Rex says
Money math without the spreadsheet headache. Plug in your numbers and I'll show you exactly where the dollars land.
Try a scenario
Click to load — tweak from there.Inputs
Result
Total monthly cost
$85.08
Cost per instance
$85.08
Compute portion
$70.08
Storage portion
$10.00
Annualized cost
$1,020.96
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How to use this
- 1Enter instance hourly rate ($).
- 2Enter uptime percentage (%).
- 3Enter attached storage (GB).
- 4Enter storage rate ($/GB-mo).
- 5Enter ip, snapshots, other extras ($/mo).
- 6Enter number of instances.
- 7Read your total monthly cost on the right — it updates as you type.
- 8Hit Share to keep the scenario or send it to someone.
About this calculator
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.
Worked example
Using the values the calculator loads with:
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
Results
- Total monthly cost: $85.08
- Cost per instance: $85.08
- Compute portion: $70.08
- Storage portion: $10.00
- Annualized cost: $1,020.96
What each field means
Inputs
- Instance hourly rate ($)
- The instance hourly rate used in the calculation, measured in $. Starts at 0.096 $ so you have a working example on load.
- Uptime percentage (%)
- The uptime percentage used in the calculation, measured in %. Starts at 100 % so you have a working example on load. Accepted range: 1–100 %.
- Attached storage (GB)
- The attached storage used in the calculation, measured in GB. Starts at 100 GB so you have a working example on load.
- Storage rate ($/GB-mo)
- The storage rate used in the calculation, measured in $/GB-mo. Starts at 0.1 $/GB-mo so you have a working example on load.
- IP, snapshots, other extras ($/mo)
- The ip, snapshots, other extras used in the calculation, measured in $/mo. Starts at 5 $/mo so you have a working example on load.
- Number of instances
- The number of instances used in the calculation. Starts at 1 so you have a working example on load.
Results
- Total monthly cost
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars and shown as the headline result. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Cost per instance
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Compute portion
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Storage portion
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Annualized cost
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
FAQ
Why use 730 hours instead of 720 or 744?
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.
Does stopping a VM overnight actually save money?
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.
How much do reserved or savings-plan discounts change this?
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.
Accuracy and 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.
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Cite this calculator
Writing about this topic? Grab a citation — every link helps keep these tools free.
RevenueLab. (2026). Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator. Retrieved from https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vm-monthly-cost
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vm-monthly-cost" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator — RevenueLab</a> (2026).</p>
Source: [Cloud VM Monthly Cost Calculator — RevenueLab](https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/cloud-vm-monthly-cost) (2026).