Cloud pricing term
What is Published, derived, scenario-required, and quote pricing?
Where To Deploy uses four price states to separate a vendor-printed amount, a reproducible calculation, a total that still needs workload inputs, and a vendor quote.
The expensive mistake
Turning a missing monthly total into zero lets the least complete offer win. Published does not mean complete, derived must show its formula, scenario-required must name the missing inputs, and quote must remain unpriced until the vendor supplies contract terms.
Where it appears on your bill
Published and derived states can produce a money line. Scenario-required resolves only after usage such as seats, runtime, storage, or requests is known. Quote resolves through a contract or order form.
Worked example
DigitalOcean publishes its Basic Droplet at $4. AWS t4g.nano is derived as $0.0042 x 730 = $3.066. Railway object storage stays scenario-required until stored GB-month is supplied, after which 100 x $0.015 = $1.50. Netlify Enterprise remains quote, so its public $500 starting point is a floor rather than an exact monthly total.
Example prices checked: