TCO Calculator — On-Prem vs Cloud

The infrastructure decision that's hardest to justify to management with a gut feeling. This runs the actual multi-year math, including the costs that get left out of quick comparisons — hardware refresh cycles, power and cooling, and staff time.

Comparison period (years)

On-prem costs

Hardware cost per refresh ($)

Hardware refresh cycle (years)

Power & cooling ($/month)

Staff/admin time ($/month)

Support/maintenance contract ($/year)

Cloud costs

Equivalent cloud cost ($/month)

Use your Cloud VM Cost Calculator result here for an apples-to-apples comparison.

Annual cost growth (%)

Account for data growth, feature adoption, or price increases over time.

Total on-prem cost

Total cloud cost

Cumulative cost by year

	On-prem	Cloud

On-prem numbers often look artificially cheap because staff time and power/cooling get left out of the comparison — they're included here on purpose. Cloud numbers often look artificially expensive without factoring in reserved-instance discounts; run your numbers through the Cloud Cost Calculator's reserved-vs-on-demand tab first if you're comparing against a committed cloud spend.

Fill in both sides and press Calculate TCO.