AWS EC2 Cost Calculator
Enter your instance's current hourly rate from the AWS Pricing Calculator — AWS pricing varies by instance type and region and changes over time. The $0.10/GB-month EBS rate is only an illustrative default.
EC2's Two Meters: Compute Time and Attached Storage
An EC2 instance bills on an hourly (or per-second) rate tied to its instance type, but that's rarely the whole story — most instances also carry an attached EBS volume, billed separately by the gigabyte-month. Forgetting the storage line item is a common way teams underestimate their real EC2 spend. This calculator combines both meters into one estimate.
The Formula
Compute cost and storage cost are calculated independently, then added. If no EBS rate is supplied, the calculator falls back to an illustrative $0.10/GB-month placeholder so the calculation still runs — but that figure is explicitly flagged as a rough default, not a live AWS rate.
Where This Estimate Is Useful
- Sizing a new workload — before launching an instance type, estimating what a month of continuous or partial-month usage will cost, including its attached storage.
- Comparing instance families — running the same hours and storage assumption across different hourly rates to compare compute options side by side.
- Reserved vs. on-demand planning — plugging in a reserved-instance discounted rate versus the on-demand rate to see the monthly delta before committing to a term.
- Catching runaway dev/test instances — multiplying an hourly rate by 730 hours (a full month left running) makes the cost of "forgetting to shut it down" concrete.
Illustrative Worked Example
| Item | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Compute (at an example $0.05/hr rate) | $0.05 × 730 hr | $36.50 |
| EBS storage (at an example $0.10/GB-month rate) | 100 GB × $0.10/GB | $10.00 |
| Total | $46.50 |
The $0.05/hr and $0.10/GB figures above are placeholder example numbers, not current AWS pricing. Look up your instance type's actual hourly rate and your EBS volume type's actual GB-month rate on the AWS Pricing Calculator, since both vary by instance family, EBS volume type, and region, and change over time.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the EC2 Instance Hourly Rate for your instance type.
- Enter Hours Run per Month (up to 744, a full 31-day month).
- Optionally enter EBS Storage (GB) attached to the instance.
- Optionally enter your actual EBS Rate ($/GB-month) — if left blank, an illustrative $0.10/GB-month default is used.
- Select Calculate for the estimated total monthly cost.
Related Calculations
Running the numbers for a different cloud provider? See the Azure VM Cost Calculator, or estimate a workload that also involves data transfer with the Cloud Cost Calculator.