Google Cloud Platform Pricing — Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL & Egress Costs (2026)
Google Cloud is the hyperscaler that discounts without asking: sustained use discounts apply automatically to always-on instances, and custom machine types mean you buy the vCPU and memory ratio your workload actually needs instead of the nearest predefined shape. Every figure below is computed from GCP list rates by the same engine as the live estimator.
- Custom Machine Types avoid paying for unused vCPUs or RAM.
- First GKE zonal cluster management fee is completely waived.
What a GCP architecture costs
Four reference architectures, priced for Google Cloud Platform alone by the same engine that powers the live estimator — list prices in USD, us-east-1 baseline, on-demand unless noted.
SaaS Starter MVP
Ideal for early-stage startups and production web apps with up to 25k monthly active users.
- Virtual Machines / Compute
- $97.82/mo
- Object & Block Storage
- $10.04/mo
- Managed Relational Database
- $92.92/mo
- Networking & Data Egress
- $201.17/mo
High-Traffic E-Commerce
Engineered for high concurrent checkouts, product catalogs, and intensive flash sales.
- Virtual Machines / Compute
- $410.84/mo
- Object & Block Storage
- $40.21/mo
- Managed Relational Database
- $367.39/mo
- Networking & Data Egress
- $1002.34/mo
Enterprise Microservices (K8s)
Multi-service containerized architecture with managed Kubernetes clusters and service mesh.
- Object & Block Storage
- $100.52/mo
- Managed Relational Database
- $734.78/mo
- Networking & Data Egress
- $1433.11/mo
- Managed Kubernetes
- $782.56/mo
AI / ML Inference & Pipeline
Compute and memory-optimized instances designed for low-latency LLM serving and vector retrieval.
- Virtual Machines / Compute
- $1707.32/mo
- Object & Block Storage
- $160.80/mo
- Managed Relational Database
- $564.78/mo
- Networking & Data Egress
- $1651.94/mo
Google Compute Engine instance pricing
Every published shape in the catalog, priced at 730 hours/month in USD list rates.
| Instance | Shape | On-demand | 1-year reserved | 3-year reserved | Spot / preemptible |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
e2-standard-2 General Purpose (e2/n2) | 2 vCPU / 8 GB | $48.91/mo | $34.24/mo | $26.94/mo | $17.16/mo |
e2-standard-4 General Purpose (e2/n2) | 4 vCPU / 16 GB | $97.82/mo | $68.47/mo | $53.80/mo | $34.24/mo |
n2-standard-8 General Purpose (n2) | 8 vCPU / 32 GB | $283.61/mo | $198.49/mo | $156.00/mo | $99.28/mo |
c2-standard-16 Compute Optimized (c2) | 16 vCPU / 64 GB | $609.70/mo | $426.83/mo | $335.36/mo | $213.38/mo |
n2-highmem-16 Memory Optimized (m1) | 16 vCPU / 128 GB | $765.11/mo | $535.60/mo | $420.85/mo | $267.76/mo |
n2-standard-32 High Capacity | 32 vCPU / 128 GB | $1134.35/mo | $794.02/mo | $623.86/mo | $397.05/mo |
Google Cloud Storage storage tiers
| Hot / standard | $0.0200/GB-mo $20.00 per TB-month · $0.0004/10k reads · $0.0050/10k writes |
|---|---|
| Cool / infrequent | $0.0100/GB-mo $10.00 per TB-month · $0.0010/10k reads · $0.0100/10k writes |
| Cold | $0.0040/GB-mo $4.00 per TB-month · $0.0050/10k reads · $0.0130/10k writes |
| Archive | $0.0012/GB-mo $1.20 per TB-month · $0.0500/10k reads · $0.0300/10k writes |
Cloud SQL pricing
| db-custom-2-7680 (2 vCPU / 7.5 GB) | PostgreSQL $75.92/mo · MySQL $75.92/mo · SQL Server $204.40/mo Storage $0.1700/GB-mo · multi-AZ multiplies the instance rate by 2× |
|---|---|
| db-custom-4-15360 (4 vCPU / 15 GB) | PostgreSQL $151.84/mo · MySQL $151.84/mo · SQL Server $408.80/mo Storage $0.1700/GB-mo · multi-AZ multiplies the instance rate by 2× |
| db-custom-8-30720 (8 vCPU / 30 GB) | PostgreSQL $303.68/mo · MySQL $303.68/mo · SQL Server $817.60/mo Storage $0.1700/GB-mo · multi-AZ multiplies the instance rate by 2× |
| db-custom-16-61440 (16 vCPU / 60 GB) | PostgreSQL $607.36/mo · MySQL $607.36/mo · SQL Server $1635.20/mo Storage $0.1700/GB-mo · multi-AZ multiplies the instance rate by 2× |
Networking & egress
| Internet egress | $0.1200/GB (first 10 TB) Then $0.0800/GB up to 40 TB. No standing free allowance. |
|---|---|
| Load balancer | $18.25/mo |
| Static IPv4 address | $2.92/mo |
Google Cloud GKE
| Control plane (first cluster) | Free Billed at $0.100/hr; the first cluster is waived. |
|---|
Where GCP ranks
- Entry-level compute: #8 of 10 ($48.91/mo (e2-standard-2))
- Egress at 20 TB/month: #10 of 10 ($2048.00/mo)
Full ranked tables live in the cost guides.
Lowering a GCP bill
GCP Custom Sizing
Avoid paying for predefined instance shapes. Google Cloud allows custom vCPU & memory ratios tailored specifically to your exact application footprint.
First GKE zonal cluster management is completely free.
- Use Spot or Tau VM node pools for non-critical stateless microservices.
- Route traffic via Cloud CDN to cut egress costs by 30-50%.
Compare GCP with other providers
Cost guides featuring GCP
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Google Cloud Platform pricing — frequently asked questions
Is Google Cloud cheaper than AWS?
For always-on, steady workloads it is usually the cheaper of the two hyperscalers, and the reason is structural rather than promotional: sustained use discounts apply automatically without any upfront commitment, so an idle-but-running fleet is not paying the full on-demand rate. Custom machine types widen that gap by removing the waste of predefined shapes. The reference workload totals below show what that difference is worth for a specific architecture.
What is the cheapest way to run a workload on GKE?
Keep the first cluster zonal — GKE waives the control-plane fee there, which makes it free in practice for small deployments. Use Spot node pools for stateless and fault-tolerant workloads, since GKE Spot VMs carry the deepest interruption discounts in this comparison. And size worker nodes with custom machine types rather than predefined shapes, so the cluster is not paying for vCPU or memory the scheduler never allocates.
Who is Google Cloud the right choice for?
Kubernetes-heavy teams first, because GKE is the most mature managed Kubernetes offering here and its free first zonal cluster makes small deployments cheap to run. Then data engineering, where BigQuery and the surrounding tooling are the differentiator, and teams that want automatic discounts without signing a commitment.
What does the cheapest comparable instance cost on GCP?
For a 4 vCPU / 16 GB Linux instance at 730 hours a month on demand, the engine matches Google Compute Engine to e2-standard-4 at $97.82/month. Instance shapes differ between providers, so the matched shape matters as much as the price — the compute table below lists every published shape with its reserved and spot rates.
How does GCP charge for data transfer?
Internet egress is metered from the first gigabyte — there is no standing free transfer allowance. Load balancers bill at $18.25/month and static IPv4 addresses at $2.92/month in this catalog, both metered hourly.
What storage tiers and managed database engines does GCP offer?
Object storage is available in 4 tiers (hot, cool, cold, archive) — see the storage table for per-GB rates. Managed databases cover POSTGRES, MYSQL, SQL SERVER. The managed Kubernetes control plane is free on the first cluster.
Provenance for every figure on this page is listed on the methodology page.