Last updated on Jul 27, 2026
Amazon EC2 offers a free trial. Information about Amazon EC2 pricing, plan availability, and costs is not listed on G2 by the vendor. Buyers typically need to engage directly with the vendor to understand pricing options. Final cost negotiations to purchase Amazon EC2 must be conducted with the seller.
*Pricing information is supplied by the software provider or retrieved from publicly accessible pricing materials. Final cost negotiations must be conducted with the seller.
Averages based on real user reviews.
Amazon EC2 does not offer a permanent free plan, but it does provide a free trial that lets users to test the product before committing to a paid plan. Trial availability and duration may vary, so users should review the seller's official pricing page for the most current details.
Amazon EC2's pricing is best suited for mid-market and enterprise teams running variable or large-scale workloads that justify reserved instance commitments or spot instance strategies. G2 reviewers from IT services, computer software, banking, and pharmaceuticals industries represent the heaviest adopters, typically leveraging memory-optimized, compute-optimized, or GPU instances for production applications. Small businesses and individual developers benefit most from the free tier and on-demand pricing for lightweight hosting or dev/test environments. G2 reviewers caution that Amazon EC2's pricing complexity makes it less ideal for beginners or budget-constrained startups without dedicated cloud cost management, where simpler providers may be more economical for straightforward hosting needs.
Amazon EC2 offers a 12-month free tier that includes 750 hours per month of t2.micro or t3.micro instances, which G2 reviewers across small businesses and students frequently cite as sufficient for prototyping, proof-of-concept testing, and learning cloud fundamentals. Beyond the free tier, Amazon EC2's paid plans operate on on-demand, reserved, and spot instance pricing models. Reserved instances offer significant discounts for 1- or 3-year commitments, while spot instances provide the deepest savings for interruptible workloads. G2 reviewers note the free tier's 30GB storage cap and limited instance size as the primary constraints pushing teams toward Amazon EC2's paid plans for production workloads.
Amazon EC2 is broadly considered a strong value for organizations that can leverage its flexibility and scale, though cost management is a recurring concern. G2 reviewers consistently praise the pay-as-you-go model, with many noting 20-30% compute savings versus on-premises infrastructure. However, pricing complexity is the most frequently cited drawback across all segments: data transfer fees, EBS volumes, Elastic IPs, and idle instances routinely cause billing surprises. Reviewers comparing Amazon EC2 to alternatives like DigitalOcean and Linode note those providers offer simpler, cheaper pricing for basic workloads. High ratings alongside persistent cost complaints position Amazon EC2 as a premium, high-capability service that delivers clear value when properly optimized but can disappoint unmanaged deployments.
The following is a quick overview of editions offered by other Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Software
| Product | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
 Beyond Free Tier and Free Trial |
Pay As You GoPer Month |
Pricing for Compute Engine is based on per-second usage of the machine types, persistent disks, and other resources that you select for your virtual machines.
|
 Droplets |
Starting at $4.00 |
Simple, affordable, fast virtual machines
|
 Cloud Compute |
Starting at $2.50Per Month |
Easy-to-use, affordable VMs for many common workloads.
|
Various alternatives pricing & plans
fast escalating, environment control, OS compatibility. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
some times its a little expensive, and miss visibility some.resources. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Bad software Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I don't like that they have overcharged me. It was a bad choice of mine. The features are not valuable, just a dashboard full of unusable features. They seem to make features just to make money, not to benefit users. They hang up the calls and don't show interest in improving the service. They seem to charge big companies instead of catering to smaller ones. The setup was full of difficulties. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
