Disclosed are approaches for pre-provisioning cloud computing resources such as virtual machines (VMs) in order to achieve faster and more consistent provisioning times. Embodiments describe approaches to generate a pre-provisioned pool of virtual machines that are utilized when one or more consumers start to initiate a large volume of requests. In typical embodiments, a selection of an operating system to be associated with a VM is received in a computer data structure. A provisioning of the VM will then be initiated based on the selection of the operating system. Thereafter, at least one selection of at least one software program to be associated with the VM will be received in the computer data structure. The provisioning of the VM can then be completed based on the at least one selection of the at least one software program in response to a provisioning request received in the computer data structure.