startups
Load balancers	3–8%	Fixed + per-request cost
CDN (CloudFront, Cloud CDN)	2–10%	Essential for global reach
Monitoring / logging	2–5%	CloudWatch, Stackdriver, Azure Monitor
Support plan	3–10%	Business support often mandatory

The egress trap: Data transferred OUT of any cloud costs $0.08–$0.09/GB (AWS/Azure) or $0.08–$0.12/GB (GCP) for the first 10TB. An app serving 10TB/month in outbound data adds $800–$1,200/month to the bill — before any compute.

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Compute Cost Comparison: Common Instance Types

General Purpose (Web Apps, APIs)

2 vCPU, 8GB RAM:

4 vCPU, 16GB RAM:

Memory-Optimised (Databases, Caching)

8 vCPU, 64GB RAM:

Storage Cost Comparison

Provider	Object Storage	Block Storage (SSD)	Egress (per GB, first 10TB)
AWS S3 / EBS	$0.023/GB/mo	$0.10/GB/mo	$0.09/GB
GCP Cloud Storage / PD	$0.020/GB/mo	$0.17/GB/mo	$0.12/GB
Azure Blob / Managed Disk	$0.018/GB/mo	$0.10/GB/mo	$0.087/GB
Cloudflare R2	$0.015/GB/mo	N/A	$0 egress
Backblaze B2	$0.006/GB/mo	N/A	$0.01/GB

Cloudflare R2 is the best value for high-egress workloads — zero egress cost means an app serving 50TB/month saves $4,000–$6,000/month vs. AWS S3. The trade-off: no managed compute on Cloudflare (yet), so it's S3-compatible storage only.

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Database Cost Comparison

MySQL/PostgreSQL equivalent, 2 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 100GB storage:

Provider	Service	On-Demand/mo	1-Year Reserved/mo
AWS	RDS db.t3.large	$182.82	$116.02
GCP	Cloud SQL db-n1-standard-2	$152.14	~$93
Azure	Azure Database for PostgreSQL	$167.90	$107.45
PlanetScale	Serverless (pay per query)	$0–$39 base + usage	Varies
Supabase	Pro plan	$25 flat	$25 flat
Railway	PostgreSQL	$5–$20	$5–$20

Managed databases are expensive. RDS at $182/month vs. self-managed PostgreSQL on an EC2 instance at $60/month for the same specs. The premium is for: automated backups, read replicas, multi-AZ failover. Worth it for production; overkill for development.

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Full Stack Cost Estimate: Indian SaaS Startup (Production)

Scenario: B2B SaaS, 500 daily active users, India + Southeast Asia

Resource	Spec	Provider	Monthly Cost
App servers (2×)	2 vCPU, 8GB, auto-scaling	AWS t3.large reserved	₹6,300
Database	RDS PostgreSQL, db.t3.medium	AWS RDS reserved	₹8,200
Redis cache	ElastiCache t3.micro	AWS	₹1,500
Storage (500GB S3)	Object storage	AWS S3	₹980
CDN	CloudFront, 2TB egress	AWS	₹5,800
Load balancer	ALB	AWS	₹1,200
Data transfer out (1TB)	Egress	AWS	₹7,500
Monitoring	CloudWatch + logs	AWS	₹900
Backups	RDS automated	AWS	₹600
Total			₹33,000/month

This is a production-grade setup. Equivalent on GCP: approximately ₹26,000–₹28,000 (15–20% cheaper). On DigitalOcean: approximately ₹18,000–₹22,000 (less managed services).

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Indian Cloud Providers: Cost vs. Reliability Trade-off

Provider	Compute Cost	Strengths	Weaknesses
E2E Networks	30–50% below AWS (INR)	INR billing, MEITY compliant, GPU available	Smaller ecosystem, fewer managed services
Jio Cloud	20–40% below AWS	Pan-India reach, telecom integration	Limited services, reliability concerns
CtrlS	25–45% below AWS	Tier IV DC, enterprise grade	Limited self-service, not developer-friendly
Yotta	30–50% below AWS	Green energy, Mumbai & Noida DCs	Early stage, limited service catalogue
Tata TCS iON	Enterprise pricing	End-to-end services	Not for startups

When to use Indian clouds:

• MEITY/DPDP compliance requirement (data must stay in India)
• INR billing eliminates forex cost and complexity
• Government/BFSI sector clients requiring Indian cloud certification

When to stick with AWS/GCP/Azure:

• Global user base needing global CDN/edge
• Heavy use of managed AI/ML services
• Complex auto-scaling requirements
• Strong developer tooling and documentation needed

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Cost Optimisation: The Biggest Levers

1. Reserved Instances / Committed Use Discounts 1-year reserved: 30–40% off on-demand. 3-year: 60–72% off. For any workload running 24/7: always buy reserved. The math is unambiguous.

2. Right-sizing Most VMs are oversized. Use AWS Cost Explorer, GCP Recommender, or Azure Advisor to find instances consistently running at <30% CPU — right-size to the next tier down.

3. Spot/Preemptible for batch workloads 70% discount for interruptible jobs. Ideal for: data processing, ML training, report generation, image processing queues.

4. Savings Plans (AWS) More flexible than Reserved Instances — commit to a $/hour spend level across any instance family. 66% discount for 3-year Compute Savings Plans.

5. Switch object storage egress to Cloudflare R2 For high-egress apps: migrating media/static assets from S3 to R2 eliminates egress costs. R2 is S3-compatible — migration is typically days of engineering effort.

6. Auto-scaling and scheduled scaling Scale down to 1 instance at night if user traffic drops 80% at midnight. For Indian SaaS, 9 PM – 8 AM scale-down can cut compute costs 30–40%.

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FAQ

Which cloud is cheapest for Indian startups — AWS, GCP, or Azure?

GCP is typically 10–15% cheaper on raw compute and offers automatic sustained use discounts (no reservation required) — GCP charges less the longer an instance runs in a month. AWS has the largest ecosystem and best startup credits. Azure is best for Microsoft-stack companies. For most Indian B2B SaaS startups: start on AWS (best documentation, largest community) or GCP (better price) and optimise later.

How do I estimate my cloud bill before deploying?

Use the official calculators: AWS Pricing Calculator (calculator.aws), GCP Pricing Calculator (cloud.google.com/products/calculator), Azure Pricing Calculator (azure.microsoft.com/pricing/calculator). Input your expected instance types, hours, storage, and egress — they provide monthly estimates. Our calculator provides a quick comparison across all three.

What is cloud egress and why is it so expensive?

Egress is data transferred OUT of the cloud to the internet or other providers. AWS charges $0.09/GB after the first 100GB free. For a media-heavy app serving 10TB/month: $900 in egress alone. Solutions: (1) Use Cloudflare as a proxy/CDN (large bandwidth included), (2) Move static assets to R2/B2 with free egress, (3) Enable CloudFront/Cloud CDN (CDN egress is cheaper than direct egress).

What free tier is available for Indian developers trying AWS/GCP?

AWS Free Tier: 750 hours/month of t2.micro (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM) for 12 months, 5GB S3, 25GB RDS storage. GCP Free Tier: 1 e2-micro instance (0.25–2 vCPU, 1GB RAM) permanently free in US regions (not India region), $300 credit for 90 days. Azure: $200 credit for 30 days, 12 months of select free services. AWS startup credits: up to $100,000 available through AWS Activate for qualifying startups.