EC2 Pricing Calculator - Compare Instance Types & Costs

An AWS EC2 instance pricing calculator is a tool that compares EC2 instance costs across regions, instance types, and pricing models. It helps you find the cheapest EC2 instance for your vCPU and memory requirements by comparing On-Demand, Spot, and Reserved pricing - without manually checking AWS pricing pages. For a complete breakdown of EC2 pricing models and hidden costs, see our Amazon EC2 Pricing Guide.

This EC2 cost calculator uses official AWS pricing data updated regularly from AWS price lists. On-Demand and Reserved prices are exact; Spot prices are estimates (~70% discount) since actual Spot prices fluctuate based on real-time demand.

Windows instances include the Windows Server license cost in the hourly price. This typically adds $0.02-$0.20/hour depending on instance size. Linux uses open-source operating systems with no license fees.

ARM/Graviton instances are typically 20% cheaperand often provide better performance for most workloads. They're ideal for containerized applications, web servers, and microservices. Choose x86 if you have x86-specific dependencies.

Spot instances can save up to 90% but can be interrupted with 2-minute notice. Use Spot for fault-tolerant workloads like batch processing, CI/CD, or stateless web servers behind load balancers.

Generally, no.Reserved Instances have fixed pricing regardless of usage, so they're only viable if you run instances continuously (730 hours/month). If you need flexibility, Compute Savings Plans are the better choice. AWS now recommends Savings Plans over Reserved Instances for most use cases due to their greater flexibility and ease of use.

Compute Savings Plans offer up to 66% savings with maximum flexibility. They automatically apply to EC2 usage regardless of instance family, size, region, OS, or tenancy - and also cover Fargate and Lambda. You can switch from C4 to M5 instances, move workloads between regions, or migrate from EC2 to Fargate without losing your discount.

EC2 Instance Savings Plansoffer up to 72% savings (the highest discount) but require commitment to a specific instance family in a specific region (e.g., M5 in us-east-1). You still get flexibility within that family - changing size, OS, or tenancy - but you're locked to that instance family and region.

Flexibility: Compute Savings Plans are the most flexible, followed by EC2 Instance Savings Plans, then Convertible RIs, and finally Standard RIs.

Scope: Compute Savings Plans apply to EC2, Fargate, and Lambda. EC2 Instance Savings Plans and Reserved Instances only apply to EC2.

Commitment type: Savings Plans require commitment to a consistent usage amount ($/hour), while Reserved Instances require commitment to specific instance attributes (family, size, region, OS, tenancy).

Capacity reservation: Only Reserved Instances offer capacity reservation in a specific Availability Zone. Choose Savings Plans for cost savings and Reserved Instances only when you need guaranteed capacity.

For a detailed comparison, see the AWS Savings Plans vs Reserved Instances documentation.