AWS Infrastructure Monthly Cost Estimator
Compute (EC2)
(730 hours = 24/7 coverage)Storage (S3)
Standard S3: ~$0.023/GBDatabase (RDS)
Data Transfer
Understanding AWS Pricing Factors
Amazon Web Services (AWS) operates primarily on a "pay-as-you-go" pricing model. While this provides immense flexibility, it can lead to "bill shock" if resources are not monitored correctly. This calculator helps you estimate the core costs associated with running a standard web application on AWS.
1. Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
EC2 instances are the virtual servers where your applications live. Pricing depends on the instance family (e.g., T3, M5, C5), the region, and whether you use On-Demand, Reserved Instances, or Spot Instances. For this calculation, we use 730 hours as a standard month (30.4 days).
2. Simple Storage Service (S3)
S3 cost is calculated based on the volume of data stored (per GB) and the storage class. Standard storage is the most common for frequently accessed data, while Glacier is cheaper but used for long-term archiving.
3. Relational Database Service (RDS)
RDS handles your structured data. Like EC2, you pay for the instance type and the amount of provisioned storage (EBS) attached to that database. Multi-AZ deployments for high availability typically double the cost.
4. Data Transfer
A common mistake in AWS budgeting is ignoring data transfer. While data coming *into* AWS is generally free, data transferred *out* to the internet is charged per GB after the first free tier tier. This can vary significantly if you are serving large media files directly from EC2/S3.
Realistic Example Scenario
Imagine a small startup running a web app:
- EC2: 2 x t3.medium instances (approx. $0.0416/hr) = ~$60.73/mo
- RDS: 1 x db.t3.micro (approx. $0.017/hr) + 20GB storage = ~$14.41/mo
- S3: 50GB of user uploads = ~$1.15/mo
- Data Transfer: 100GB out = ~$9.00/mo
- Total: Approximately $85.29 per month.