The calculator itself is very reliable. The issue is you don't know what you don't know until you've run a few workloads in AWS and seen the kind of hidden costs that you will run into. So I'd say your colleague is incorrect on the first part of their statement, but probably 100% correct on their second part. If you tell us which components you've priced, we can give some idea of what bits you might have missed. My personal experience is to budget 20-40% on top of the "common" components that are obvious (e.g. compute, storage, database) in the calculator, but others probably have different experiences. Answer from Advanced_Bid3576 on reddit.com
AWS
calculator.aws
AWS Pricing Calculator
AWS Pricing Calculator lets you explore AWS services, and create an estimate for the cost of your use cases on AWS.
Amazon Web Services
aws.amazon.com › products › cloud financial management › aws pricing calculator
AWS Pricing Calculator - AWS
8 hours ago - AWS Pricing Calculator lets you create scenarios for new workloads or changes to existing workloads to get an estimated cost inclusive of discounts and purchase commitments. Get started by using the Billing and Cost Management console or access programmatically an available API to define the ...
Videos
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AWS Pricing Calculator - YouTube
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How to Estimate AWS Costs with the AWS Pricing Calculator | Tutorial ...
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How can I estimate how much my AWS resources will cost? - YouTube
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How to use the new pricing calculator | The Keys to AWS Optimization ...
How reliable is the AWS Pricing Calculator?
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May 19, 2025Help about the AWS Pricing Calculator
Dedicated should be selected when you want to run on hardware that only hosts your instances and nothing else. This is usually for regulatory or license compliance. If you don't need this, definitely disable Dedicated. If you want to use 100% of the hardware (CPU), then T instances probably aren't your best bet. There's a rather complex system of credits that grant you access to the full CPU, otherwise you are guaranteed a baseline of performance (usually around 20%). You can enable Unlimited mode, but you pay extra for the cpu credits. If you want them to run flat out for extended periods of time, bump up to the M or C class instances. Check out Unlimited Mode Concepts to find the break-even point. Finally, if using spot, you need the workload to withstand interruption with a 2 min warning. This is generally pretty easy with web workers, but something to keep in mind. I once saw someone build a webapp with a 5 min warm up period, but try to run on spot. The performance was horrid when the region was highly contested with a lot of interruptions. More on reddit.com
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April 18, 2023amazon web services - Is there any API available for AWS Pricing Calculator - Stack Overflow
There is no API for the AWS Pricing Calculator. There is an AWS Price List API that can provide pricing for individual resources, but you would then need to multiply the individual costs based upon intended usage (eg 12 hours @ $0.10 per hour). More on stackoverflow.com
An AWS Savings Plans Calculator
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December 2, 2021AWS
docs.aws.amazon.com › aws pricing calculator › user guide › getting started
Getting started - AWS Pricing Calculator
Learn about hpw the AWS Pricing Calculator console consists of four major pages: Landing, Add Service, Configure Service, and My Estimate, allowing you to create and configure cost estimates for AWS services based on your use cases.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › how reliable is the aws pricing calculator?
r/aws on Reddit: How reliable is the AWS Pricing Calculator?
May 19, 2025 -
I'm looking into AWS for a small business client who is overpaying for his Azure cloud solution.
I've created an estimate via calculator.aws, and the price seems very low. Like, "too good to be true" low. Not to mention that the Windows Server license is apparently included in the cost.
With that being said, a former colleague of mine told me that the AWS Pricing Calculator is unreliable and that the true cost will end up surpassing the estimate.
Is this really the case, or can I rely on the estimate provided by AWS' tool?
Top answer 1 of 10
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The calculator itself is very reliable. The issue is you don't know what you don't know until you've run a few workloads in AWS and seen the kind of hidden costs that you will run into. So I'd say your colleague is incorrect on the first part of their statement, but probably 100% correct on their second part. If you tell us which components you've priced, we can give some idea of what bits you might have missed. My personal experience is to budget 20-40% on top of the "common" components that are obvious (e.g. compute, storage, database) in the calculator, but others probably have different experiences.
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It’s not unreliable. However, you do need to ensure that you’re actually accounting for all the different costs for your architecture. For example with an EC2 instance, you probably don’t just have an EC2 instance. You have an instance, the storage in EBS, the cost for a public IP (if applicable) the cost for data transfer, etc. So you do have to be careful in creating your estimates
UIC Help Center
help.uillinois.edu › TDClient › 37 › uic › KB › ArticleDet
How can I estimate the costs of using Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
The AWS Pricing Calculator is a web-based planning tool that you can use to create estimates for your AWS use cases. You can use it to model your solutions before building them, explore the AWS service price points, and review the calculations ...
Spot.io
spot.io › home › aws cost optimization › aws pricing calculator: calculate aws costs like the pros
AWS Pricing Calculator: Calculate AWS Costs Like the Pros | Spot.io
August 20, 2024 - Here are key advantages of the AWS Pricing Calculator: Model a cloud use case before building it. Explore specific price points and the calculations related to each estimate.
Holori
holori.com › accueil › ultimate aws pricing calculator
Holori - Ultimate AWS pricing calculator
September 25, 2024 - Holori's AWS pricing calculator helps you select AWS instance types and estimate EC2 costs, S3 costs... and better understand AWS pricing structure
Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › help about the aws pricing calculator
r/aws on Reddit: Help about the AWS Pricing Calculator
April 18, 2023 -
I would like to understand which are the best options for my potential use case.
I would like to be able to run up to 100 Ubuntu VMs at the same time, each one with 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB of memory and 64 GB of storage.
By using the AWS pricing calculator, I am selecting the following options:
Region Europe
EC2 Tenacy: Dedicated Instances? The 100 VMs do not have to run always at the same time, 24/7, but I can predict that they will be running during the workweek when there will be spikes of 100 VMs being used at the 100% of the available hardware. That is why I am opting for "Dedicated instances", please correct me if I am wrong.
Workloads: Daily Spike Traffic -> Workload days = Workdays
Baseline: 1
Peak: 100
Duration: 8h 30min
t3.medium (2 vCPUs, 4 GiB)
And then I select "Spot Instances" (The historical average discount for t3.medium is 67%)
The result is:
Instance: 0.0513/Hour
Monthly: 318.33/Month
Spot discount: 67/100 = 0.67
Pricing calculations
On-Demand instance hours: 18804
On-Demand instances hours x 0.0513 USD = 964.646021 USD 964.646021 USD - (964.646021 USD x 0.67) = 318.333187 USD
Dedicated Per Region Fee: 730 hours x 2 USD = 1460. USD
Spot instances (monthly): 1778.333187 USD
Is my reasoning correct about the selected options?
Top answer 1 of 2
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Dedicated should be selected when you want to run on hardware that only hosts your instances and nothing else. This is usually for regulatory or license compliance. If you don't need this, definitely disable Dedicated. If you want to use 100% of the hardware (CPU), then T instances probably aren't your best bet. There's a rather complex system of credits that grant you access to the full CPU, otherwise you are guaranteed a baseline of performance (usually around 20%). You can enable Unlimited mode, but you pay extra for the cpu credits. If you want them to run flat out for extended periods of time, bump up to the M or C class instances. Check out Unlimited Mode Concepts to find the break-even point. Finally, if using spot, you need the workload to withstand interruption with a 2 min warning. This is generally pretty easy with web workers, but something to keep in mind. I once saw someone build a webapp with a 5 min warm up period, but try to run on spot. The performance was horrid when the region was highly contested with a lot of interruptions.
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How long are the processes running at a time? Is it something that can be broken up into 15 minutes (or less) increments? Are you locked in to using EC2? Or do you just need some compute?
Google Cloud
cloud.google.com › products › calculator
Google Cloud Pricing Calculator
Create your own Custom Price Quote for the products offered through Google Cloud based on number, usage, and power of servers
MongoDB
mongodb.com › pricing
Pricing | MongoDB
Cloud provider and region: Costs vary slightly across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, and between different geographic regions.
NetApp
netapp.com › home
Enterprise data storage leader | NetApp
2 weeks ago - The only enterprise-grade storage service that's embedded into the major public cloud providers, NetApp turns disruption into opportunity with intelligent data infrastructure for any data, any workload, and any environment.
Top answer 1 of 2
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There is no API for the AWS Pricing Calculator.
There is an AWS Price List API that can provide pricing for individual resources, but you would then need to multiply the individual costs based upon intended usage (eg 12 hours @ $0.10 per hour).
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While the pricing calculator docs still say that no API exists, it's worth noting their does seem to be an SDK. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/v3/latest/client/bcm-pricing-calculator/
Artjoker
artjoker.net › blog › 5 calculators to help you figure out aws pricing
5 Calculators to Help You Figure Out AWS Pricing – Artjoker
March 21, 2025 - The calculator gives you an exportable CSV file with a breakdown of your estimated monthly bill. The monthly breakdown features expandable lines showing the cost breakdown for each subset of distinct AWS services.
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Miro
help.miro.com › hc › en-us › articles › 15223376381074-AWS-Cost-Calculator
AWS Cost Calculator – Miro Help Center
3 weeks ago - After editing all icons, click Calculate to see your total AWS costs. To better understand your costs, use the top tabs and dropdown menu to filter costs by time frame (Hour, Month, Year) and Region. ... Be specific: The more details you provide, the more accurate your cost estimate will be. Review regularly: AWS prices ...
Amazon S3
s3.amazonaws.com › lambda-tools › pricing-calculator.html
AWS Lambda Pricing Calculator
The AWS Lambda pricing calculator helps determine the total cost executing Lambda functions per month.
Bell Blaze Blogs
blogs.bellblazetech.com › home › aws pricing calculator: a step-by-step guide to build a scalable cloud cost estimation tool
AWS Pricing Calculator: A Step-by-Step Guide to Build a Scalable Cloud Cost Estimation Tool - Bell Blaze Blogs
July 30, 2025 - Calling the AWS Pricing API to calculate cost for EC2 instances, storage (SSD, HDD), and database engines (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.). Returning detailed pricing data to the caller Lambda function (Extract Lambda Function or Chatbot Lambda Function). Chatbot Lambda Function- This function powers the backend of the AI-driven Price BOT chatbot.
CloudZero
cloudzero.com › home › blog › aws cost explorer vs. pricing calculator: how to estimate costs
AWS Cost Explorer Vs. Pricing Calculator: How To Estimate Costs
August 8, 2024 - The AWS Pricing Calculator provides a detailed breakdown of prices for different AWS services, allows you to create cost estimates for complex architectures, and includes options for different configurations and service combinations.
Cloudforecast
cloudforecast.io › home › aws pricing & cost optimization › aws pricing calculator 2025 guide
AWS Pricing Calculator 2025 Guide
February 25, 2025 - Enter: the AWS Pricing Calculator. This is your trusty sidekick to estimate project costs in minutes. This is the Swiss army knife of AWS budgeting tools, with support for most services, cloud providers and configuration settings.
Stratus10
stratus10.com › blog › aws-cost-calculator
AWS Cost Calculator: A Quick Guide to Estimating Your Cloud Costs
The AWS Pricing Calculator is an indispensable tool for anyone using AWS services. This free, web based console-based tool helps you generate cost estimates for a wide range of AWS services, making it easier to plan and manage budgets.