Worked example · Google Cloud
A Google Cloud project on Compute Engine and Cloud SQL.
Core and memory hours pooled per machine family, a regional Cloud SQL instance, Cloud Storage and internet egress, with credits and tax set aside. Read through the way the calculator reads it: the bill, what it becomes on Hetzner, the verdict, and what would change it.
The bill
$2,406 a month across 9 services after setting aside support plan, tax, credit. The six largest lines:
| Service | Grade | Today | On Hetzner | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute Engine | Easy | $1,270 | $428 | saves $842 |
| Cloud Storage | Easy | $400 | $69 | saves $331 |
| Cloud SQL | Moderate | $251 | $64 | saves $187 |
| Memorystore | Moderate | $141 | ~$49 | saves $92 |
| BigQuery | Hard | $120 | ~$42 | saves $78 |
| Cloud Logging | Moderate | $90 | ~$18 | saves $72 |
~ marks a rule-of-thumb ratio; the rest is priced from usage in the file.
What it becomes on Hetzner
- 3 servers: 1× AX102-1, 1× CX43, 1× CX53
- $717/mo for servers, storage and traffic
- 52 h/mo of engineer time, $3,863
- $25,560 one-off, no payback at this net
Extra cost per year
$26,083
Not worth moving at this size. Hetzner costs more once someone is paid 52 hours a month to run it.
Grow first: at this size the hours decide, not the hardware. 3 of your 9 services move easily; 1 is hard. 78% of the Hetzner figure is priced from your usage; the rest is ratio-priced services and engineer time, which is where the range comes from.
Likely range $98 to $6,197 more a month. Hetzner list prices of 17 Oct 2026, default assumptions.
The same file on nine destinations
Net per year after engineer time, best first. No destination pays for this account; Hetzner loses least.
| Hetzner | −$26,083 over |
| Hetzner (US) | −$32,858 over |
| OVHcloud | −$33,704 over |
| Scaleway | −$33,795 over |
| Vultr | −$35,636 over |
| Akamai (Linode) | −$36,462 over |
| UpCloud | −$37,416 over |
| DigitalOcean | −$40,188 over |
| Exoscale | −$49,535 over |
What would change the answer
- Engineer time. 52 hours a month at $75/h is $3,863, 84% of the destination figure. Halve the rate or fold the work into an existing team and the verdict moves first.
- Scale. Engineer time grows slowly with the number of servers; hardware grows with the bill. The same mix at three times the size usually flips a marginal answer.
- Moving only part of it. The first wave (foundation: storage, traffic, edge) is Cloud Storage, Cloud Load Balancing: $344/mo for about 1 engineer days, with the databases left where they are.
- The hard services. BigQuery has no equivalent at the destination; keeping them on Google Cloud removes their engineer time and their risk from the plan.
Every one of these is a setting in the report. Open the example and change them.