They're Ripping You Off.
And They Know It.
Ever notice how hard cloud providers make it to compare prices? Or how you mysteriously end up locked into their ecosystem without considering alternatives? That's not an accident.
Their Dirty Little Secrets
AWS has over 574,000 different price points. Azure? Even more. They bury the real costs in:
- • Data egress fees (the real money maker)
- • API call charges that add up fast
- • "Free tier" traps that expire silently
- • Support costs that aren't optional at scale
Try comparing an AWS EC2 instance to an Azure VM. They make it nearly impossible:
- • Different naming (t3.medium vs D2s_v3)
- • Incomparable performance metrics
- • Hidden resource limits and throttling
- • "Equivalent" instances that aren't
The Ecosystem Trap
Step 1: The Free Credits
"Here's $300 in free credits!" Sounds great, right? But those credits only work for their services. You start building, and suddenly...
Step 2: The Proprietary Services
You use their managed database, their AI services, their special networking. Each one locks you in a little more. Moving becomes "too expensive."
Step 3: The Price Hikes
Once you're locked in? Prices go up. "Deprecated" tier? 3x more expensive. Need to move? That'll be thousands in egress fees. Checkmate.
The Numbers They Don't Want You to See
Of companies overpay for cloud services due to pricing complexity
Wasted on cloud services globally in 2024 alone
Average markup on data transfer compared to actual costs
Record Profits in a "Commodity" Business
Hosting has always been a thin-margin business. Hardware depreciates. Competition drives prices down. Yet somehow cloud providers are posting 30-40% profit margins - quarter after quarter, year after year.
Traditional hosting: 5-10% margins. Cloud providers: 30-40% margins. Where do you think that extra profit comes from?
"The house always wins" - That's their business model. Complex pricing ensures you'll always pay more than you planned.
The Broken Promise of "Economies of Scale"
"Move to the cloud! We have massive economies of scale. You'll only pay for what you use. No more buying servers that sit idle at 10% utilization."
- • Shared infrastructure = lower costs
- • Pay only for actual usage
- • No wasted capacity
- • Benefit from their buying power
Those economies of scale? They kept them. You're paying 10x what the hardware costs, with margins that would make a luxury brand blush.
- • You pay for their 40% profit margins
- • "On-demand" pricing = maximum extraction
- • Reserved instances? Still 3x overpriced
- • The "cloud tax" on everything
But Here's the Secret...
Within every cloud provider are hidden gems - services that somehow escaped the "cloud tax." Maybe they're loss leaders. Maybe they're trying to compete. Maybe someone forgot to jack up the price.
Graviton instances - 40% cheaper than Intel, often faster. Why? They're pushing adoption.
Spot instances in certain regions - 90% off. They need to fill capacity.
Preemptible GPUs - 70% discount. Competing with AWS for AI workloads.
We help you find these hidden gems across ALL providers.
Fight Back With Transparency
Hydrogen cuts through their BS. Real prices, real comparisons, real savings.
Apples-to-Apples Comparison
Compare equivalent instances across all providers. See the REAL performance per dollar, not marketing fluff.
Hidden Cost Detection
We expose ALL the costs - egress, API calls, support, everything. No more surprise bills.
Hidden Gem Discovery
Find those services without the cloud tax. Same provider, fraction of the cost.
Real Examples of the Ripoff
AWS m5.xlarge: 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM - $0.192/hour
Hetzner CCX31: 8 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM - $0.089/hour
That's 2x the resources for less than half the price. But good luck finding this comparison on AWS's site.
Storing 10TB in S3: ~$230/month
Moving that 10TB out: $900 (one time)
They charge you 4 months of storage costs just to access your own data. It's highway robbery, plain and simple.
AWS Business Support: Minimum $100/month or 10% of your bill
Spending $50k/month? That's $5,000/month for support
For "support" that often just links you to documentation you could find yourself.
Stop Getting Ripped Off
Take back control with Hydrogen. See real prices, find better alternatives, and save thousands on your cloud bill.
No hidden fees. No lock-in. Just honest cloud intelligence.