c8a.12xlarge pricing and specs in US East (N. Virginia)
48 vCPU · 96 GiB · 22.5 Gigabit · AMD EPYC 9R45 Processor
$2.5865/hour on-demand · $1,888/month (Linux, Shared)
c8a.12xlarge is a compute-optimized EC2 instance with 48 vCPU and 96 GiB, generation 8 of the c family. On-demand it costs $2.5865 an hour, about $1,888 a month if it runs all month. A one-year commitment with nothing up front works out at $1.7110 an hour and pays for itself above roughly 482 hours a month; below that, on-demand is cheaper. The three-year options go down to $1.1387 an hour, 56% below on-demand. The newer c8g.12xlarge offers the same size for $1.9142 an hour, 26% less and moves to Graviton. US East (N. Virginia) is already the cheapest region for c8a.12xlarge.
Pricing by OS (hourly, USD, Shared)
| Option | Linux | Windows | RHEL | SUSE | Ubuntu Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On-Demand | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | $3.1049 | $2.7115 | $2.6705 |
| Spot | $1.0168 | $2.4666 | — | — | — |
| 1y Compute SP NU | $1.8691 | $4.0771 | $2.3875 | $1.9290 | $1.9363 |
| 3y Compute SP NU | $1.2488 | $3.4568 | $1.7672 | $1.3028 | $1.3035 |
| 1y EC2 SP NU | $1.7110 | $3.9190 | $2.2294 | $1.7709 | $1.7782 |
| 3y EC2 SP NU | $1.1387 | $3.3467 | $1.6571 | $1.1927 | $1.1934 |
Spot by AZ (7-day p50, Linux): us-east-1b $1.1491 · us-east-1d $0.9493 · us-east-1f $1.0758 · us-east-1a $1.0168 · us-east-1c $0.8125
Newer generations of the same size
Same family letter and size in a newer generation, ranked by price. “vCPU per $” uses vCPU as the performance proxy — newer chips usually add more, so it is a floor.
Graviton-eligible → c8g.12xlarge (-26%)| Type | $/h | Price Δ | vCPU per $ Δ | Saves / mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| c8g.12xlarge Graviton arch change | $1.9142 | -26% | +35% | $491 |
| c9g.12xlarge Graviton arch change | $2.0866 | -19% | +24% | $365 |
| c8i-flex.12xlarge | $2.1365 | -17% | +21% | $328 |
| c8i.12xlarge | $2.2490 | -13% | +15% | $246 |
| c8gd.12xlarge Graviton arch change | $2.3515 | -9% | +10% | $172 |
| c9gd.12xlarge Graviton arch change | $2.5632 | -0.9% | +0.9% | $17 |
| c8id.12xlarge | $2.6611 | +3% | -3% | $-54 |
| c8gb.12xlarge Graviton arch change | $2.8440 | +10% | -9% | $-188 |
Cheapest regions for c8a.12xlarge
| Region | On-Demand $/h | vs us-east-1 | Saves / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1 | $2.5865 | current | — |
| US East (Ohio) us-east-2 | $2.5865 | 0.0% | $0 |
| US West (Oregon) us-west-2 | $2.5865 | 0.0% | $0 |
| Europe (Spain) eu-south-2 | $2.7746 | +7% | $-137 |
| EU (Ireland) eu-west-1 | $2.7751 | +7% | $-138 |
| EU (Frankfurt) eu-central-1 | $2.9518 | +14% | $-267 |
Caveat: instance price is only part of the bill. Cross-region and internet data transfer, latency to your users, data-residency rules and service availability can outweigh a few percent on compute.
Price history (us-east-1)
Daily snapshots since the catalog started tracking this type; a row is added whenever a headline price changes.
| Date | OD Linux | OD Windows | 1y RI | 3y RI | Spot p50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-06 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0168 |
| 2026-11-05 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0762 |
| 2026-11-04 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.1326 |
| 2026-11-01 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.1352 |
| 2026-10-31 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.1208 |
| 2026-10-30 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0845 |
| 2026-10-29 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0293 |
| 2026-10-28 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0030 |
| 2026-10-27 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9950 |
| 2026-10-26 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9893 |
| 2026-10-23 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9886 |
| 2026-10-22 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9897 |
| 2026-10-21 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9994 |
| 2026-10-20 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $1.0036 |
| 2026-10-19 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9890 |
| 2026-10-18 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9339 |
| 2026-10-17 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.8960 |
| 2026-10-16 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9108 |
| 2026-10-15 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9256 |
| 2026-10-14 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9292 |
| 2026-10-13 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9480 |
| 2026-10-12 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9562 |
| 2026-10-11 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9727 |
| 2026-10-08 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9817 |
| 2026-10-07 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9802 |
| 2026-10-06 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9752 |
| 2026-10-05 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9682 |
| 2026-10-04 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.9327 |
| 2026-10-02 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.8962 |
| 2026-10-01 | $2.5865 | $4.7945 | — | — | $0.8897 |
All attributes
- vCPU
- 48
- Cores / threads per core
- 48 / 1
- Memory
- 96 GiB
- Memory per vCPU
- 2.00 GiB
- Processor
- AMD EPYC 9R45 Processor
- Architecture
- x86_64
- Sustained clock
- 4.5 GHz
- Hypervisor
- nitro
- Generation
- Current
- Burstable
- No
- Bare metal
- No
- Free tier eligible
- No
- Network performance
- 22.5 Gigabit
- Network baseline / burst
- 22.5 / 22.5 Gbps
- Max ENIs × IPv4 per ENI
- 12 × 64
- IPv6 / ENA / EFA
- IPv6 / ENA / —
- EBS optimized
- Yes
- EBS bandwidth (baseline / max)
- 15000 / 15000 Mbps
- EBS IOPS (baseline / max)
- 60,000 / 60000
- EBS NVMe
- required
- Instance storage
- EBS only
- GPU
- —
- Placement groups
- cluster, partition, spread
- Hibernation / Nitro Enclaves
- Yes / Yes
- Dedicated hosts
- Supported
- Boot modes
- legacy-bios, uefi
- Spot supported
- Yes
Public AWS list prices (USD), refreshed nightly (catalog 2026-11-06). RI and Savings Plan rates are effective hourly (upfront amortised over the term) and are charged for every hour of the term. Excludes taxes, data transfer and storage. How these numbers are sourced and checked. Not affiliated with Amazon Web Services.
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