Google AppEngine Pricing: Get In For Free; Only Pay If You Drive Serious Traffic

from the watch-out-amazon dept

Wed, May 28th 2008 3:41pm — Mike Masnick

I've already explained why I believe Google's AppEngine could be a big deal if implemented well (still an open question). One of the open questions was price, though you could (and we did!) take a guess based on the original announcement. Well, now Google has released the pricing and it's pretty much what we expected: the platform is totally free for anyone who isn't driving that much usage, but as you ramp beyond a certain level, fees kick in. Those fees seem pretty similar to Amazon's fees (some minor differences, but not that many will notice). Assuming that the rest of the system works well, the free bottom end will hopefully lead to some interesting innovations. For developers, the only cost of building and testing a web app is their time. This effectively lowers the barrier for developing new web apps even further. For years there was talk about how cheap it was to develop web apps these days compared to a decade ago. With Google's offering, it's even cheaper.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: appengine, pricing, web platform
Companies: google

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Adam Fisk, 28 May 2008 @ 4:05pm

Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
I've gone into details on my blog of how Google's new pricing model clarifies the differences between App Engine and Amazon's AWS. For web applications, it's shocking how badly Google beats Amazon for:

1) Scaling
2) Database details
3) Price

The details are here:

http://tinyurl.com/5g934j

Amazon still has a place for many applications, but Google wins by a wide margin for the most common applications type -- web apps. They're more of a domain-specific cloud service.

-Adam
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- some old guy, 28 May 2008 @ 5:19pm
  
  Re: Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
  We DO NOT post tinyurls in public places.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Adam Fisk, 28 May 2008 @ 5:29pm
    
    Re: Re: Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Adam Fisk, 28 May 2008 @ 5:32pm
    
    Re: Re: Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
    By "we" you mean "you"? Sorry, but the collective we in public places is a little annoying too. That said, I can understand your apprehension.
    
    Here's the full URL:
    
    http://adamfisk.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/where-google-app-engine-spanks-amazons-web-services -s3-ec2-simple-db-sqs/
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jota, 28 May 2008 @ 4:31pm

link?
Not that it's hard to find, but a link from here to there would have been nice.

http://code.google.com/appengine/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ehrichweiss, 28 May 2008 @ 5:14pm

Wait...what?
B-b-b-b-b-but...how can they possibly make money with something that's FREE!?!?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
charlie potatoes, 28 May 2008 @ 6:19pm

apps mail and MX records
I signed up for google apps and got the free email with my domain name... www.NewWorldEssays.com .. instructions told me how to do it and it included a trailing dot being placed at the end of each entry in my MX . well, my domain controls (on yahoo) wont allow it. so i talk to yahoo support.. they say google is wrong.. and i can't find a phone number anywhere to contact them. anyone know a google customer service number, or does such a wonder even exist? I know this isn't the proper forum but I'm kind of desperate. thanks for any help
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- chad, 29 May 2008 @ 8:38am
  
  Re: apps mail and MX records
  The trailing dot is to stop DNS resolution, you needed worry Yahoo is likely adding the dot for you (but not showing it). It's really just Google being explicit about standard DNS procedure.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
mobiGeek, 29 May 2008 @ 1:28pm

Supporting the true inventors
Inventors, musicians, authors, etc. historically are one and the same. They tinker in their basements/labs/porches/garages satisfying their curiosity. From time to time come out with a "voila!" (or "eureka!"), which they might then turn to monetizing.
Google's new application development platform encourages this type of invention. Should it lead to innovation, then both the developer and the publisher (Google) cash in.
This is different than the typical print publishing and recording industries current business approach. They usually force the inventor to pay in advance for the publishers' tools and services via a "must-make-N work of arts" contract locking the inventor out from most of the financial rewards (and often from the rights to their own invention).
It will be very interesting to see what comes about. I wonder if a Facebook or other sensation will have its roots seeded by Google. I also wonder what Google might do should they see the early potential in one of their seedlings...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]