t3.small
General purpose · t3 series · Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5
- vCPU
- 2
- Memory
- 2 GiB
- Linux / hour
- $0.0208
- Per month
- $15.18
- Per vCPU-hour
- $0.0104
- Per GiB-hour
- $0.0104
Analysis
The t3.small is a general purpose instance in the t3 series with 2 vCPUs and 2 GiB of memory on Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 (up to 3.1 GHz), which makes it very compute-heavy at 1 GiB of memory per vCPU.
At $0.0208/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $15.18 a month, the t3.small is one of the cheaper ways to buy general purpose capacity: only 3% of the 354 current general purpose types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0104.
Within the same generation and size, the t3a.small on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $0.0188/hour, 9.6% less ($1.46 a month).
Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $9.34 a month per instance: $0.0208/hour against $0.0336/hour, a 62% spread.
It is size 3 of 7 in the t3 series. Stepping up to the t3.medium gives 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB for $15.18 more a month. Dropping to the t3.micro saves $7.59 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 9.6% cheaper than the older t2.small 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 | $0.0208 | $0.0392 | $0.0130 | $0.00900 | |
| Ohio us-east-2 | $0.0208 | $0.0392 | $0.0130 | $0.00900 | |
| Oregon us-west-2 | $0.0208 | $0.0392 | $0.0130 | $0.00900 | |
| Canada Central ca-central-1 | $0.0232 | $0.0416 | $0.0146 | $0.0100 | |
| São Paulo sa-east-1 | $0.0336 | $0.0520 | $0.0193 | $0.0145 | |
| Ireland eu-west-1 | $0.0228 | $0.0412 | $0.0144 | $0.00980 | |
| London eu-west-2 | $0.0236 | $0.0420 | $0.0149 | $0.0102 | |
| Frankfurt eu-central-1 | $0.0240 | $0.0424 | $0.0151 | $0.0104 | |
| Mumbai ap-south-1 | $0.0224 | $0.0408 | $0.0141 | $0.00950 | |
| Singapore ap-southeast-1 | $0.0264 | $0.0448 | $0.0166 | $0.0112 | |
| Sydney ap-southeast-2 | $0.0264 | $0.0448 | $0.0166 | $0.0114 | |
| Tokyo ap-northeast-1 | $0.0272 | $0.0456 | $0.0171 | $0.0118 |
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.small |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| t4g.small AWS Graviton2 Processor | 2 | 2 GiB | $0.0168 | -19% |
| t3a.small AMD EPYC 7571 | 2 | 2 GiB | $0.0188 | -10% |
| t8i.small Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) | 2 | 2 GiB | $0.0250 | +20% |