what AWS actually costs in 2026
unverified — pure usage-based pricing, no single per-unit list price
AWS has no single list price to benchmark against; waste for small teams is dominated by idle/oversized instances and unused reserved capacity, not sticker price.
what companies your size actually pay
We have read no AWS invoices so far, which is fewer than the five we require before publishing a range. Until then this page shows published list pricing only, above.
the levers that work
- Reserved Instances / Savings Plans can cut compute cost 30-70% vs on-demand for steady workloads
- right-sizing instances and turning off idle dev/staging environments overnight/weekends is the single biggest lever for small teams
- AWS Activate credits for startups can offset early-stage spend substantially
Across the audits we have run, roughly 35% of a small company's AWS line is recoverable without changing provider.
the closest alternatives, priced
| provider | published price | source |
|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud Platform | usage-based, similar structure | link |
| DigitalOcean | flat droplet pricing from $4/mo | link |
A published price is not a quote. In a full audit we email the alternative as a disclosed agent for your company and get a real price for your exact usage — which is the number your incumbent actually responds to.
see what the rest of your stack should cost.
Drop last quarter's invoices. We name every line you are overpaying, with an annualized amount, free. The full audit is $299 once: it gets a real quote from the alternative for your exact usage and runs the renegotiation with your incumbent until there is an answer. If it does not identify at least $2,990/yr, we refund it in full.
start an auditAWS is a trademark of its owner. SpendAudit is not affiliated with, endorsed by or a reseller for any vendor on this page. Prices are the vendor's own published figures, checked 25 Aug 2026, and change without notice.