💰 Cloud Deployment Cost Comparison

Real-world pricing across AWS, GCP, Azure, Cloudflare, and Hetzner

⚠️ Pricing Disclaimer: Costs are estimates based on 2026 pricing and typical usage patterns. Actual costs vary based on region, usage patterns, and specific configurations. Always use official pricing calculators for accurate quotes.

Small Static Site

10K visitors/month, 100MB total size

Cloudflare Pages
$0/month
Free tier: Unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month
AWS S3 + CloudFront
$1-3/month
S3 storage + CloudFront data transfer
Google Cloud Storage
$1-2/month
Storage + Cloud CDN
Azure Static Web Apps
$0/month
Free tier: 100GB bandwidth/month
Hetzner Cloud
$4.15/month
CX11 server (2GB RAM, 20GB SSD)

Medium Traffic Site

100K visitors/month, 500MB total size, 1TB bandwidth

Cloudflare Pages
$0/month
Still free! Unlimited bandwidth
AWS S3 + CloudFront
$15-25/month
~$10 CloudFront + $5 S3
Google Cloud Storage
$12-20/month
Cloud CDN + storage costs
Azure Static Web Apps
$9/month
Standard tier for custom domains
Hetzner Cloud
$4.15/month
CX11 still sufficient

High Traffic Site

1M visitors/month, 10TB bandwidth

Cloudflare Pages
$0/month
Zero egress fees, unlimited bandwidth!
AWS S3 + CloudFront
$150-250/month
Primarily CloudFront data transfer
Google Cloud Storage
$120-200/month
Cloud CDN egress fees
Azure CDN
$140-220/month
Standard tier with data transfer
Hetzner Cloud
$15-30/month
CX21 + 20TB included traffic

SaaS Application (Small)

1K users, 2 containers, database

Hetzner Cloud
$15-25/month
CX21 + managed database
AWS (ECS + RDS)
$50-100/month
t3.small instances + db.t3.micro
Google Cloud Run
$30-60/month
Cloud Run + Cloud SQL
Azure Container Instances
$40-80/month
ACI + Azure SQL
Cloudflare Workers
$5-20/month
Workers + D1 database

SaaS Application (Medium)

10K users, auto-scaling, managed database

AWS (ECS + RDS)
$200-400/month
Auto-scaling ECS + db.t3.medium
Google Cloud (GKE)
$180-350/month
GKE cluster + Cloud SQL
Azure (AKS)
$220-420/month
AKS + Azure Database
Hetzner Cloud
$80-150/month
Multiple servers + load balancer
Cloudflare Workers
$25-100/month
Workers Paid + D1/Durable Objects

Enterprise Application

100K+ users, multi-region, high availability

AWS
$2,000-10,000/month
Multi-region ECS/EKS, RDS Multi-AZ, CloudFront
Google Cloud
$1,800-9,000/month
Multi-region GKE, Cloud SQL HA
Azure
$2,200-10,500/month
Multi-region AKS, Azure SQL HA
Hybrid (Hetzner + CDN)
$500-2,000/month
Hetzner servers + Cloudflare Enterprise

💡 Key Cost Factors to Consider

Bandwidth/Egress High Impact

Data transfer costs can be 80% of your bill on AWS/GCP/Azure. Cloudflare has zero egress fees.

Use Cloudflare for high-bandwidth applications to save significantly
Compute Resources High Impact

Server/container costs vary widely. Hetzner offers best price/performance for predictable workloads.

Use serverless (Lambda, Cloud Run) for variable traffic, dedicated servers for consistent loads
Database Medium-High Impact

Managed databases are convenient but expensive. Self-hosted on Hetzner can save 70%.

Start with managed databases, optimize later if costs become significant
Storage Low-Medium Impact

Object storage (S3, GCS, R2) is relatively cheap. Cloudflare R2 has zero egress fees.

Use Cloudflare R2 for frequently accessed files to avoid egress charges
Build Minutes Low Impact

CI/CD build time costs. GitHub Actions: 2000 min/month free, GitLab: 400 min/month free.

Optimize build times and use caching to stay within free tiers