Hello, this is Marv here again, diving into something I think is important: MTN Cloud compute pricing.
MTN Cloud does not offer a publicly accessible pricing plan or a simple cost calculator - yet. As I strongly opined earlier in this post, users should be able to evaluate potential costs and plans before even committing to registration or provisioning an instance.
To fill this crucial information gap, I have meticulously calculated and compared compute costs across MTN and the three other major global cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The Comparison: Pay-As-You-Go in Naira
I will be comparing the monthly prices of several common instance sizes, all presented as if you were paying the final amount in Nigerian Naira (₦).
To ensure this is a fair, apples-to-apples comparison of the four providers, we will be grounding our analysis in the following consistent assumptions:
| Assumption | Detail | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Pay-As-You-Go (On-Demand). No long-term contracts (Reserved Instances, etc.) are applied. | Represents the most common starting point for new users and ensures a fair comparison across board. |
| Timeframe | Monthly Cost (730 Hours). MTN’s quoted cost per instance is assumed to be the final monthly rate. | Standard industry metric for monthly uptime. |
| Currency Conversion | $1 USD = ₦1500. AWS, Azure, and GCP costs include a 7.5% VAT/Sales Tax and are converted at this rate. | Reflects a real-world, current-market exchange rate and includes essential tax for a final comparison. |
| Location Factor | AWS/Azure/GCP prices are sourced from their popular US East regions. MTN’s price is currently consistent across its available zone(s). | Acknowledge the physical location that dictates global cloud pricing. |
| Compute Equivalence | 1 Core (MTN) is approximated to 1 vCPU (AWS/Azure/GCP). | Necessary simplification to compare architectural differences in standard compute offerings. |
Cloud Compute Cost Comparison (Monthly NGN)
| Size | vCPU | RAM (GB) |
MTN Instance Type
|
MTN Cost (NGN) |
AWS Instance Type
|
AWS Cost (NGN) |
Azure Instance Type
|
Azure Cost (NGN) |
GCP Instance Type
|
GCP Cost (NGN) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry (Burstable) | 1 | 1 | G1S1 | 59,119 | t2.micro | 13,658 | B1s | 15,303 | e2-micro | 9,868 |
| Entry (Burstable) | 2 | 4 | G2S4 | 122,630 | t3.medium | 48,972 | B2s | 48,972 | e2-medium | 39,442 |
| General Purpose | 4 | 16 | G4S16 | 270,389 | m6i.xlarge | 225,750 | D4s_v5 | 243,487 | n2-standard-4 | 228,975 |
| General Purpose | 8 | 32 | G8S32 | 538,258 | m6i.2xlarge | 451,500 | D8s_v5 | 486,975 | n2-standard-8 | 457,950 |
| General Purpose | 16 | 64 | Ge16S64 | 1,073,995 | m6i.4xlarge | 904,612 | D16s_v5 | 973,950 | n2-standard-16 | 914,288 |
| Enterprise Scale | 32 | 128 | Ge32M128 | 2,145,470 | m6i.8xlarge | 1,807,612 | D32s_v5 | 1,949,512 | n2-standard-32 | 1,828,575 |
| Enterprise Scale | 64 | 256 | Ge64L256 | 4,288,421 | m6i.16xlarge | 3,616,838 | D64s_v5 | 3,899,025 | n2-standard-64 | 3,658,762 |
| Maximum (Dedicated) | 96 | 384 | Ge96L384 | 6,431,371 | m6i.24xlarge | 5,424,450 | D96s_v5 | 5,988,825 | n2-standard-96 | 5,487,338 |
Key Takeaways from the Compute Price Showdown
Cheapest compute instance available on MTN Cloud
Most expensive plan available on MTN Cloud
The comparison across all four cloud providers reveals some fascinating, and critical, data points regarding cloud infrastructure in Nigeria.
The initial shock comes at the low-end: For the smallest, entry-level instances (1-2 vCPU), MTN Cloud is significantly more expensive than the international hyperscalers. To put a number on it, the MTN G1S1 (1 core, 1 GB) is nearly six times the cost of the GCP e2-micro (2 vCPU, 1 GB). I’m not an economist, but this might suggests the overhead of smaller, highly utilized local infrastructure is simply much higher than what the massive global US-based clouds can absorb.
However, as we scale up, the picture changes. In the mid-range General Purpose tier (4 vCPU, 16 GB), MTN’s price gap narrows considerably. The MTN G4S16 is priced at ₦270,389, putting it much closer to the tight price range of AWS and GCP (₦225,750 – ₦228,975). Interestingly, the tight competition between AWS and GCP holds true across all sizes, generally providing the lowest costs for General Purpose instances, with Azure maintaining a slight premium across most tiers.
The trend culminates in the high-end Enterprise/Dedicated tiers (96 Cores), where MTN Cloud becomes the most expensive option. The MTN Ge96L384, at ₦6,431,371, is about ₦1 million more per month than the equivalent instance on AWS, and approximately ₦442,000 more than Azure.
The trade-off is seems clear: While the hyperscalers are vastly cheaper for small tasks, even after accounting for VAT and the volatile exchange rate conversion, a local provider like MTN offers the undeniable benefits of low-latency access within Nigeria. Crucially, MTN eliminates the reliance on volatile USD-to-NGN exchange rates and foreign payment methods, offering billing predictability that others simply cannot match.
It is worth noting that MTN has generously allowed me to play across all classes of compute for free to conduct this research, which is an extremely kind gesture that I sincerely appreciate.
Prices for AWS, Azure, and GCP were meticulously sourced and calculated using their official tools: the AWS EC2 On-Demand Pricing page, the Azure Pricing Calculator, and the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.
In the next article, we will pivot away from raw compute cost and look at the areas where MTN might truly have the edge: data transfer costs (Egress), and a head-to-head comparison of latency for a simple web application hosted on MTN Cloud versus the AWS US-East-1 region.