Google Compute Engine pricing much more honest than AWS and Azure Pricing

Pricing

All machine types are charged a minimum of 10 minutes. For example, if you run your instance for 2 minutes, you will be billed for 10 minutes of usage. After 10 minutes, instances are charged in 1 minute increments, rounded up to the nearest minute. For example, an instance that lives for 11.25 minutes will be charged for 12 minutes of usage.

If you would like to discuss pricing for long-term commitments, please contact sales

Standard

High Memory

Machines for tasks that require more memory relative to virtual cores

High CPU

Machines for tasks that require more virtual cores relative to memory

Shared Core

Machines for tasks that don’t require a lot of resources but do have to remain online for long periods of time.

VERSUS

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance, from the time an instance is launched until it is terminated or stopped. Each partial instance-hour consumed will be billed as a full hour.

Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance, from the time an instance is launched until it is terminated or stopped. Each partial instance-hour consumed will be billed as a full hour.

Reserved Instances

Reserved Instances give you the option to make a low, one-time payment for each instance you want to reserve and in turn receive a significant discount on the hourly charge for that instance. There are three Reserved Instance types (Light, Medium, and Heavy Utilization Reserved Instances) that enable you to balance the amount you pay upfront with your effective hourly price.

The following tables display the Reserved Instance Prices available directly from AWS. In addition to Reserved Instances for Linux/UNIX and Windows operating systems specified below, we also offer Reserved Instances forAmazon EC2 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Amazon EC2 running Microsoft SQL Server. Dedicated Reserved Instances are also available.

Reserved Instances can be purchased directly from AWS for 1 or 3 year terms. Using the Reserved Instance Marketplace, you have the flexibility to purchase Reserved Instances from AWS Reserved Instance Marketplace Sellers for terms ranging between 1 month to 36 months (depending on available selection). In either case, the one-time fee per instance is non-refundable. If your needs change, you can also request to move your Reserved Instance to another Availability Zone within the same region, change its Network Platform, or, for Linux/UNIX and Windows RIs, modify the instance type of your reservation to another type in the same instance family at no additional cost.

Light and Medium Utilization Reserved Instances also are billed by the instance-hour for the time that instances are in a running state; if you do not run the instance in an hour, there is zero usage charge. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours. Heavy Utilization Reserved Instances are billed for every hour during the entire Reserved Instance term (which means you’re charged the hourly fee regardless of whether any usage has occurred during an hour).

If Microsoft or Red Hat chooses to increase the license fees that it charges for Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we may correspondingly increase the per-hour usage rate for previously purchased Reserved Instances with Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The initial one-time payment for a Reserved Instance will be unaffected in this situation. Any such changes for Windows would be made between Dec 1 – Jan 31, and with at least 30 days’ notice. Any such changes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux would be made at least 30 days’ notice. If the per-hour usage rate does increase, you may continue to use your Reserved Instance with Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the new per-hour usage rate, convert your Reserved Instance with Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux to a Reserved Instance with Linux/UNIX, or request a pro rata refund of the upfront fee you paid for the Reserved Instance with Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Reserved Instances are available for Linux/UNIX, Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise operating systems. You can also optionally reserve instances in Amazon VPC at the same prices as shown above.Click here to learn more about Reserved Instances.

Reserved Instance Volume Discounts

When you have purchased a sufficient number of Reserved Instances in an AWS Region, you will automatically receive discounts on your upfront fees and usage fees for future purchases of Reserved Instances in that AWS Region. Reserved Instance Tiers are determined based on the total list price (non-discounted price) of upfront fees for the active Reserved Instances you have per AWS Region. It is important to note that Reserved Instance Tiers do not apply to Reserved Instances purchased from the Reserved Instance Marketplace. A complete list of the Reserved Instance Tiers is shown below:

http://www.windowsazure.com/EN-US/pricing/overview/