m4.xlarge
General purpose · m4 series · Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 (Haswell)
- vCPU
- 4
- Memory
- 16 GiB
- Linux / hour
- $0.2000
- Per month
- $146
- Per vCPU-hour
- $0.0500
- Per GiB-hour
- $0.0125
Analysis
The m4.xlarge is a general purpose instance in the m4 series with 4 vCPUs and 16 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 (Haswell) (up to 2.4 GHz), which makes it balanced at 4 GiB of memory per vCPU.
Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $86.14 a month per instance: $0.2000/hour against $0.3180/hour, a 59% spread.
Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.1239/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 62% of the time; three years brings it to $0.0864/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly doubles the bill at $0.3840/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.
On demand it costs $0.2000/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $146 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for general purpose types at the 35th percentile per vCPU ($0.0500 per vCPU-hour) and the 35th percentile per GiB ($0.0125 per GiB-hour).
The newer m5.xlarge on Intel Xeon Platinum 8175 is 4.0% cheaper at $0.1920/hour, which makes the m4.xlarge hard to justify for new deployments.
Looking beyond its own line, 14 of 42 current types with 4 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the t4g.xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $0.1344/hour. It is burstable, so it only suits workloads that do not run the CPU flat out.
Price by region (USD per hour)
| Region | Linux | Windows | 1-yr RI | 3-yr RI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. Virginia us-east-1 | $0.2000 | $0.3840 | $0.1239 | $0.0864 | |
| Ohio us-east-2 | $0.2000 | $0.3840 | $0.1239 | $0.0864 | |
| Oregon us-west-2 | $0.2000 | $0.3840 | $0.1239 | $0.0864 | |
| Canada Central ca-central-1 | $0.2220 | $0.4060 | $0.1365 | $0.0950 | |
| São Paulo sa-east-1 | $0.3180 | $0.5020 | $0.1806 | $0.1382 | |
| Ireland eu-west-1 | $0.2220 | $0.4060 | $0.1512 | $0.1080 | |
| London eu-west-2 | $0.2320 | $0.4160 | $0.1575 | $0.1145 | |
| Frankfurt eu-central-1 | $0.2400 | $0.4240 | $0.1638 | $0.1210 | |
| Mumbai ap-south-1 | $0.2100 | $0.3940 | $0.1309 | $0.0885 | |
| Singapore ap-southeast-1 | $0.2500 | $0.4340 | $0.1554 | $0.1058 | |
| Sydney ap-southeast-2 | $0.2500 | $0.4340 | $0.1680 | $0.1210 | |
| Tokyo ap-northeast-1 | $0.2580 | $0.4420 | $0.1743 | $0.1274 |
Shared tenancy, no pre-installed software. Reserved rates are standard, no upfront, per hour. Prices as of 2026-11-04.
Same shape, other types
| Type | vCPU | Memory | $/hour | vs m4.xlarge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| t4g.xlarge AWS Graviton2 Processor | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1344 | -33% |
| t3a.xlarge AMD EPYC 7571 | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1504 | -25% |
| m6g.xlarge AWS Graviton2 Processor | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1540 | -23% |
| m7g.xlarge AWS Graviton3 Processor | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1632 | -18% |
| t3.xlarge Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1664 | -17% |
| m5a.xlarge AMD EPYC 7571 | 4 | 16 GiB | $0.1720 | -14% |
Cost calculator
Specs
| vCPU | 4 |
|---|---|
| Memory | 16 GiB (4.0 per vCPU) |
| Processor | Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 (Haswell) |
| Clock | 2.4 GHz |
| Storage | EBS only |
| Network | High |
m4 sizes
| m4.large | 2 vCPU | $0.1000 |
| m4.xlarge | 4 vCPU | $0.2000 |
| m4.2xlarge | 8 vCPU | $0.4000 |
| m4.4xlarge | 16 vCPU | $0.8000 |
| m4.10xlarge | 40 vCPU | $2.00 |
| m4.16xlarge | 64 vCPU | $3.20 |