# Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Official pricing: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/  
Category: hyperscaler · Isolation: vm

## Pricing regimes (raw)

- **E4 Flex x86** (resource): $0.0125/vCPU-h, $0.0015/GiB-h: 
- **E5/E6 Flex x86** (resource): $0.015/vCPU-h, $0.002/GiB-h: 
- **Intel Standard3 Flex** (resource): $0.02/vCPU-h, $0.0015/GiB-h: 
- **Ampere A1 Arm** (resource): $0.01/vCPU-h, $0.0015/GiB-h: 
- **Ampere A2 Arm** (resource): $0.007/vCPU-h, $0.002/GiB-h: 
- **Ampere A4 Arm** (resource): $0.0069/vCPU-h, $0.0027/GiB-h: 
- **E4 50% baseline burstable** (resource): $0.00625/vCPU-h, $0.0015/GiB-h:  [burstable]
- **E4 preemptible** (resource): $0.00625/vCPU-h, $0.00075/GiB-h:  [spot]

## Features

Yes: snapshots, fork/clone, pause/resume, persistent disk, volumes, ≥24 h sessions, custom image (Docker or snapshot), start from your own snapshot, full VM (own kernel), Docker inside, nested virtualization, root, systemd, SSH, public IPv4, custom domains, raw TCP inbound, egress allowlist, static egress IP, private networking, SOC 2, HIPAA, SSO, GPU, arm64, Windows, macOS, HTTP method/path egress rules, EU data residency, MCP server, snapshots on demand, gVisor or VM (no shared kernel), inbound access rules, firewall inside (nftables), extra volumes, shared volumes

No: memory snapshots, idle auto-stop, your own Docker/OCI image, browser, desktop GUI, computer-use API, code interpreter, browser + desktop control, anti-bot stealth, CAPTCHA solving, residential IPs, preinstalled agents, HTTPS preview URLs, self-hosting, BYOC, open source, Python, Node.js, GPU desktop, wake on request, live resize, live fork (no pause), memory fork, automatic snapshots, agent harness API, hosted agent API (their own agent), secret proxy, secret proxy for any API

Unknown: everything else. Evidence (source + quote) per feature: https://battleships.dev/data/providers/oracle-cloud.json → feature_evidence

## Caveats

- DIY infrastructure rather than an agent-managed sandbox: guest installation, HTTPS/domain setup, abuse controls and operations are customer responsibilities. Linux guest administrative capabilities are not preinstalled agent features. 30% guest CPU utilization does not reduce allocated-compute charges. Unknowns remain null; a partial subtotal is not a complete invoice.
- First-party conflict: Always Free resource page says all tenancies 1500 OCPU-h/9000 GB-h (2 cores/12GB); Arm/pricing pages retain 3000/18000 (4/24). No blanket guarantee of the larger tier.
- Always Free A1 allowance (1,500 OCPU-h + 9,000 GB-h per month per tenancy, per the current docs) is encoded as $28.50/month included usage scoped to the A1 regime only; it cannot pay for x86 compute. Engine limitation: when A1 is chosen the credit may also offset that bill's disk/egress lines.
- Always Free home-region capacity can be exhausted and idle resources reclaimed. Free micro-VMs are not 50 full 4/8 machines.
- Standard flexible VMs generally stop compute billing when stopped; DenseIO/bare-metal exceptions exist. Root disks and public network allocations have independent lifecycle.
- A1 free fleet of 2/12 or 4/24 cannot satisfy the requested 200 vCPU/400GB peak, regardless of monthly allowance.
- Egress default shown for supported North America/Europe rate category; other regional tiers differ.
- Grouped E5/E6 mode uses the conservative E5 memory ceiling1024GiB; E6 can reach1454GiB per shape docs. Bootvolume minimum47–50GB is not automatically enforced by the current engine.
- Snapshot retention priced at $0.0255/GB-month: block volume backups are "regionally stored in Object Storage" (docs blockvolumebackups.htm) and Object Storage Standard is $0.0255/GB-month above 10 GB (price API part B91628). No separate backup SKU exists; backups are incremental so this is an upper-bound per GB of retained state.
- Boot time before a VM is usable is not published, so boot_overhead_s is left unset (a plain VM; the hyperscaler category already carries the "no sandbox API" compromise).
- Nested KVM: Oracle Linux blog (Apr 2025) documents it on VM.Standard.E5.Flex and VM.Standard3.Flex; "Ampere VMs (ARM/aarch64) did not support nested virtualization" (A1/A2 set false; A4 postdates the blog, left null; E4/E6 not stated, null).

## How this provider charges


DIY infrastructure rather than an agent-managed sandbox: guest installation, HTTPS/domain setup, abuse controls and operations are customer responsibilities. Linux guest administrative capabilities are not preinstalled agent features. 30% guest CPU utilization does not reduce allocated-compute charges. Unknowns remain null; a partial subtotal is not a complete invoice.

Prices below are public list prices unless a row explicitly says promotion/commitment. USD; taxes excluded unless noted.

| Regime | When / billing | Captured prices | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| E4 Flex x 86 | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. One x 86 OCPU=two hardware threads/vCPUs. | CPU $0.0125/vCPU-h + RAM $0.0015/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| E5/E6 Flex x 86 | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. One x 86 OCPU=two hardware threads/vCPUs. | CPU $0.015/vCPU-h + RAM $0.002/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| Intel Standard 3 Flex | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. One x 86 OCPU=two hardware threads/vCPUs. | CPU $0.02/vCPU-h + RAM $0.0015/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| Ampere A1 Arm | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. ARM only: flagged alt to avoid engine treating it as x 86. A1 one OCPU=one core; A2/A4 one OCPU=two Arm cores. | CPU $0.01/vCPU-h + RAM $0.0015/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| Ampere A2 Arm | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. ARM only: flagged alt to avoid engine treating it as x 86. A1 one OCPU=one core; A2/A4 one OCPU=two Arm cores. | CPU $0.007/vCPU-h + RAM $0.002/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| Ampere A4 Arm | On demand; Allocated flexible resources, no monthly cap; boot disk extra. ARM only: flagged alt to avoid engine treating it as x 86. A1 one OCPU=one core; A2/A4 one OCPU=two Arm cores. | CPU $0.0069/vCPU-h + RAM $0.0027/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| E4 50% baseline burstable | On demand; 50% CPU baseline purchased, not equivalent to full dedicated performance. Memory charged in full; 12.5% baseline also exists. | CPU $0.00625/vCPU-h + RAM $0.0015/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| E4 preemptible | On demand; 50% list discount, interruptible; no capacity guarantee. | CPU $0.00625/vCPU-h + RAM $0.00075/GiB-h | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |
| Universal Credits commitment | On demand; Negotiated commitment rates unpublished. | Rate unavailable; null (not free) | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/ |

## Billing details
- **granularity_seconds**: 1
- **minimum_billed_seconds**: 60
- **setup_fee_usd**: 0
- **api**: True
- **cli**: True
- **ipv 6**: True
- **ingress_usd**: 0
- **cpu**: OCPU conversions are family-specific; A2/A4 OCPU contains two physical Arm cores, A1 contains one.
- **backup**: Boot/block volumes extra; balanced 10VPU storage $0.0425/GB-month. Backup rate not treated as proven merely because stored in Object Storage.
- **minimum_term**: Per second 60s minimum; no cap.
- **free**: $300/30-day trial. Always Free A1 resource allowance contradicts between official pages; not fungible $57 credit.
- **provisioning**: Unknown; not assumed zero.

## Gotchas
- DIY infrastructure rather than an agent-managed sandbox: guest installation, HTTPS/domain setup, abuse controls and operations are customer responsibilities. Linux guest administrative capabilities are not preinstalled agent features. 30% guest CPU utilization does not reduce allocated-compute charges. Unknowns remain null; a partial subtotal is not a complete invoice.
- First-party conflict: Always Free resource page says all tenancies 1500 OCPU-h/9000 GB-h (2 cores/12 GB); Arm/pricing pages retain 3000/18000 (4/24). No blanket guarantee of the larger tier.
- Card deliberately does not subtract a generic $57 monthly credit: free CPU/RAM buckets only apply to A1, and cannot pay for x 86 compute, egress or disks.
- Always Free home-region capacity can be exhausted and idle resources reclaimed. Free micro-VMs are not 50 full 4/8 machines.
- Standard flexible VMs generally stop compute billing when stopped; DenseIO/bare-metal exceptions exist. Root disks and public network allocations have independent lifecycle.
- A1 free fleet of 2/12 or 4/24 cannot satisfy the requested 200 vCPU/400 GB peak, regardless of monthly allowance.
- Egress default shown for supported North America/Europe rate category; other regional tiers differ.

## Worked example
4 vCPU / 8 GiB; 50 concurrent × 8 h/day × 22 days = **8,800 guest-hours**; 30% CPU busy; **50 GiB-month total snapshots**, **100 GiB total egress**. 50 GiB retained state is total, not 50 GiB per VM. Compute-only subtotals below exclude unknown components and tax.

| Mode | Delete/recreate / active-window compute | 50 retained hosts, 730-hour month |
|---|---:|---:|
| E4 Flex x 86 | $545.60 | $2,263.00 |
| E5/E6 Flex x 86 | $668.80 | $2,774.00 |
| Intel Standard 3 Flex | $809.60 | $3,358.00 |
| Ampere A1 Arm | $457.60 | $1,898.00 |
| Ampere A2 Arm | $387.20 | $1,606.00 |
| Ampere A4 Arm | $432.96 | $1,795.80 |
| E4 50% baseline burstable | $325.60 | $1,350.50 |
| E4 preemptible | $272.80 | $1,131.50 |
| Universal Credits commitment | Unknown / unavailable | Unknown / unavailable |

Snapshot subtotal: unknown; rate $None/GiB-month. Egress: see allowances, pooling/accrual and rate $0.0085/GiB; not every mode has the same allowance.
Powered-off compute billed: False. A retained-host column is the always-running upper scenario when this is false; powered-off storage/IP still accrue.
Monthly caps attach to instance identities, not to a pool of replacement instances. The active-window column requires deleting/releasing billable compute between shifts for products that bill while off. Restoring from disk is not memory resume. The engine cannot perfectly model these lifecycles; see validation/estimator-gaps.md.

## Sources
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/pricing/
- https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/cetools/api/v1/products/?currencyCode=USD
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/price-list/
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/faq/
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/faq/
- https://www.oracle.com/cloud/networking/virtual-cloud-network/faq/
- https://www.oracle.com/assets/paas-iaas-universal-credits-3940775.pdf
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/References/burstable-instances.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/Concepts/preemptible.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/References/computeshapes.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/Concepts/computeoverview.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/General/Concepts/servicelimits.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Network/Tasks/managingpublicIPs.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Block/Concepts/blockvolumebackups.htm
- https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Block/Concepts/blockvolumeperformance.htm
- https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/kvm-nested-virtualization-in-oci
- https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/49183750
- https://www.cnelecar.com/blog/oracle-always-free-arm-limits-cut-2026/