{
  "slug": "cloud-vm-monthly-cost",
  "title": "Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator",
  "heading": "Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator",
  "category": "financial",
  "url": "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vm-monthly-cost",
  "summary": "Estimate the true monthly bill for a running virtual machine.",
  "description": "Cloud providers quote compute in hourly or per-second increments, but budgets are built in months. This tool takes an hourly instance rate, adds attached block storage billed per GB-month, adds a public IP or load balancer fee, and applies your expected uptime percentage so you get a realistic monthly number instead of the sticker price for 24/7 usage. It also separates the always-on cost from the storage cost since storage keeps billing even when the instance is stopped. Use it when sizing a dev, staging, or production box, or when comparing a quoted hourly rate across AWS EC2, GCP Compute Engine, and Azure VMs on an apples-to-apples monthly basis. The uptime input matters most for non-production environments — a dev box that only runs 10 hours a day on weekdays costs roughly 30% of a 24/7 box, and that gap is where most unnecessary cloud spend hides.",
  "formula": "Monthly compute = hourly rate × 730 × uptime%; storage cost = GB × $/GB-month; total = compute + storage + extras.",
  "dateModified": "2026-09-30",
  "run_url": "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/api/public/calc?tool=cloud-vm-monthly-cost",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "hourlyRate",
      "label": "Instance hourly rate",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 0.096,
      "unit": "$",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "uptime",
      "label": "Uptime percentage",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 100,
      "unit": "%",
      "min": 1,
      "max": 100
    },
    {
      "id": "storageGb",
      "label": "Attached storage",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 100,
      "unit": "GB",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "storageRate",
      "label": "Storage rate",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 0.1,
      "unit": "$/GB-mo",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "extras",
      "label": "IP, snapshots, other extras",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 5,
      "unit": "$/mo",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "count",
      "label": "Number of instances",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 1,
      "unit": null,
      "min": 1,
      "max": null
    }
  ],
  "outputs": [
    {
      "id": "total",
      "label": "Total monthly cost",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": true
    },
    {
      "id": "perInstance",
      "label": "Cost per instance",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "compute",
      "label": "Compute portion",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "storage",
      "label": "Storage portion",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "annual",
      "label": "Annualized cost",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    }
  ],
  "worked_example": {
    "inputs": [
      "Instance hourly rate: 0.096 $",
      "Uptime percentage: 100 %",
      "Attached storage: 100 GB",
      "Storage rate: 0.1 $/GB-mo",
      "IP, snapshots, other extras: 5 $/mo",
      "Number of instances: 1"
    ],
    "outputs": [
      "Total monthly cost: $85.08",
      "Cost per instance: $85.08",
      "Compute portion: $70.08",
      "Storage portion: $10.00",
      "Annualized cost: $1,020.96"
    ]
  },
  "how_to": {
    "title": "How to use this",
    "steps": [
      "Enter instance hourly rate ($).",
      "Enter uptime percentage (%).",
      "Enter attached storage (GB).",
      "Enter storage rate ($/GB-mo).",
      "Enter ip, snapshots, other extras ($/mo).",
      "Enter number of instances.",
      "Read your total monthly cost on the right — it updates as you type.",
      "Hit Share to keep the scenario or send it to someone."
    ]
  },
  "scenarios": [
    {
      "name": "Conservative",
      "description": "Lower-end numbers — what if things land soft?",
      "values": {
        "hourlyRate": 0.0576,
        "uptime": 60,
        "storageGb": 60,
        "storageRate": 0.06,
        "extras": 3,
        "count": 1
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Typical",
      "description": "Defaults — the most common real-world setup.",
      "values": {
        "hourlyRate": 0.096,
        "uptime": 100,
        "storageGb": 100,
        "storageRate": 0.1,
        "extras": 5,
        "count": 1
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Ambitious",
      "description": "Higher-end numbers — what if things really pop?",
      "values": {
        "hourlyRate": 0.15360000000000001,
        "uptime": 100,
        "storageGb": 160,
        "storageRate": 0.16000000000000003,
        "extras": 8,
        "count": 2
      }
    }
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Results are estimates before tax, fees, and inflation unless an input explicitly covers them.",
    "Rates are treated as fixed for the whole period — variable-rate products will drift from this projection.",
    "This is educational maths, not financial advice. Check anything contractual with the lender or your accountant."
  ],
  "faq": [
    {
      "q": "Why use 730 hours instead of 720 or 744?",
      "a": "730 is the average hours in a month (8,760 hours per year ÷ 12) and is what AWS, GCP, and Azure use in their own pricing calculators. Using 730 keeps your estimate consistent with the vendor's own published monthly rates, avoiding a few dollars of drift per instance that adds up across a fleet."
    },
    {
      "q": "Does stopping a VM overnight actually save money?",
      "a": "Yes, for compute — you stop paying the hourly rate the moment the instance is stopped, not just idled. But attached block storage (EBS, Persistent Disk) keeps billing 24/7 regardless of instance state, which is why this calculator splits the two. A dev instance stopped nights and weekends can cut compute cost by roughly 65% while storage cost stays flat."
    },
    {
      "q": "How much do reserved or savings-plan discounts change this?",
      "a": "Reserved instances and savings plans typically cut the hourly rate 30-50% for a 1-year commitment and up to 60-72% for 3-year, in exchange for locking in usage. Run this calculator with your on-demand rate first, then again with the discounted rate to see the monthly delta before committing."
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/reserved-vs-on-demand-savings",
    "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vs-colo-tco",
    "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/kubernetes-node-bin-packing"
  ],
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "citation": "RevenueLab — Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator (https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vm-monthly-cost)"
}