t2.medium
General purpose · t2 series · Intel Xeon Family
- vCPU
- 2
- Memory
- 4 GiB
- Linux / hour
- $0.0464
- Per month
- $33.87
- Per vCPU-hour
- $0.0232
- Per GiB-hour
- $0.0116
Analysis
The t2.medium is a general purpose instance in the t2 series with 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Family (up to Up to 3.3 GHz), which makes it compute-heavy at 2 GiB of memory per vCPU.
At $0.0464/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $33.87 a month, the t2.medium is one of the cheaper ways to buy general purpose capacity: only 5% of the 354 current general purpose types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0232.
Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $20.44 a month per instance: $0.0464/hour against $0.0744/hour, a 60% spread.
It is size 4 of 7 in the t2 series. Stepping up to the t2.large gives 2 vCPUs and 8 GiB for $33.87 more a month. Dropping to the t2.small saves $17.08 a month. Unit price is not flat across the series ($0.00580 to $0.0464 per vCPU-hour), so the size changes the rate you pay.
The newer t3.medium on Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 is 10% cheaper at $0.0416/hour, which makes the t2.medium hard to justify for new deployments.
Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.0287/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 62% of the time; three years brings it to $0.0200/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 39% to the bill at $0.0644/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.
Price by region (USD per hour)
| Region | Linux | Windows | 1-yr RI | 3-yr RI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. Virginia us-east-1 | $0.0464 | $0.0644 | $0.0287 | $0.0200 | |
| Ohio us-east-2 | $0.0464 | $0.0644 | $0.0287 | $0.0200 | |
| Oregon us-west-2 | $0.0464 | $0.0644 | $0.0287 | $0.0200 | |
| Canada Central ca-central-1 | $0.0512 | $0.0692 | $0.0319 | $0.0222 | |
| São Paulo sa-east-1 | $0.0744 | $0.0924 | $0.0423 | $0.0323 | |
| Ireland eu-west-1 | $0.0500 | $0.0680 | $0.0355 | $0.0253 | |
| London eu-west-2 | $0.0520 | $0.0704 | $0.0363 | $0.0268 | |
| Frankfurt eu-central-1 | $0.0536 | $0.0716 | $0.0382 | $0.0276 | |
| Mumbai ap-south-1 | $0.0496 | $0.0676 | $0.0309 | $0.0209 | |
| Singapore ap-southeast-1 | $0.0584 | $0.0764 | $0.0363 | $0.0247 | |
| Sydney ap-southeast-2 | $0.0584 | $0.0764 | $0.0392 | $0.0283 | |
| Tokyo ap-northeast-1 | $0.0608 | $0.0788 | $0.0411 | $0.0300 |
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 t2.medium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| t4g.medium AWS Graviton2 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0336 | -28% |
| t3a.medium AMD EPYC 7571 | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0376 | -19% |
| t3.medium Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0416 | -10% |
| t8i.medium Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0499 | +8% |
| c6g.large AWS Graviton2 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0680 | +47% |
| c7g.large AWS Graviton3 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0725 | +56% |