Cloud Cost Calculator
Enter your cloud provider's current rates — pricing varies by provider, region, and changes over time.
Three Line Items, One Monthly Bill
A cloud invoice is rarely just compute. A typical workload accrues charges from the running instance itself, from the storage attached to it, and from data moving out to the internet or between regions — three separate meters, each billed at its own rate. This calculator adds all three together the same way a cloud provider's billing system does, so you get a realistic monthly total instead of just the headline compute cost.
The Formula
Each of the three terms is computed independently — compute cost from hourly rate and hours run, storage cost from gigabytes held and the per-GB monthly rate, and transfer cost from gigabytes moved and the per-GB transfer rate — then summed into one total.
Where a Combined Estimate Matters
- Pre-deployment budgeting — sizing the full monthly cost of a workload before provisioning it, rather than discovering the storage and transfer charges only once the first invoice arrives.
- Comparing providers on equal footing — providers structure compute, storage, and egress pricing differently, so totaling all three for a specific workload is a fairer comparison than comparing instance rates alone.
- Spotting the real cost driver — a data-heavy application can rack up more in egress transfer fees than in compute, which only becomes visible when all three line items sit side by side.
- Scaling projections — re-running the same formula at higher hours, storage, or transfer volumes shows how cost scales as a workload grows.
Illustrative Worked Example
Using placeholder rates entered by the user, not any specific provider's published pricing:
| Line Item | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | $0.10 × 730 hr | $73.00 |
| Storage | 200 GB × $0.023/GB | $4.60 |
| Transfer | 50 GB × $0.09/GB | $4.50 |
| Total | $82.10 |
These rates are illustrative placeholders for demonstrating the arithmetic only. Compute, storage, and transfer pricing vary by provider, instance type, region, and change over time — look up your provider's current published rates before budgeting against this figure.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the Instance Rate ($/hour) and Hours Used per Month.
- Enter Storage (GB) and its Storage Rate ($/GB-month).
- Enter Data Transfer (GB) and its Transfer Rate ($/GB).
- Select Calculate for the combined estimated monthly cost.
Related Calculations
Pricing a specific provider's instance type instead? Try the AWS EC2 Cost Calculator, the Azure VM Cost Calculator, or the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.