Spot vs on-demand: how much spot saves on each cloud
The cheapest spot price against the cheapest on-demand price of each common size, anywhere, per cloud. The median saving: Google Cloud 82%, AWS 89% and Azure 81%. Spot VMs can be stopped by the provider at any time.
Prices checked 25 October 2026, 08:30 UTC. A month (730 hours) with a 10 GB boot disk, Linux list prices in USD, machine types with dedicated vCPUs.
Spot saving, cheapest anywhere
| Size | Google Cloud | AWS | Azure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU · 2 GB | 78% $5.63 vs $25.41 | 83% $2.74 vs $16.46 | 79% $5.69 vs $27.48 |
| 2 vCPU · 4 GB | 81% $7.12 vs $37.32 | 86% $4.34 vs $32.01 | 78% $6.82 vs $31.10 |
| 2 vCPU · 8 GB | 81% $8.12 vs $41.91 | 88% $4.64 vs $37.85 | 78% $7.55 vs $35.05 |
| 4 vCPU · 8 GB | 82% $13.04 vs $73.43 | 89% $7.12 vs $63.11 | 80% $12.33 vs $60.89 |
| 4 vCPU · 16 GB | 82% $15.15 vs $82.62 | 89% $8.29 vs $74.79 | 80% $13.79 vs $68.77 |
| 8 vCPU · 16 GB | 83% $24.89 vs $146 | 88% $15.22 vs $125 | 81% $23.31 vs $120 |
| 8 vCPU · 32 GB | 82% $29.19 vs $164 | 89% $15.66 vs $149 | 81% $26.28 vs $136 |
| 16 vCPU · 32 GB | 83% $48.57 vs $290 | 90% $25.80 vs $250 | 81% $45.30 vs $239 |
| 16 vCPU · 64 GB | 82% $57.28 vs $327 | 90% $30.48 vs $296 | 81% $51.23 vs $271 |
| 32 vCPU · 128 GB | 83% $113 vs $653 | 90% $60.04 vs $592 | 81% $101 vs $541 |
| 64 vCPU · 256 GB | 83% $226 vs $1,304 | 90% $119 vs $1,183 | 81% $201 vs $1,080 |
How often spot prices change: spot price changes.
More comparisons
Questions
How much cheaper is spot than on-demand?
The median over the common sizes, cheapest spot against cheapest on-demand anywhere: Google Cloud 82%, AWS 89% and Azure 81%. Checked 25 October 2026, 08:30 UTC.
What is the catch with spot VMs?
The provider can stop a spot VM at any time when it needs the capacity back, and spot prices change: Google says GCP spot prices can change up to once a day.