Provider comparison · Updated 2026-09-20

GCP vs Azure Cost Comparison

Side-by-side pricing including compute, egress, storage, load balancer, managed database, and the hidden costs that don't show up in basic estimates. All prices are on-demand, monthly, in USD.

Google Cloud Platform

Strong in AI/ML and data. Competitive egress pricing.

Complexity: high★★★★☆

Microsoft Azure

Best for enterprises using Microsoft stack.

Complexity: high★★★★☆

Compute pricing (on-demand, monthly)

Tier	GCP	Azure	Azure saves
Nano (1 vCPU / 512 MB) e2-micro / B1ls	$5.55/mo	$3.80/mo	32% cheaper
Micro (1 vCPU / 1 GB) e2-small / B1s	$9.78/mo	$7.59/mo	22% cheaper
Small (2 vCPU / 4 GB) e2-standard-2 / B2s	$48.91/mo	$30.37/mo	38% cheaper
Medium (4 vCPU / 16 GB) n2-standard-4 / D4s_v5	$141.77/mo	$140.16/mo	1% cheaper
Large (8 vCPU / 32 GB) n2-standard-8 / D8s_v5	$283.46/mo	$280.32/mo	1% cheaper
XLarge (16 vCPU / 64 GB) e2-standard-16 / D16s_v5	$391.28/mo	$560.64/mo	+43% more

Egress cost - the surprise bill item

Data transferred out to the internet per month.

Data out / month	GCP	Azure	Difference
10 GB	Free	Free	-
100 GB	Free	Free	-
500 GB	$26	$35	GCP saves $9
1 TB	$68	$78	GCP saves $10
5 TB	$332	$426	GCP saves $94

Managed services pricing

Object Storage

GCP

$0.020/GB/mo

Azure

$0.018/GB/mo

Blob Storage LRS.

Load Balancer

GCP

~$18/mo

Azure

~$18/mo

Standard Load Balancer.

Managed PostgreSQL

GCP

~$9/mo

Azure

~$12/mo

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server.

Hidden costs to watch for

Egress to Internet (GCP)medium$8 to $80 per 100 GB/mo

$0.085/GB for first 1 TB (after 200 GB free) to non-Google destinations. Better than AWS but still significant.

How to avoid: Enable Cloud CDN to reduce origin egress. Use Google's global network for intra-region transfers.

Calculate for your specific workload

The numbers above are for reference. Plug in your actual requirements to get a real cost estimate.

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