Google Compute Engine pricing

Comparable to EC2 on list price, with sustained-use discounts applied automatically as an instance runs rather than requiring an upfront commitment.

List prices checked

By Google · Cloud compute & VPS

Rate card

What Google charges, by billing axis.

AxisPriceApplies to
Compute$0.048/vCPU-hrOn-demand, cheapest general-purpose region
Data transfer out$0.120/GBStandard tier, cheapest common region
Free tierYesOne e2-micro instance per month, always free

Source: Google pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.

What it costs per month

Google Compute Engine billed against three workload profiles, using the rates above. Every line shows its arithmetic.

Side project

A personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process.

$47/mo

  • 730 vCPU-hours at $0.0475/hour$35
  • 100 GB at $0.12/GB$12

Growing SaaS

A funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers.

$189/mo

  • 1,460 vCPU-hours at $0.0475/hour$69
  • 1 TB at $0.12/GB$120

Media-heavy site

A publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought.

$1,235/mo

  • 730 vCPU-hours at $0.0475/hour$35
  • 10 TB at $0.12/GB$1,200

Google Compute Engine vs the alternatives

The closest compute providers on price, with the difference on cloud compute & vps's headline axis.

ServicePer vCPU-hrvs Google Compute EngineCompare
Azure Virtual Machines$0.0521.1× dearerHead to head
AWS EC2$0.0421.1× cheaperHead to head
Oracle Cloud Compute$0.0104.8× cheaperHead to head
Linode (Akamai Cloud)$0.00756.3× cheaperHead to head
UpCloud$0.00746.4× cheaperHead to head
Scaleway Instances$0.00607.9× cheaperHead to head

Questions about pricing

How much does Google Compute Engine cost in 2026?
Google Compute Engine charges usage-based rates with no fixed monthly floor, per Google's published pricing page. There is also a free tier: One e2-micro instance per month, always free. The tables above break the rate card down by axis and model it against three concrete workloads.
Does Google Compute Engine have a free tier?
Yes — One e2-micro instance per month, always free. Check whether it is permanent or a trial before you build a budget around it; the two are often presented identically.
What does Google Compute Engine charge for egress?
$0.120 per GB. Egress is where providers in this category differ most, so it is worth checking against the alternatives before committing.
Are these Google Compute Engine prices current?
They were checked against Google's official pricing page and stamped with that date, which is shown at the top of this page and next to every table. Vendors change list prices without notice — the source link is there so you can confirm before you commit.

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