Top cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have adjusted their pricing strategies to remain competitive and align with changing customer demands.
The general trend shows a mix of Cloud price reductions in some services and increased pricing or new charges in others, reflecting the rising cost of infrastructure and AI integration.
The latest Canalys report indicated that Cloud service spending will grow at 19 percent in 2025. Top Cloud service providers are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
AWS continues to maintain a complex pricing structure, but recently it has introduced more pricing transparency and flexibility through tools like AWS Billing and Cost Explorer. While core services like EC2 and S3 have largely maintained stable pricing, AWS has increased charges for outbound data transfer in some regions and introduced premium pricing for high-performance AI chips and instances like Trainium and Inferentia. At the same time, AWS announced lower pricing for some Graviton-based instances to attract cost-conscious customers.
AWS has implemented notable price increases in several key services. Instance pricing for popular EC2 families has risen significantly:
m6g.xlarge instances increased by 38 percent, from $0.154/hr to $0.212/hr.
r6i.2xlarge and c6a.4xlarge saw 30 percent hikes.
t4g.medium rose by 25 percent.
In addition, inter-Availability Zone (AZ) transfer fees doubled from $0.01 to $0.02/GB, and cross-region data transfer costs climbed by 25–40 percent. The base egress pricing also increased from $0.08 to $0.09/GB. Some customers have reported their AWS bills doubling between January and mid-2025, depending on workload and network use.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure has raised prices in certain global markets to reflect currency fluctuations and local inflation pressures. For example, in April 2024, Microsoft implemented a global pricing harmonization strategy that led to price increases of up to 11 percent in some regions outside the U.S. Meanwhile, Azure is offering discounts through reserved instances and sustained usage models. Its AI-related services, particularly Azure OpenAI Service, come with premium pricing tiers due to growing demand.
Microsoft on July 1, 2025 announced that there will be no local currency-based price adjustments for its Commercial Cloud and On-Premises software services following its latest semi-annual foreign exchange review. This decision excludes product-specific and consumer-related pricing, which will be communicated separately.
Additionally, Azure services sold through Modern Commerce platforms such as Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), and Microsoft Buy Online will remain priced in US dollars, unaffected by local currency evaluations.
Azure has enacted price increases to reflect local economic conditions and currency fluctuations. Notable changes include:
A 5 percent increase on monthly-billed annual and triennial term subscriptions effective April 1, 2025.
A 10–11 percent hike in Premium SSD rates, effective February 1, 2025.
Local currency adjustments: For example, pricing rose 12 percent in Brazil and 6 percent in India, while it decreased slightly in the UK.
On-premises server product pricing (e.g., SharePoint, Exchange) is scheduled to increase by 10–20 percent starting July 2025.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud has adopted a slightly different approach by simplifying and rebranding services while making strategic price cuts to storage and compute offerings. In early 2024, Google Cloud reduced the price of its object storage and Persistent Disk offerings by up to 20 percent in certain regions. However, similar to AWS and Azure, Google Cloud has introduced higher pricing for advanced AI services and premium GPU instances. The company also tightened its free-tier usage limits for some services to boost monetization.
Google Cloud has focused more on simplifying its offerings and adjusting pricing in its productivity suite and storage services:
Google Workspace flexible plans saw increases of 20–34 percent as of March 17, 2025. For example, Business Starter rose from $7 to $8.40, and Enterprise Plus increased from $35 to $42.40.
While Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has not announced major price hikes in 2025, earlier increases in GPU pricing and custom VM surcharges from 2024 still impact costs for compute-heavy workloads.
Other Trends
All major providers continue to promote long-term discounts through reserved or committed-use pricing models.
AI and machine learning services — especially those requiring GPUs or proprietary chips — are subject to premium pricing tiers.
Network-related charges (especially egress and inter-region transfers) remain a major cost factor for enterprise customers.
Overall, while some standard compute and storage services remain stable or have dropped in price, specialized workloads, AI-related services, and data transfer costs are driving cloud bills higher. Enterprises are increasingly adopting optimization tools, usage analytics, and multicloud strategies to contain costs in a complex and evolving pricing landscape.
Rajani Baburajan
