t3.medium
General purpose · t3 series · Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5
- vCPU
- 2
- Memory
- 4 GiB
- Linux / hour
- $0.0416
- Per month
- $30.37
- Per vCPU-hour
- $0.0208
- Per GiB-hour
- $0.0104
Analysis
The t3.medium is a general purpose instance in the t3 series with 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB of memory on Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 (up to 3.1 GHz), which makes it compute-heavy at 2 GiB of memory per vCPU.
At $0.0416/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $30.37 a month, the t3.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 $0.0208.
Within the same generation and size, the t3a.medium on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $0.0376/hour, 9.6% less ($2.92 a month).
Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $18.69 a month per instance: $0.0416/hour against $0.0672/hour, a 62% spread.
It is size 4 of 7 in the t3 series. Stepping up to the t3.large gives 2 vCPUs and 8 GiB for $30.37 more a month. Dropping to the t3.small saves $15.18 a month. Unit price is not flat across the series ($0.00260 to $0.0416 per vCPU-hour), so the size changes the rate you pay.
It is 10% cheaper than the older t2.medium on Intel Xeon Family, so staying on the previous generation costs more as well as being slower.
Price by region (USD per hour)
| Region | Linux | Windows | 1-yr RI | 3-yr RI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. Virginia us-east-1 | $0.0416 | $0.0600 | $0.0261 | $0.0180 | |
| Ohio us-east-2 | $0.0416 | $0.0600 | $0.0261 | $0.0180 | |
| Oregon us-west-2 | $0.0416 | $0.0600 | $0.0261 | $0.0180 | |
| Canada Central ca-central-1 | $0.0464 | $0.0648 | $0.0292 | $0.0200 | |
| São Paulo sa-east-1 | $0.0672 | $0.0856 | $0.0386 | $0.0290 | |
| Ireland eu-west-1 | $0.0456 | $0.0640 | $0.0287 | $0.0197 | |
| London eu-west-2 | $0.0472 | $0.0656 | $0.0297 | $0.0204 | |
| Frankfurt eu-central-1 | $0.0480 | $0.0664 | $0.0302 | $0.0207 | |
| Mumbai ap-south-1 | $0.0448 | $0.0632 | $0.0282 | $0.0189 | |
| Singapore ap-southeast-1 | $0.0528 | $0.0712 | $0.0332 | $0.0224 | |
| Sydney ap-southeast-2 | $0.0528 | $0.0712 | $0.0333 | $0.0228 | |
| Tokyo ap-northeast-1 | $0.0544 | $0.0728 | $0.0343 | $0.0235 |
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 t3.medium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| t4g.medium AWS Graviton2 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0336 | -19% |
| t3a.medium AMD EPYC 7571 | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0376 | -10% |
| t2.medium Intel Xeon Family | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0464 | +12% |
| t8i.medium Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0499 | +20% |
| c6g.large AWS Graviton2 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0680 | +63% |
| c7g.large AWS Graviton3 Processor | 2 | 4 GiB | $0.0725 | +74% |