AWS vs Azure vs GCP: Regional Pricing Compared

Looking to save on cloud costs? Here's the key takeaway: Regional pricing differences across AWS, Azure, and GCP can cut your cloud bill by up to 40%. For UK businesses, choosing the right provider and region is crucial to balancing cost, performance, and compliance.

Key Insights:

• Storage Costs: Azure is the cheapest option across most regions, with AWS often being the most expensive. For example, 10TB in Zurich costs £173.90 on Azure vs £217.35 on AWS.
• Data Transfer Fees: AWS offers the most generous free tier (100GB/month), while Azure and GCP provide 5GB/month. Costs vary by region and provider.
• Compute Instances: AWS and Azure have regional price fluctuations (e.g., UK regions are ~10% pricier than US East), while GCP offers more stable pricing.
• Savings Opportunities: Use reserved instances, spot instances, or preemptible VMs for discounts of up to 75%.

Quick Comparison Table:

Pro Tip: For UK businesses, non-critical workloads can be moved to lower-cost regions like US East or Mumbai for significant savings.

Understanding these differences can help you optimise your cloud strategy. Read on for detailed comparisons and actionable tips to cut costs.

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Which One is the Best Cloud Service Provider?

Regional Storage Pricing Comparison

The January 2025 data highlights notable differences in regional storage costs across AWS, Azure, and GCP, which can significantly impact UK businesses' cloud expenses. These variations are particularly important when weighing cost against performance. Below, we break down the costs for 10TB of storage to illustrate these regional disparities.

Standard Storage Pricing by Region

Looking at 10TB of storage in three key regions - Northern Virginia (a popular US hub), Zurich (closer to the UK), and Mumbai (representing emerging markets) - the pricing differences are clear. Azure consistently offers the lowest costs, while AWS tends to be the most expensive option [4].

Prices converted from USD based on current exchange rates.

The regional price differences are striking. For example, in Zurich, AWS charges nearly £44 more per month than Azure, which adds up to over £520 annually for just 10TB of storage. Meanwhile, Mumbai offers Azure's most competitive rate at £161.30 per month - about £24 cheaper than the Northern Virginia option.

Large-Scale Storage Costs

Scaling storage beyond 10TB further amplifies these regional price variations. At 100TB, Azure maintains its cost advantage across all regions, with Mumbai offering the lowest rate at £1,580 per month. In comparison, AWS pricing ranges from £1,815 in Northern Virginia to £2,130 in Zurich, while GCP falls between £1,685 and £1,835 depending on the region [4].

For even larger storage needs, such as 500TB, the savings become more pronounced. In Mumbai, Azure charges around £7,780 per month, compared to AWS's £9,720. This represents potential savings of nearly £2,000 per month - or approximately £23,280 annually - simply by selecting the right provider and region [4]. Additionally, as storage volumes increase, tiered pricing reduces the cost per TB for all providers, though the rate of reduction varies [4].

For UK businesses exploring multi-region strategies, the data suggests that combining Azure's competitive pricing with carefully selected regions could result in substantial savings. However, it’s important to note that storage costs are just one piece of the puzzle. Data transfer fees, compute instances, and other services also contribute significantly to the overall cloud bill.

Given the complexity of these pricing models and regional differences, many organisations find it challenging to optimise their cloud costs. Partnering with experts - such as Hokstad Consulting - can help businesses identify the most cost-effective configurations tailored to their specific needs.

Data Transfer Costs by Region

Data transfer fees are often overlooked but can have a noticeable impact on your overall cloud costs. While uploading data (ingress) is free, downloading data (egress) is charged based on the destination and the amount transferred. For UK businesses running globally distributed applications, these costs can escalate quickly if the architecture isn’t optimised for efficient regional data flows.

Cross-Region Transfer Pricing

The cost of transferring data between regions varies significantly depending on the provider and the geographical locations involved. For example, AWS charges between $0.01 and $0.09 per GB for inter-region transfers, with lower rates typically applying to data moved within the same general area, like between European regions. Transferring data across continents, such as from Europe to Asia, tends to cost more[2].

Azure offers cross-region transfer rates ranging from $0.02 to $0.16 per GB[2]. Recently, Azure reduced outbound data fees for inter-region traffic by up to 10%, making multi-region deployments slightly more affordable[7].

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) also provides competitive rates, charging between $0.02 and $0.14 per GB depending on the source and destination regions[2]. GCP’s pricing is transparent, with clearly defined geographical tiers. Here’s a breakdown of inter-region rates converted to GBP:

GCP inter-region data transfer rates in GBP[9]

Next, let’s explore how free tier allowances can help offset these costs.

Free Tier Allowances

Free tier allowances play an important role in managing data transfer expenses, particularly for smaller workloads or early-stage cloud deployments. AWS offers one of the most generous free tiers, including 100GB of free internet egress per month[10]. However, AWS does charge around $0.01 per GB for cross-availability zone (AZ) traffic.

Both Azure and GCP include 5GB of free internet egress per month. Although smaller than AWS’s allowance, these providers often waive charges for same-zone traffic, which can be advantageous for applications with heavy internal data movement.

These differences in free tier allowances can significantly affect costs. For instance, transferring 500GB per month to the internet would cost approximately £28 on AWS (after the free allowance), compared to about £35 on Azure or £48 on GCP. Additionally, AWS offers migration fee waivers for customers moving data off its platform to another provider or back to on-premises systems, subject to approval through AWS support[10].

For UK businesses, understanding your specific data flow patterns is crucial. Applications with high internal communication may benefit from providers offering free intra-region transfers. On the other hand, applications serving external users might find larger internet egress allowances more cost-effective. Consulting with experts like Hokstad Consulting can help analyse your data usage and recommend the best configurations to minimise costs.

Compute Instance Pricing by Region

When it comes to managing cloud expenses, compute pricing is a key area to focus on, especially for UK businesses. Since compute costs often make up the largest portion of a cloud bill, understanding regional price differences can have a significant impact on overall expenditure. Where you choose to deploy your instances can directly influence your monthly costs.

Regional Compute Instance Pricing

Compute instance pricing varies noticeably between regions. For instance, AWS typically offers its lowest rates in US East (Northern Virginia), while European regions like London tend to be about 10–15% pricier. Take a standard m5.large instance (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) as an example: it costs roughly £0.075 per hour in Northern Virginia compared to £0.084 per hour in London.

Azure follows a similar trend. A D2s_v3 instance (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) costs approximately £0.075 per hour in East US, increasing to about £0.084 per hour in UK South. Interestingly, Azure offers considerable savings for those opting for Arm-based CPUs - up to 65% on On-Demand instances and 69% on Spot instances [1].

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), on the other hand, offers more stable regional pricing. For its n2-standard-2 instances (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM), the cost is around £0.077 per hour across most regions. Additionally, GCP provides automatic sustained-use discounts, which can save users up to 30% without requiring any upfront commitments [8].

These variations highlight the importance of selecting the right region to strike a balance between cost and performance.

For those with long-term needs, reservation or commitment plans can significantly reduce costs - up to 75% for AWS, 70% for GCP, and comparable savings for Azure [8].

When it comes to high-performance computing, the price differences become even more pronounced. For example, Azure's largest instance configuration (128 vCPUs, 3.89 TB RAM) costs about £5.45 per hour, while AWS's equivalent (128 vCPUs, 3.84 TB RAM) is approximately £3.10 per hour. GCP offers a slightly larger instance (160 vCPUs, 3.75 TB RAM) priced at around £4.16 per hour [3].

Lowest Cost Regions for Computing

US East (Northern Virginia) consistently ranks as the most cost-effective region across AWS, Azure, and GCP. For UK businesses running workloads that aren't sensitive to latency, deploying in such regions can lead to substantial savings.

Spot Instances from AWS (offering discounts of up to 90%) and Preemptible VMs from GCP (up to 80% off) provide even greater cost-cutting opportunities [1]. However, AWS Spot Instances are known for their price volatility, with an average of 197 monthly price changes. In contrast, Azure and GCP have more predictable pricing adjustments, occurring only a few times per month [1].

For UK businesses seeking to optimise their compute costs, consulting experts like Hokstad Consulting can help identify the best regional strategies to maximise savings and efficiency.

Regional Cost Reduction Methods

Strategic regional deployment can significantly lower cloud expenses, but it’s essential to balance these savings with operational needs, compliance standards, and performance expectations.

Multi-Region Deployment Planning

For UK businesses, planning multi-region deployments involves navigating data residency laws, latency considerations, and disaster recovery needs. Data residency regulations, particularly under GDPR and UK data protection laws, dictate where sensitive data - such as that in financial services or healthcare - can be stored.

Workloads that aren’t sensitive to latency, like batch processing or backups, can be placed in lower-cost regions. This approach not only reduces costs but also supports disaster recovery efforts without the expense of maintaining costly standby environments.

Careful planning ensures that businesses can select the most cost-efficient regions for each workload while staying compliant.

Cost-Effective Region Selection

Identifying cost-effective regions starts with analysing the specific needs of each workload. Development and testing environments, for instance, are prime candidates for cost savings since they often don’t face the same latency or compliance pressures as production systems.

For storage-heavy or archival tasks, regions with lower storage costs are ideal. Similarly, compute costs can be optimised by shifting non-critical tasks - like development, testing, batch processing, or analytics - to regions with lower pricing. Automation tools can help by reallocating Kubernetes workloads to more efficient regions, while commitment discounts of up to 72% provide additional savings [3].

Spot instances and preemptible VMs offer another layer of cost reduction. For example, AWS spot prices can be as much as 90% cheaper, though they come with increased volatility [1]. Azure also provides substantial discounts on general-purpose and compute-optimised instances.

To ensure spending remains under control, businesses should implement metadata tagging and schedule regular cost reviews [11].

For UK organisations looking to streamline their regional deployment strategies, experts like Hokstad Consulting can help craft tailored solutions that align with compliance and performance priorities while maximising cost efficiency.

Future Regional Pricing Trends

The cloud pricing landscape is undergoing noticeable changes, which UK businesses must consider when planning their infrastructure investments. By staying informed about these shifts, organisations can better align their regional deployment strategies with long-term cost management goals.

Narrowing Price Differences Between Regions

The competition between major cloud providers - AWS, Azure, and GCP - is heating up, and one result is a reduction in pricing disparities across regions. The global cloud computing market is projected to hit £2,291.59 billion by 2032 [6], with these three companies accounting for 66% of the market share [6]. As pricing gaps shrink, UK businesses are now weighing factors like latency, compliance, and data residency alongside costs. However, it’s worth noting that some GCP instance types can still be 25–50% less expensive than their AWS counterparts [5]. Alongside these shifts, there’s also a growing emphasis on sustainability in regional pricing strategies.

Green Energy Costs and Region-Specific Pricing

Sustainability is playing an increasingly central role in shaping regional pricing models, particularly in Europe, where energy prices are climbing, and environmental regulations are becoming stricter. Cloud providers are factoring green energy costs into their pricing structures. For example, Azure promotes carbon-free locations in Europe, AWS has invested in renewable energy projects, and GCP highlights its low CO₂ regions.

These sustainability-focused investments are creating pricing advantages in specific regions. Google Cloud now enables customers to host in areas with the highest levels of carbon-free energy while using machine learning to optimise cooling-related electricity usage [13]. Meanwhile, AWS has announced 18 new renewable energy projects across regions in the US, Finland, Germany, Italy, and the UK, adding 5.6 GW of renewable energy capacity [13]. For regions prioritising renewable energy, these efforts could lead to more stable and predictable pricing over time.

For UK businesses, choosing regions with strong renewable energy strategies offers a dual benefit: stable long-term costs and alignment with environmental goals. Fixed energy contracts in these regions provide predictability, while the rising focus on reporting Scope 3 emissions is encouraging organisations to consider sustainability when selecting cloud regions.

Additionally, cloud providers are introducing long-term contracts and incentives to secure customer commitments [12]. These measures help stabilise unit costs over time. For UK businesses aiming to combine cost efficiency with environmental responsibility, analysing these trends and seeking expert guidance can be invaluable. For tailored advice, visit Hokstad Consulting.

Key Takeaways

For businesses in the UK, understanding how regional pricing works can make all the difference when it comes to turning cloud expenses into a strategic advantage. In fact, regional pricing differences can lead to savings of up to 40% depending on the region [14].

When comparing costs across providers, it's clear that storage and database prices vary significantly by location. For instance, AWS tends to have higher rates, while Azure often offers more competitive pricing in UK regions. These differences can have a noticeable impact on monthly budgets across various service categories.

Adopting multi-cloud strategies is another way to optimise costs while taking advantage of each platform's strengths. This approach allows businesses to pick and choose the best pricing and features from different providers.

To cut costs effectively, businesses can use reserved instances or commit to long-term usage discounts. AWS and Azure provide savings of up to 75% and 72% respectively with one- to three-year commitments [3]. Meanwhile, GCP offers up to 55% savings for three-year commitments and automatic sustained use discounts of up to 30%, even without a long-term commitment [3].

When it comes to processors, Arm CPUs offer better value than x86 processors. Azure, in particular, shows the largest cost gap, with Arm CPUs being 65% cheaper for on-demand instances and 69% cheaper for spot instances [1]. This gives UK businesses an excellent opportunity to lower compute costs without compromising on performance.

Automation plays a key role in optimising costs in real time, especially with the fluctuating prices of spot instances [1]. With global cloud spending predicted to exceed £578 billion this year and 82% of IT professionals highlighting high costs as a concern [14], it's clear that continuous monitoring and smart regional choices are essential.

For UK businesses looking to save, moving non-critical workloads to lower-cost regions like us-east-2 (Ohio) or eu-west-1 (Ireland) can result in significant savings [14]. By combining smart region selection, discount programmes, and ongoing optimisation, companies can shift their cloud investments from being mere expenses to becoming valuable strategic resources.

Managing regional pricing requires a flexible and proactive approach. For tailored strategies to help reduce cloud costs, visit Hokstad Consulting.

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