t2.micro
General purpose · t2 series · Intel Xeon Family
- vCPU
- 1
- Memory
- 1 GiB
- Linux / hour
- $0.0116
- Per month
- $8.47
- Per vCPU-hour
- $0.0116
- Per GiB-hour
- $0.0116
Analysis
The t2.micro is a general purpose instance in the t2 series with 1 vCPU and 1 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Family (up to Up to 3.3 GHz), which makes it very compute-heavy at 1 GiB of memory per vCPU.
At $0.0116/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $8.47 a month, the t2.micro is one of the cheaper ways to buy general purpose capacity: only 4% of the 354 current general purpose types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0116.
Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $5.11 a month per instance: $0.0116/hour against $0.0186/hour, a 60% spread.
It is size 2 of 7 in the t2 series. Stepping up to the t2.small gives 1 vCPU and 2 GiB for $8.32 more a month. Dropping to the t2.nano saves $4.23 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.micro on Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 is 10% cheaper at $0.0104/hour, which makes the t2.micro hard to justify for new deployments.
Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.00720/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 62% of the time; three years brings it to $0.00500/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 40% to the bill at $0.0162/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 | $0.0116 | $0.0162 | $0.00720 | $0.00500 | |
| Ohio us-east-2 | $0.0116 | $0.0162 | $0.00720 | $0.00500 | |
| Oregon us-west-2 | $0.0116 | $0.0162 | $0.00720 | $0.00500 | |
| Canada Central ca-central-1 | $0.0128 | $0.0174 | $0.00800 | $0.00560 | |
| São Paulo sa-east-1 | $0.0186 | $0.0232 | $0.0106 | $0.00810 | |
| Ireland eu-west-1 | $0.0126 | $0.0172 | $0.00890 | $0.00630 | |
| London eu-west-2 | $0.0132 | $0.0178 | $0.00910 | $0.00670 | |
| Frankfurt eu-central-1 | $0.0134 | $0.0180 | $0.00960 | $0.00690 | |
| Mumbai ap-south-1 | $0.0124 | $0.0170 | $0.00770 | $0.00520 | |
| Singapore ap-southeast-1 | $0.0146 | $0.0192 | $0.00910 | $0.00620 | |
| Sydney ap-southeast-2 | $0.0146 | $0.0192 | $0.00980 | $0.00710 | |
| Tokyo ap-northeast-1 | $0.0152 | $0.0198 | $0.0103 | $0.00750 |
Shared tenancy, no pre-installed software. Reserved rates are standard, no upfront, per hour. Prices as of 2026-11-04.