EC2 pricing · Burstable
t3.large price in af-south-1 (Cape Town): per hour & per month
Updated 2026-10-19
$25,000 in credits runs one t3.large in Africa (Cape Town) for about 316 months (credits usually expire in 12 to 24).
t3.large (2 vCPU, 8 GiB, Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5) costs $0.1085 per hour on demand in Africa (Cape Town), or $79.21 for a 730-hour month on Linux.
x86 staging environments, small application servers and build agents that need 8 GiB RAM and x86 compatibility. Burstable; sustained load is cheaper on m6i/m7g.
- On demand
- $0.1085/h
- Monthly (730h)
- $79.21
- Specs
- 2 vCPU, 8 GiB, Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5
Is t3.large 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
Burstable CPU: read this first
t3.large can use about 30% of each vCPU all the time. Above that it spends CPU credits it earns while idle.
T3 runs in Unlimited mode by default: if you stay above baseline you pay about $0.04 per vCPU-hour extra. Steady busy servers are cheaper on m6i or c6i.
x86 compatibility
Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 runs any x86 software unchanged. If your stack supports Arm, the Graviton version is usually around 20% cheaper.
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$150
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 t3.large for about 26.3 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.t3.large, single zone, 20 GB) costs about $139/month in Africa (Cape Town).
Running Postgres yourself on a second t3.large costs about $81.30/month, but you handle backups, upgrades and failover.
Both are paid by AWS credits. Upfront fees for reserved databases are not.
Disk speed limits
Steady disk speed: 695 Mbps and 4,000 IOPS.
Short bursts up to 2,780 Mbps and 15,700 IOPS, for about 30 minutes a day, then it drops back.
A busy database or heavy file processing may hit this limit before CPU or memory.
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 ($0.1085/h)$79
gp3 storage ($0.1047/GB)$3
Public IPv4 ($0.0050/h)$4
Data out (after 100 GB free)$0
Monthly total$86
Credits last
$1,00012 mo
$5,00058 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 | $0.1085 | $79 | 0% | Credits apply |
| Savings Plan, 1 year | $0.0888 | $65 | 18% | No upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Savings Plan, 3-yr | $0.0628 | $46 | 42% | Compute Savings Plan, no upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Reserved Instance, 3-yr | $0.0469 | $34 | 57% | Standard RI, no upfront; credits can't buy the commitment |
| Spot (average) | $0.0195 | $14 | 82% | Can be interrupted; credits apply |
| Windows on demand | $0.1361 | $99 | +25% vs Linux | Includes the Windows licence; credits apply |
t3.large in other regions
| Region | Per hour | Per month | vs here | $25k lasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US East (N. Virginia)us-east-1 | $0.0832 | $61 | -23% | 412 mo |
| US East (Ohio)us-east-2 | $0.0832 | $61 | -23% | 412 mo |
| US West (Oregon)us-west-2 | $0.0832 | $61 | -23% | 412 mo |
| EU (Stockholm)eu-north-1 | $0.0864 | $63 | -20% | 396 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Mumbai)ap-south-1 | $0.0896 | $65 | -17% | 382 mo |
| EU (Ireland)eu-west-1 | $0.0912 | $67 | -16% | 376 mo |
| Canada (Central)ca-central-1 | $0.0928 | $68 | -14% | 369 mo |
| EU (London)eu-west-2 | $0.0944 | $69 | -13% | 363 mo |
| EU (Frankfurt)eu-central-1 | $0.0960 | $70 | -12% | 357 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Singapore)ap-southeast-1 | $0.1056 | $77 | -3% | 324 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Sydney)ap-southeast-2 | $0.1056 | $77 | -3% | 324 mo |
| Africa (Cape Town)af-south-1 | $0.1085 | $79 | — | 316 mo |
| Asia Pacific (Tokyo)ap-northeast-1 | $0.1088 | $79 | +0% | 315 mo |
| South America (Sao Paulo)sa-east-1 | $0.1344 | $98 | +24% | 255 mo |
Right-size it
Linux, shared tenancy, from the AWS Price List API (2026-10-19). Network: Up to 5 Gbps. Taxes not included. AWS EC2 pricing
t3.large in other regions
Alternatives in af-south-1
All t3.large prices · All EC2 instances
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Questions
How much does t3.large cost per month in af-south-1?
$79.21 on demand for Linux running all 730 hours, before storage, public IPv4 and data transfer.
Can AWS credits pay for t3.large?
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 t3.large?
A 1-year Savings Plan brings it to $0.0888/h and 3 years to $0.0628/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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