Cloud SQL Server Cost Comparison Calculator

Enter one shared workload and up to three provider plans. The shared workload includes monthly running hours, vCPUs, memory, primary storage, backup usage, provisioned IOPS, billable I/O, data transfer, additional secondary instances, and a monthly budget.

Each plan can use its own provider, region, service tier, SQL Server licensing option, availability configuration, machine name, compute price, licence price, storage price, IOPS price, backup allowance, transfer rate, discount, fixed monthly cost, and migration cost.

Configured plans are ranked by monthly planning cost. The result also shows first-year cost, cost per primary vCPU, cost per primary storage GB, budget position, and the possible saving against the lowest configured plan.

Amazon RDS for SQL Server commonly presents an all-in database instance price that includes the Microsoft Windows and SQL Server software charges for the selected license-included edition. AWS also supports BYOM options for eligible RDS for SQL Server configurations.

Azure SQL Managed Instance can use license-included pricing or Azure Hybrid Benefit when eligible SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance are assigned. Google Cloud SQL for SQL Server separates infrastructure and SQL Server licence charges in its pricing structure.

The calculator therefore supports an all-in hourly price, a split infrastructure-and-license price, or one complete monthly deployment price. Select the method that matches the provider quote rather than forcing every provider into one billing format.

Select the provider availability configuration that matches the planned deployment. Enter the full effective price for that primary or HA deployment. This avoids double-counting when the provider already includes a standby or built-in secondary in the quoted price.

Use the shared additional-instance count for separately billed read replicas, reporting instances, failover-group secondaries, cross-region disaster-recovery instances, or other SQL Server copies. Enter the hourly, storage, and IOPS rates for one additional instance in each plan.

Similar availability labels do not guarantee the same failover time, replication behaviour, read access, recovery point, or service-level agreement. Check the provider architecture before comparing price.

Enter the complete primary or HA deployment storage rate. Add separate additional-instance storage when read or disaster-recovery copies are billed independently. Provisioned IOPS and paid request-based I/O are calculated separately so different storage models can be compared.

Backup usage can use no included allowance, an allowance equal to primary provisioned storage, or a custom included amount. Only backup usage above the selected allowance is charged.

Data-transfer pricing depends on the destination, region, network route, and free allowance. Enter the current effective egress price only after confirming the exact traffic path.

Product names, service tiers, licensing structures, and billing guidance were checked on June 25, 2026. Prices remain blank because actual rates depend on region, machine family, SQL Server edition, service tier, availability, licensing entitlement, commitment, currency, and account agreement.

Use each provider pricing page or account calculator to enter the current effective rates for the exact configuration. This prevents one regional example from being presented as a universal price.

• Compare managed SQL Server providers using one workload.
• Compare license-included and eligible bring-your-own-license pricing.
• Measure the cost of a primary or high-availability deployment.
• Add reporting, read, geo-secondary, or disaster-recovery instances.
• Compare storage, provisioned IOPS, and paid-I/O models.
• Include backup storage above a provider allowance.
• Add internet or cross-region data transfer.
• Measure first-year migration and ongoing operating cost.
• Check each provider plan against a monthly budget.

The result does not automatically include taxes, premium support, private connectivity, monitoring, public IP addresses, DNS, encryption key requests, backup exports, cross-region replication traffic, migration labour, application remediation, consulting, reserved-capacity upfront payments, or services not entered.

Similar vCPU and memory values do not guarantee similar SQL Server performance. Processor generation, storage latency, tempdb behaviour, IOPS limits, licensing restrictions, feature support, maintenance, failover architecture, and database version differ. Test a representative workload before choosing a provider.