January 6, 2026
Saturday surge, Sunday rage
AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention
AWS hikes AI chip rentals 15% on a quiet Saturday, users howl
TLDR: AWS quietly raised reserved AI GPU prices about 15%, and the comments erupted. People debated renting vs. buying, mocked the “AWS never raises prices” myth, and warned rivals will use this—while some planned literal GPU shopping before memory shortages make hardware pricier.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) quietly bumped prices about 15% for its reserved AI GPU time—called EC2 Capacity Blocks for machine learning—on a Saturday, and the internet spat out its coffee. These are pay‑up‑front reservations to guarantee powerful chips like NVIDIA H200s for a set window; now they cost more across regions (pricing). AWS says it’s about “supply and demand,” but the timing and the contrast with last summer’s “up to 45% reductions” for other plans has commenters feeling played. The mood: weekend stealth move, weekday sticker shock.
The thread lit up fast. One camp yelled “buy, don’t rent,” predicting owning your own cards beats cloud costs this year. Another went meta: if prices rise, maybe GPUs—those graphics chips powering AI—should be kept in service longer than three years to squeeze more value. The spiciest crowd roasted the “AWS never raises prices” myth, dropping sarcasm tags and popcorn. Practical panic set in too: people begging for live price trackers and some mapping out a GPU shopping run before a looming memory chip crunch. And rivals? Commenters say Azure and Google will weaponize this headline, even if they’re just as supply‑strained. It’s a comment section cocktail of betrayal memes, CFO anxiety, and gamer‑miners reminiscing—and everyone agrees: Saturday price hikes are a new level of cloud drama.
Key Points
- •AWS raised prices ~15% for EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML over the weekend.
- •p5e.48xlarge increased from $34.61 to $39.80 per hour (most regions); p5en.48xlarge from $36.18 to $41.61.
- •US West (N. California) saw higher p5e.48xlarge rates, from $43.26 to $49.75 per hour.
- •AWS says the adjustment reflects expected supply/demand patterns this quarter.
- •Earlier AWS “up to 45% reductions” applied to On-Demand/Savings Plans, not Capacity Blocks.