Pricing methodology
How We Compare Cloud Pricing
Our cloud pricing methodology: how prices are collected from provider APIs and price pages, normalized to USD, refreshed, and turned into rankings and price history.
Every offering on the site is collected and normalized the same way. Our comparisons are built from publicly verifiable pricing - provider APIs and published price pages - converted to common units and to USD so readers can compare on substance rather than on marketing claims. The same process applies to every provider, so a price you see on DeployCue means the same thing across the board.
Where we rank providers, the ranking is produced by a transparent model built on top of normalized price data. Default rankings sort on effective price for a like-for-like configuration, and the provider-match quiz lets visitors re-weight what matters to them - price, region coverage, hardware, or product breadth.
How pricing is collected
We gather pricing from two sources, in this order of preference.
1. Provider APIs
Where a provider publishes a pricing or catalog API, we ingest prices directly from it. API-sourced prices are the most reliable because they reflect exactly what the provider charges and update as soon as the provider changes them.
2. Published price pages
Where there is no API, we collect prices from the provider's published price pages and pricing calculators. We record the source and the date so every figure is traceable back to where it was published.
How pricing is normalized
3. Common units
Providers quote prices in different units - per hour, per month, per million tokens, per gigabyte, per request. We normalize each offering to a common unit for its category so GPU instances, LLM endpoints, VPS plans, and storage tiers can be compared like for like.
4. Currency conversion to USD
Prices published in other currencies are converted to USD using a recorded exchange rate so every comparison is in one currency. The conversion rate and date are stored alongside the price.
5. Effective price
Where a provider bundles capacity, commits, or free tiers into a headline number, we compute an effective price for a representative configuration so the figure shown reflects what you would actually pay rather than a teaser rate.
How pricing is refreshed
6. Refresh cadence
Pricing is re-collected on a regular cycle. API-sourced prices are refreshed frequently. Published-page prices are re-checked on a slower cadence and whenever a provider announces a pricing change. Each price carries the date it was last verified.
7. Price history
Every time a price changes, we keep the previous value. This builds a price history for each offering so readers can see whether a provider is getting cheaper or more expensive over time, not just today's number.
How rankings work
8. Like-for-like comparison
Rankings compare offerings on the same basis - the same GPU model, the same instance size, the same storage class - so a lower price reflects a genuinely better deal and not a smaller product. Where configurations differ, the difference is shown rather than hidden.
9. Re-weighting in the quiz
Price is the default sort, but it is not the only thing that matters. The provider-match quiz lets visitors weight region coverage, hardware availability, product breadth, and price to surface the providers that fit their workload.
Transparency and corrections
We make reasonable efforts to keep pricing accurate, but provider prices change constantly and our data may lag a provider's latest change. Always confirm the current price on the provider's own site before you purchase. If you spot a price that looks wrong or out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we will check the source and correct it.
Sponsorships and advertising
The site is free for visitors and funded through sponsored placements, affiliate commissions, and display advertising. None of this affects the prices we show or how offerings are ranked. Sponsored placements are visually distinct from organic results and labelled on every page where they appear, so readers can always tell the two apart.
- Sponsored placements are visually distinct and clearly labelled as sponsored on every page where they appear.
- Affiliate commissions may be earned when a visitor clicks through to a provider and signs up through one of our links.
- Disclosure. All commercial relationships are described on the Affiliate Disclosure page, linked from every page footer.
- No influence on data. Commercial relationships never change the price shown for an offering or its position in price-based rankings.