Cloud TCO: Competitive Pricing with Sovereignty Included

The Pricing Claim You Won't See

You won't see me claim "Scaleway is 50% cheaper than AWS." I've reviewed enough cost analyses to know that claim doesn't hold up.

Here's the honest assessment: after year-one credits expire, European providers are competitively priced with hyperscalers for equivalent services. Sometimes slightly cheaper, sometimes slightly more expensive, usually within 10-20%.

The value proposition isn't primarily cost. It's everything else that comes with the choice.

Breaking Down Real Costs

Let's look at actual pricing for a representative production workload:

Compute (Kubernetes nodes):

AWS EKS: t3.medium (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) = ~€35/month × 3 nodes = €105/month
Scaleway Kapsule: DEV1-M (3 vCPU, 4GB RAM) = ~€30/month × 3 nodes = €90/month

Scaleway is ~15% cheaper for compute. Not revolutionary.

Managed Kubernetes control plane:

AWS EKS: €70/month per cluster
Scaleway Kapsule: Free

This is a real difference—€70/month saved per cluster. For multiple environments (dev, test, prod), that adds up.

Object Storage (S3-compatible):

AWS S3: €0.023/GB/month (standard tier)
Scaleway Object Storage: €0.01/GB/month

For 1TB storage: AWS €23/month, Scaleway €10/month. Scaleway wins on storage pricing.

Database (managed PostgreSQL):

AWS RDS: db.t3.medium = ~€90/month + storage
Scaleway Database: DB-DEV-M (similar spec) = ~€60/month + storage

Roughly 30% cheaper for Scaleway on databases.

Network egress (the big one):

AWS: €0.09/GB for most egress
Scaleway: €0.01/GB after 75GB free per month

This is where costs diverge significantly. For a typical application serving 5TB/month:

AWS: €450/month in egress alone
Scaleway: ~€50/month (after free tier)

Egress pricing is genuinely different, and it matters for data-intensive workloads.

Total Cost Comparison

For a realistic production workload:

3-node Kubernetes cluster
Managed PostgreSQL database
1TB object storage
5TB/month egress

AWS: ~€700-800/month Scaleway: ~€300-400/month

Scaleway comes out 40-50% cheaper in this scenario. But there are caveats.

The Caveats You Need to Know

1. Year-one credits distort everything

AWS, Azure, and GCP offer generous startup credits. €100K in credits makes everything look free for the first year. Scaleway offers credits too, but usually smaller amounts.

The fair comparison is year three pricing, after all credits expire. That's when you see real costs.

2. Proprietary services cost more

The comparison above uses commodity services: compute, storage, databases. If you use AWS Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, or other proprietary services, costs change.

Proprietary services are priced at premium margins. Equivalent functionality on standard infrastructure (Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Redis) is usually 30-50% cheaper—but you're managing more yourself.

The tradeoff: Convenience and features vs portability and cost. Neither answer is universally right.

3. Reserved capacity vs on-demand

Hyperscalers offer significant discounts (30-50%) for reserved instances. If you commit to 1-3 years, costs drop substantially.

European providers typically offer smaller discounts for long-term commitments. Reserved instance pricing for AWS can be competitive with or cheaper than Scaleway on-demand.

But: Reserved instances are lock-in. You've committed. Negotiating leverage decreases.

The Optionality Value

Here's what doesn't show up in spreadsheets: optionality.

When renewal time comes and you're locked into AWS proprietary services with reserved instances, your negotiating position is weak. "Move to another provider" isn't credible—the migration cost is prohibitive.

When you've built on Kubernetes with portable services and aren't locked into proprietary features, "we're considering OVHcloud" is a real conversation. Even if you don't switch, the credible option affects pricing.

How to value this: The option to leave has value even if you never exercise it. Call it a 10-20% discount you didn't have to explicitly negotiate.

What Actually Matters: The Pitch to Leadership

When presenting to non-technical leadership, cost matters. But it's not the whole story.

The pitch we use:

"Scaleway is cost-competitive with AWS—roughly equivalent after credits expire, sometimes cheaper for our workloads. The core value isn't price savings. It's:

European jurisdiction: Data stays under European law, simplifying GDPR compliance
Reduced vendor lock-in: We maintain the ability to migrate, which improves our negotiating position
Team capability: We build deeper infrastructure knowledge, which serves us long-term
Predictable costs: Fixed-price capacity reduces surprise bills and budget uncertainty

The 20% workload experiment costs roughly €X/month. If it works, we gain leverage and optionality. If it doesn't, we've learned something valuable for €X."

Notice: cost is mentioned, but it's not the primary argument. That's honest positioning.

When European Providers Are Actually Cheaper

European providers have genuine cost advantages for:

High egress workloads: Serving large files, video streaming, or data-intensive APIs. Hyperscaler egress costs dominate; European providers are 5-10x cheaper here.

Simple infrastructure: If you're running VMs or Kubernetes without many managed services, European providers are straightforward and competitively priced.

Multi-environment setups: Free Kubernetes control planes add up when you're running dev, test, staging, and production clusters.

When Hyperscalers Make Sense

Conversely, hyperscalers have advantages for:

Global reach: If you need presence in 20+ regions worldwide, AWS/Azure have broader coverage.

Exotic managed services: If your architecture depends on services like AWS Lambda, Step Functions, or DynamoDB, equivalents elsewhere require rearchitecting.

Enterprise support contracts: Large organizations with negotiated enterprise agreements get pricing and support that changes the calculation.

The Honest Bottom Line

After year-one credits expire, Scaleway and similar European providers are competitive but not dramatically cheaper than hyperscalers. The value is:

European jurisdiction and compliance simplification
Reduced lock-in and improved negotiating position
Operational model that builds team capability
Predictable, understandable pricing

These are real benefits. Overselling the cost savings undermines credibility. The value proposition is broader than price.

Sources:

#tco #cloudpricing #finops #europeancloud #honestnumbers