EC2 pricing · Compute optimized
c8g.xlarge price in af-south-1 (Cape Town): per hour & per month
Updated 2026-10-19
$25,000 in credits runs one c8g.xlarge in Africa (Cape Town) for about 161 months (credits usually expire in 12 to 24).
c8g.xlarge (4 vCPU, 8 GiB, AWS Graviton4) costs $0.2132 per hour on demand in Africa (Cape Town), or $156 for a 730-hour month on Linux.
Compute optimized instance with 4 vCPU and 8 GiB: high CPU per dollar for batch jobs, encoding, game servers and CPU-bound APIs.
- On demand
- $0.2132/h
- Monthly (730h)
- $156
- Specs
- 4 vCPU, 8 GiB, AWS Graviton4
Is c8g.xlarge right for you?
What 8 GiB of RAM runs
- ✓ MVP backend with a few hundred users
- ✓ Single Docker service or small Kubernetes node
- ✓ CI runner, internal tools
- ✕ Large in-memory caches
- ✕ Production database with growing data
- ✕ Video or ML processing
Full-time CPU
No burst limits: all 4 vCPUs are yours 100% of the time, so it suits steady traffic, builds and background jobs.
Arm (Graviton) checklist
AWS Graviton4 is usually 20% cheaper than the x86 equivalent for similar speed.
Build Docker images for linux/arm64 (or multi-arch). Node, Python, Go, Java and Ruby run fine; check native modules and closed-source agents.
About Africa (Cape Town)
For African users; an opt-in region you must enable in your account first.
Moving data between availability zones costs about $0.01/GB each way.
The real bill for a small production setup
The server is rarely the biggest line. A typical setup behind a load balancer in a private network:
About per month$226
Load balancer: $0.03/h plus about $0.48/month in usage for 1 million requests. NAT gateway: $0.057/h plus $0.057/GB processed. Moving data between availability zones adds $0.01/GB each way. Skip the NAT gateway with public subnets or VPC endpoints to save $42/month. Prices for Africa (Cape Town) from the AWS Price List API (2026-10-19). Both are covered by AWS credits.
Credits expire before you can use them all
$25,000 would run one c8g.xlarge for about 13.4 years, but credits usually expire in 12 to 24 months. Spend the surplus on a managed database, staging environments or load testing instead of leaving it unused.
Credits pay on-demand and Spot usage, not upfront Savings Plan or Reserved Instance commitments. Buy commitments only once credits run low.
Database, disk and traffic
Managed database vs running it yourself
A managed PostgreSQL database (RDS db.t4g.medium, single zone, 20 GB) costs about $62.88/month in Africa (Cape Town).
Running Postgres yourself on a second c8g.xlarge costs about $158/month, but you handle backups, upgrades and failover.
Both are paid by AWS credits. Upfront fees for reserved databases are not.
Sending 1 TB a month to users
Straight from the server: about $139/month ($0.154/GB after the first 100 GB).
Through CloudFront: $0. Server-to-CloudFront traffic is free and the first 1 TB out each month is free (then $0.11/GB for South Africa edges).
RDS, CloudFront and transfer prices from the AWS Price List API; VPS prices from Hetzner and DigitalOcean, excluding VAT (2026-10-19).
Full monthly bill calculator
Instances rarely run alone. Add disk, a public IP and traffic to see the real bill and how long credits last.
Compute ($0.2132/h)$156
gp3 storage ($0.1047/GB)$3
Public IPv4 ($0.0050/h)$4
Data out (after 100 GB free)$0
Monthly total$162
Credits last
$1,0006.2 mo
$5,00031 mo
$25,00099+ mo
$100,00099+ mo
Credits usually expire in 12 to 24 months, so long runways are capped by expiry.
On demand vs Savings Plans, Reserved, Spot and Windows
| Pricing | Per hour | Per month | Saving | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| On demand | $0.2132 | $156 | 0% | Credits apply |
| Savings Plan, 1 year | $0.1689 | $123 | 21% | No upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Savings Plan, 3-yr | $0.1174 | $86 | 45% | Compute Savings Plan, no upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Reserved Instance, 3-yr | $0.0921 | $67 | 57% | Standard RI, no upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Spot (average) | n/a | n/a | n/a | Can be interrupted; credits apply |
| Windows on demand | n/a | n/a | n/a | AWS doesn't offer Windows on Arm (Graviton) servers |
c8g.xlarge in other regions
| Region | Per hour | Per month | vs here | $25k lasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia Pacific (Mumbai)ap-south-1 | $0.1080 | $79 | -49% | 317 mo |
| US East (Ohio)us-east-2 | $0.1590 | $116 | -25% | 215 mo |
| US East (N. Virginia)us-east-1 | $0.1595 | $116 | -25% | 215 mo |
| US West (Oregon)us-west-2 | $0.1595 | $116 | -25% | 215 mo |
| EU (Stockholm)eu-north-1 | $0.1702 | $124 | -20% | 201 mo |
| EU (Ireland)eu-west-1 | $0.1706 | $125 | -20% | 201 mo |
| Canada (Central)ca-central-1 | $0.1739 | $127 | -18% | 197 mo |
| EU (Frankfurt)eu-central-1 | $0.1814 | $132 | -15% | 189 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Singapore)ap-southeast-1 | $0.1833 | $134 | -14% | 187 mo |
| EU (London)eu-west-2 | $0.1889 | $138 | -11% | 181 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Tokyo)ap-northeast-1 | $0.2001 | $146 | -6% | 171 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Sydney)ap-southeast-2 | $0.2076 | $152 | -3% | 165 mo |
| Africa (Cape Town)af-south-1 | $0.2132 | $156 | — | 161 mo |
| South America (Sao Paulo)sa-east-1 | $0.2444 | $178 | +15% | 140 mo |
Right-size it
Linux, shared tenancy, from the AWS Price List API (2026-10-19). Network: Up to 12.5 Gbps. Taxes not included. AWS EC2 pricing
c8g.xlarge in other regions
Alternatives in af-south-1
- c8g.large · $0.1066/h
- c8g.2xlarge · $0.4264/h
- t4g.xlarge · 4 vCPU, 16 GiB · $0.1734/h
- c7g.xlarge · 4 vCPU, 8 GiB · $0.1938/h
- m7g.xlarge · 4 vCPU, 16 GiB · $0.2159/h
- t3.xlarge · 4 vCPU, 16 GiB · $0.217/h
All c8g.xlarge prices · All EC2 instances
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Questions
How much does c8g.xlarge cost per month in af-south-1?
$156 on demand for Linux running all 730 hours, before storage, public IPv4 and data transfer.
Can AWS credits pay for c8g.xlarge?
Yes. Activate credits cover on-demand EC2 usage. They don't cover upfront Reserved Instances or Savings Plan commitments.
Is a Savings Plan worth it for c8g.xlarge?
A 1-year Savings Plan brings it to $0.1689/h and 3 years to $0.1174/h. While credits last, on demand is usually better because credits can't buy the commitment.
Prices and credit amounts are estimates and may change. Check AWS for current terms.
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