With an on-premises platform, scaling is always expensive, often wasteful and sometimes inadequate: You have to purchase additional compute, storage and networking capacity in anticipation of traffic spikes; much of that capacity sits idle during low-traffic periods, and none of it can be increased in time to accommodate unanticipated surges. With PaaS, you can purchase additional capacity, and start using it immediately, whenever you need it.

PaaS services provide a shared software development environment that allows development and operations teams access to all the tools they need, from any location with an internet connection.

Clearly PaaS reduces costs by enabling an organization to avoid capital equipment expense associated with building and scaling an application platform. But PaaS also can also reduce or eliminate software licensing costs. And by handling patches, updates and other administrative tasks, PaaS can reduce your overall application management costs.