Why does egress cost so much here?

Cloud providers generally charge for data leaving their network (egress) but not for data coming in, which is exactly why moving data or workloads away later is expensive. It's also the line most quick estimates leave out entirely, which is why it's broken out separately here.

Should I commit to a 1- or 3-year term?

Only commit to the baseline capacity you're confident will run for the entire term — the calculator's own breakdown shows whether compute is even the line worth discounting. If storage or transfer dominates your bill instead, a compute commitment won't move the total much.

Are these AWS, Azure or Google Cloud prices?

Neither — the rates are illustrative planning figures derived from public list pricing across providers, stated in the data source below. Use this for the shape of the bill and relative comparisons, then confirm the actual number with your chosen provider's own calculator before committing budget.

Cloud Cost Calculator

Estimate monthly cloud spend across compute, storage and data transfer.

Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded.

Compute

Instances

Rate per hour

Hours per month

730 = always on

Storage and transfer

Storage provisioned

Charged whether used or not

Storage rate

£/GB

Monthly egress

Data leaving the provider

Egress rate

£/GB

Committed use

Where the money goes

Compute 78%
Storage 12%
Transfer 10%

The largest line is compute. A committed-use discount will meaningfully reduce this bill — but only commit to the baseline you are confident will run for the whole term.

Estimated monthly cost

£361

£4,330 per year

Compute£280

Storage£43

Data transfer£38

A planning envelope using illustrative rates, not a provider quotation. Excludes managed services, load balancers, backups and support.

How to use Cloud Cost Calculator

Enter your instance count, hourly rate and hours running per month under "Compute".
Enter provisioned storage and its rate, plus expected monthly data transfer out, under "Storage and transfer".
Choose a committed-use option if you're comparing on-demand pricing against a 1- or 3-year commitment.
Check "Where the money goes" to see which line — compute, storage or transfer — actually dominates your bill.

How this works

Cloud bills are the sum of several independently metered lines, and the one that surprises people is rarely compute. Compute is instance count × hourly rate × hours running. Storage is provisioned capacity × rate per GB-month, charged whether or not the space is used. Data transfer is charged on egress — data leaving the provider — while ingress is generally free, which is what makes moving away expensive. The tool applies a committed-use discount to compute only, since storage and egress are normally excluded from those commitments.

monthly = (instances × hourly rate × hours) + (GB stored × storage rate) + (GB egress × transfer rate)

Assumptions

Instances run for the hours you specify. A always-on month is treated as 730 hours.
Committed-use discounts apply to compute only, and assume you meet the commitment for the full term.
Egress is charged at a single blended rate. Real providers use tiered rates that fall with volume and vary sharply by destination region.
Excludes managed service premiums, load balancers, NAT gateways, snapshots, backups, support plans and licensing.
Rates are illustrative planning figures, not any provider's live price list.

Worked example

Four always-on instances at £0.096/hour, 2 TB of storage and 500 GB of monthly egress.

Compute: 4 × 730 h × £0.096
Storage: 2,048 GB × £0.021
Egress: 500 GB × £0.075
Result: About £361 per month

Compute is £280, storage £43, egress £38. A three-year committed-use discount of 40% on compute alone brings the total to about £249 — but only if those instances genuinely run for three years. Note that egress here costs nearly as much as storage, which is the line most estimates forget entirely.

How to read the result

Treat this as a planning envelope, not a quote — validate against your provider's own calculator before committing budget. The useful output is the shape of the bill rather than the total: if egress or storage dominates, buying compute discounts will not help. Commit only to the baseline you are confident will run for the whole term, and leave variable capacity on demand.

Limitations

Uses illustrative rates. Actual pricing varies by provider, region, instance family and negotiated agreement.
Does not model autoscaling, spot or preemptible capacity, or reserved-instance resale.
Excludes the managed services that dominate many real bills — databases, queues, observability and support.
Cross-region and cross-availability-zone transfer is charged separately and is not included.

Data source

Illustrative planning rates, derived from published list pricing across major providers.

Retrieved 27 August 2026 · last verified 27 August 2026

Frequently asked questions

Why does egress cost so much here?: Cloud providers generally charge for data leaving their network (egress) but not for data coming in, which is exactly why moving data or workloads away later is expensive. It's also the line most quick estimates leave out entirely, which is why it's broken out separately here.
Should I commit to a 1- or 3-year term?: Only commit to the baseline capacity you're confident will run for the entire term — the calculator's own breakdown shows whether compute is even the line worth discounting. If storage or transfer dominates your bill instead, a compute commitment won't move the total much.
Are these AWS, Azure or Google Cloud prices?: Neither — the rates are illustrative planning figures derived from public list pricing across providers, stated in the data source below. Use this for the shape of the bill and relative comparisons, then confirm the actual number with your chosen provider's own calculator before committing budget.