Assessing the Complexity of Cloud Pricing Policies: A Comparative Market Analysis

Cloud computing has gained popularity at a breakneck pace over the last few years. It has revolutionized the way businesses operate by providing a flexible and scalable infrastructure for their computing needs. Cloud providers offer a range of services with a variety of pricing schemes. Cloud pricing schemes are based on functional factors like CPU, RAM, and storage, combined with different payment options, such as pay-per-use, subscription-based, and non-functional aspects, such as scalability and availability. While cloud pricing can be complicated, it is critical for businesses to thoroughly assess and compare pricing policies along with technical requirements to ensure they design an investment strategy. This paper evaluates current pricing strategies for IaaS, CaaS, and PaaS cloud services and also focuses on the three leading cloud providers, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. To compare pricing policies between different services and providers, a hedonic price index is constructed for each service type based on data collected in 2022. Using the hedonic price index, a comparative analysis between them becomes feasible. The results revealed that providers follow the very same pricing pattern for IaaS and CaaS, with CPU being the main driver of cloud pricing schemes, whereas PaaS pricing fluctuates among cloud providers.