Estimate OCI compute costs for flex shapes, GPU instances, and boot volumes.
Last verified: May 2026
730 hours = full month.
Output will appear here...The estimator computes OCI Compute monthly cost as: shape OCPU count × per-OCPU-hour rate by shape family + memory GB × per-GB-hour rate by shape family + boot volume + block volumes + networking egress. For Flex shapes, costs scale linearly with chosen OCPU + memory. Preemptible instances apply a 50% discount. Output presents per-shape comparison plus committed-use discount projections (3-year commitments save up to 20%+).
OCI Compute costs depend on the instance shape (Flex, Standard, Dense I/O, GPU, HPC), OCPU and memory configuration, storage volumes, networking, and operating system licensing. OCI's pricing model is often simpler than other clouds — no charge for data ingress, and OCPU pricing includes both vCPUs in the hardware thread. This estimator calculates monthly Compute costs based on your shape selection, OCPU/memory configuration, expected usage hours, and storage attachments, helping you compare options and optimize spend.
Your team is sizing a 30-instance microservices fleet. The estimator compares: VM.Standard.E4.Flex (Intel) at 4 OCPU + 16 GB = $90/month each = $2,700 fleet, VM.Standard.E5.Flex (AMD newer) = $85/month each = $2,550 fleet, VM.Standard.A2.Flex (Arm) = $58/month each = $1,740 fleet. After confirming all microservices run on Arm (Java, Node.js apps), team picks A2.Flex. Saves $11,520/year vs Intel option, $9,720/year vs AMD option.
Always quote OCI prices in vCPU-equivalent terms when comparing to AWS/Azure. 1 OCPU = 2 vCPUs, so an OCI price of $0.04/OCPU-hr is $0.02/vCPU-hr — typically 30-50% cheaper than equivalent AWS/Azure pricing. Don't accidentally compare per-OCPU vs per-vCPU; the math will mislead you.
Flex shapes (E5.Flex, A2.Flex, etc.) eliminate the over-provisioning tax of fixed shapes. Need 6 OCPUs and 18 GB RAM? Provision exactly that. Standard shapes would force you into 8 OCPU / 64 GB or similar — paying for ~3x what you need. Always default to Flex shapes for new deployments.
Ampere A2 Flex shapes (Arm-based) are the BEST price-performance on OCI for general workloads. ~30% cheaper than equivalent E5 Flex AMD shapes, with comparable performance for most server-side workloads. Verify your apps run on Arm (most JVM, Python, Node, Go apps do); use A2 for everything that's compatible.
An OCPU (Oracle Compute Unit) corresponds to a physical CPU core with hyper-threading, providing two hardware execution threads (equivalent to two vCPUs in other clouds). When comparing OCI pricing to AWS or Azure, note that 1 OCPU equals 2 vCPUs. This means an 8-OCPU OCI instance is roughly equivalent to a 16-vCPU instance on other platforms. OCI prices per OCPU, so divide by 2 when comparing per-vCPU prices.
Flex shapes (like VM.Standard.E5.Flex) let you choose the exact number of OCPUs (1-94) and memory (1-64 GB per OCPU) for each instance, so you only pay for what you need. Standard shapes come in fixed sizes that may over-provision resources. For example, if your workload needs 4 OCPUs and 8 GB RAM, a Flex shape costs exactly that, while a standard shape might force you into a 4-OCPU/32-GB configuration. Flex shapes typically reduce costs by 20-50% through right-sizing.
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