AWS Vs. Azure Vs. GCP Vs. Oracle Vs. IBM Customer Spending Face-Off: Report
From how much customers are spending per month on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud to how many cloud clients are leveraging MSPs, CRN breaks down the most important takeaways from Flexera’s new 2025 State of the Cloud report that partners should know about.
With cloud usage growing, AWS and Azure continue to be neck-and-neck among companies with AWS having an edge with SMBs, while Azure is slightly ahead of AWS with enterprises.
For public cloud customers spending less than $50,000 monthly, the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) leads the way.
[Related: Google-Wiz Deal: 5 Huge Microsoft, AWS, AI And Google Cloud Things To Know]
A whopping 33 percent of organizations are spending more than $12 million annually on public cloud, with 11 percent spending more than $60 million per year.
Nearly all Flexera respondents are using at least one cloud provider discount option, with the most frequently used being the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement discount.
Flexera: Cloud Adoption Has ‘Now Reached The Tipping Point’
Cloud adoption has “now reached the tipping point with over half of enterprise and SMB workloads currently running on public clouds,” according to Flexera’s new 2025 State of the Cloud Report.
While analysis indicates that some organizations are moving cloud workloads back to their own data centers, Flexera’s report found that only 21 percent of cloud workloads have been repatriated. However, ongoing migration to the cloud and net-new cloud workloads outweigh these cloud exits, resulting in continued cloud growth.
Flexera’s 2025 State of the Cloud Report is based on a survey of 759 cloud decision-makers, executives and users from around the globe. The majority of respondents are involved in the management and costs for their company’s cloud spending.
Regarding respondents’ geography: 63 percent of respondents are from North America, 22 percent are from Europe and 14 percent from Asia-Pacific region.
Here are the most important takeaways and data points from Flexera’s report on the current state of public cloud customers spending in 2025 who are running workloads on AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Top Public Cloud Providers
Similar to global market share, the top five public cloud providers being used are AWS, Google Cloud, IBM, Microsoft Azure and Oracle.
AWS is the top public cloud provider being used by respondents for running workloads at 79 percent.
Microsoft placed in second with 77 percent of respondents running workloads on Azure.
Approximately 46 percent of respondents use Google’s GCP to run workloads on.
About 27 percent use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to run workloads on, while 17 percent leverage the IBM Cloud.
Most respondents use AWS for running significant workloads at 53 percent, while Azure is the most used cloud platform for client’s running some workloads on at 31 percent. Google Cloud is seeing the highest number of respondents experiment on its platform at 20 percent.
Spending Per Month On AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle And IBM
Similar to 2024, AWS and Azure are nearly tied across all spending tiers—although Azure has a slight edge for those spending $1 million or more monthly. For those spending less than $50,000 monthly, Google Cloud Platform is the leader.
Breaking down each public cloud company and the amount respondents spend per month:
For Azure, 50 percent of respondents spend $200,000 or less per month, while 19 percent spend between $1 million to over $5 million.
For AWS, 48 percent of respondents spend $200,000 or less per month, while 17 percent spend between $1 million to over $5 million.
For GCP, 44 percent of respondents spend $200,000 or less per month, while 7 percent spend between $1 million to over $5 million.
For Oracle, 29 percent of respondents spend $200,000 or less per month, while 3 percent spend between $1 million to over $5 million.
For IBM, 24 percent of respondents spend $200,000 or less per month, while 3 percent spend between $1 million to over $5 million.
Enterprise Spending On AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, And IBM
Flexera broke down respondents for how much they spend on public cloud into two categories: enterprises and SMBs (next slide).
Looking specifically at what enterprises spend per month on public cloud, enterprise respondents slightly lean more toward Azure usage compared to AWS in terms of leadership.
For Azure, 22 percent are spending $1 million to $5 million per month, while 47 percent are spending $200,000 or less per month.
For AWS, 21 percent are spending $1 million to $5 million per month, while 44 percent are spending $200,000 or less per month.
For GCP, 8 percent are spending $1 million to $5 million per month, while 43 percent are spending $200,000 or less per month.
For Oracle, 3 percent are spending $1 million to $5 million per month, while 32 percent are spending $200,000 or less per month.
For IBM, 3 percent are spending $1 million to $5 million per month, while 26 percent are spending $200,000 or less per month.
SMB Spending On AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, And IBM
Looking at the results from small-medium businesses (SMBs), respondents slightly lean more toward AWS compared to Azure in terms of leadership.
Google Cloud Platform is in third place, with Flexera pointing out that 2 percent of SMBs are now spending $1 million or more per month on GCP compared to zero percent in 2024.
Here’s a breakdown on how much SMBs are spending per month on the top five public cloud platforms.
For AWS, 67 percent of respondents are spending $200,000 or less per month on AWS, while 6 percent are spending $500,000 to $5 million.
For Azure, 62 percent of respondents are spending $200,000 or less per month on Azure, while 2 percent are spending $500,000 to $2 million.
For GCP, 49 percent of respondents are spending $200,000 or less per month on Google Cloud, while 3 percent are spending $500,000 to $5 million.
For Oracle, 15 percent of respondents are spending $200,000 or less per month on OCI, while 2 percent are spending $500,000 to $5 million.
For IBM, 15 percent of respondents are spending $200,000 or less per month on IBM Cloud, while 2 percent are spending $500,000 to $2 million.
No SMBs reported spending over $5 million per month on any cloud provider.
Nearly All Respondents Using Cloud Provider Discounts
Cloud provider discounts from AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are a critical way customers can help with costs. Approximately 96 percent of all respondents are using at least one of the cloud provider discount options.
The most frequently used discount is the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, at 45 percent, which is a common contractual vehicle for organizations that use Microsoft products and services.
The second highest used discount at 44 percent is the Google Committed Use discounts for the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
In third place is the AWS Reserved Instances discount which 42 percent of respondents leverage, followed by AWS’ Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) at 40 percent.
Bespoke negotiated discounts are more common with Oracle at 35 percent, and IBM at 27 percent than with other providers. “This is most likely due to existing contractual relationships with these providers for other services that are leveraged to obtain cloud consumption discounts,” Flexera said.
The average number of public clouds used is 2.4, and the average number of discount options used across all cloud providers is 3.9. “This is good to see, but there’s still room for additional discounts to be used for most organizations,” Flexera said.
Annual Public Cloud Spend
Flexera saw an increase in public cloud spending in 2025 compared to 2024. For example, 33 percent of customers report spending over $12 million per year, up from 29 percent in 2024.
“This supports the idea that as cloud costs rise, more workloads are moved to—or born in— the cloud,” said Flexera.
Breaking down the overall numbers:
Approximately 33 percent spend between $12 million to over $60 million annually.
About 41 percent spend between $1.2 to $12 million annually.
Around 24 percent spend $1.2 million annually or lower.
Looking at enterprise respondents, about 55 percent spend over $6 million per year, while 44 percent spend between $600,000 to $6 million.
In terms of SMB respondents, 81 percent spend $2.4 million or less annually on public cloud, while 17 percent spend over $2.4 million annually.
Hybrid Cloud Vs. Public And Private
Some other key findings in Flexera’s report include that 70 percent of respondents have embraced hybrid cloud strategies by using at least one public and one private cloud.
The remaining 30 percent either use only public cloud or private cloud.
Large enterprises make use of multi-cloud tools more than smaller organizations, regardless of the tool type.
“Organizations seem to have found their steady state—that is, the mix of clouds that meets their current needs. For the most part, that involves at least one public and one private cloud,” said Flexera.
MSPs Being Leveraged For Managing Public Clouds
Flexera’s results show that the majority of respondents are leveraging managed service providers (MSPs) for managing their public cloud.
Regarding MSP usage, the combination of ‘used for most’ and ‘used for some’ reached 60 percent in 2025.
“We’re seeing a slow uptick in the use of MSPs as more organizations spend more time focusing on their core competencies (their differentiating products and services) and hand off the growing complexity of cloud management to the experts—many of which they may already have existing relationships with for other services,” said Flexera.
In terms of enterprises 62 percent use MSPs while 18 percent have no MSPs plans.
Looking at SMBs, 48 percent utilize MSPs while 37 percent have no MSPs plans. Last year, only 36 percent of SMBs were using an MSP.
