How to use the AWS pricing calculator?
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AWS, or Amazon Web Services, is a platform that encompasses various services and solutions that can enhance and lead a business tech product to success, all with different application costs. To help understand this, there's the AWS Pricing Calculator.
What is the AWS Pricing Calculator?
The AWS Pricing Calculator is a free web tool that allows users to estimate the monthly costs of using AWS services like EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, among others. It is designed for both new users and advanced customers who need to plan budgets or assess the financial impact of new architectures.
With this calculator, you can customize the usage of each service based on your project’s needs, allowing you to forecast estimated expenses and optimize resources from the start.
How to access the AWS Pricing Calculator?
To get started, simply visit the official calculator site: https://calculator.aws.amazon.com. You don’t need an AWS account to use it, which makes it very accessible even during the research or early planning stages.
Steps to use the AWS Pricing Calculator
1. Select the services you need
Once inside the tool, you can start adding the services you want to estimate. For example, if you need EC2 instances, click “Create estimate” and then select “Amazon EC2”.
2. Configure service parameters
Each service has configurable parameters, such as:
- Geographic region
- Instance type
- Storage capacity
- Estimated network traffic
- Monthly usage hours
It is crucial to be as accurate as possible when entering these values to obtain a realistic estimate.
3. Add more services if needed
You can continue adding other services like databases (Amazon RDS), storage (Amazon S3), or serverless services (AWS Lambda), and the calculator will compile all costs into a single view.
4. Review the cost summary
The calculator generates a detailed summary of the estimated cost per service and a total monthly cost. It also allows you to download a PDF of the estimate or share it via a link.
Advantages of using the AWS Pricing Calculator
- Transparency: See exactly where your money is going.
- Financial planning: Ideal for budgeting and project proposals.
- Scenario comparison: Evaluate different architectural approaches before implementing.
- No account needed: Freely accessible for everyone.
Tips for using the calculator efficiently
At Rootstack, as experts in development and cloud solutions, we recommend:
- Clearly identifying the resources required by the project.
- Considering expected growth to plan for scalability.
- Consulting with an AWS partner to validate complex estimates.
- Regularly updating estimates if the project changes.
Practical use cases
Let’s suppose a Panamanian startup wants to launch a mobile app that will require a database, media file storage, and backend functions. With the AWS Pricing Calculator, they can estimate the cost of operating with services like EC2, RDS, and S3, adjusting to the expected monthly demand and setting a budget from day one.
The AWS Pricing Calculator is an indispensable tool for any company that wants full control over its cloud investment. From startups to large corporations, understanding cloud-related costs is key to efficient and profitable operations.
At Rootstack, we support our clients in every stage of the cloud adoption process. As experts and partners in AWS technologies, we help you plan, estimate, and execute your project using the best practices in the market.