Free tool

CloudWatch cost calculator

CloudWatch is four meters wearing one console: you pay to put log data in, again to keep it, again every time you query it, and separately for every custom metric you publish. This calculator prices all four so you can see which one is actually taking your money — no signup, no email, nothing leaves your browser.

Your CloudWatch usage

GB / month

Raw volume written to CloudWatch Logs. In the console this is the IncomingBytes metric, summed across your log groups.

Infrequent Access halves the ingestion rate, but drops Live Tail, metric filters, and subscription filters.

A log group created without an explicit retention setting never expires. Never expire is priced here as 12 months of accumulated logs — it keeps growing after that.

metrics

Metrics you publish yourself via PutMetricData, EMF, or the CloudWatch agent. AWS's own service metrics are free.

queries / month

Every run is billed, including the ones a dashboard refresh fires on your behalf.

GB / query

Driven by the query's time range, not by how many rows come back. Narrowing the range is what makes queries cheaper.

Estimated monthly cost

$126.80/ month

$1,522 a year at this usage.

Estimated monthly CloudWatch cost, itemised by meter
MeterCostShare
Log ingestion200 GB × $0.50/GB$100.0079%
Log storage360 GB compressed × $0.03/GB-month$10.809%
Logs Insights queries200 GB scanned × $0.005/GB$1.001%
Custom metrics50 metrics, tiered per metric/month$15.0012%
Total$126.80100%

Log ingestion is your biggest meter at 79% of the bill. Deleting old logs only touches the storage line — the meter charging you the most keeps running.

  • Moving these logs to the Infrequent Access class saves $50.00 a month.
  • Cutting retention to 30 days saves $9.91 a month — and nothing on the ingestion you have already paid for.

Storage assumes AWS compresses archived logs to roughly 15% of ingested volume. These are estimates — check your own bill before acting on them.

Find the log groups doing this to you

This calculator prices usage you already know about. Parsivex connects read-only to your AWS account and finds the log groups with no retention set, alongside the rest of the waste — idle instances, orphaned volumes, unattached IPs.

Run a free waste scanWhat Parsivex flags →

No credit card. The calculator itself needs no account at all — nothing you type into it leaves your browser.

What each CloudWatch meter charges for

Ingestion
Charged once per GB as events arrive. This is usually the largest line by a wide margin, and it is the one people forget exists.
Storage
Charged monthly on the compressed bytes AWS keeps. Cheap per GB, but it never stops once a log group has no retention set.
Queries
Logs Insights bills per GB scanned, on every run — including the runs a dashboard refresh fires for you.
Custom metrics
Charged per metric per month, tiered. Every unique dimension combination you publish is its own metric.

The reason the split matters: most people assume storage dominates, so they delete old logs and are disappointed by the saving. Why is CloudWatch so expensive? walks through where the money actually goes, how to find the log groups responsible, and what to change first.

Rates and assumptions

Prices are US East (N. Virginia) on-demand list rates, last checked 2026-08-12 against the AWS CloudWatch pricing page.

  • Rates are US East (N. Virginia) on-demand list prices. Other regions differ, and private pricing agreements differ more.
  • Storage is billed on compressed archived data — the calculator assumes AWS compresses logs to about 15% of ingested volume, which varies with how repetitive your log lines are.
  • "Never expire" has no steady state, so it is priced as 12 months of accumulated logs. Leave it set and that figure keeps climbing.
  • Volume discounts on vended logs (VPC flow logs, Route 53 query logs) are not modelled, so very high-volume accounts will see a lower real bill.
  • Alarms, dashboards, Live Tail, Contributor Insights, canaries, and data transfer are out of scope.

Questions

Why is CloudWatch ingestion more expensive than log storage?
Ingesting a gigabyte of logs costs $0.50, while storing that gigabyte for a month costs $0.03 on the compressed size. Ingestion is charged once, at full volume, the moment the data arrives; storage is charged on a much smaller compressed footprint. For most accounts that makes ingestion the dominant line, which is why deleting old logs saves far less than people expect.
Does setting log retention reduce my CloudWatch bill?
It reduces the storage line only, and only going forward. Retention prunes events past the window, but the ingestion charge for those events was paid when they arrived and is not refunded. Setting retention is still worth doing — it stops an open-ended monthly annuity — but the meter to attack for real savings is ingestion.
Are these CloudWatch prices accurate for my AWS region?
The calculator uses US East (N. Virginia) on-demand list prices. Rates vary by region and log class, tiered discounts apply to vended logs at volume, and AWS changes prices. Treat the result as an estimate and confirm against the AWS CloudWatch pricing page and your own bill before building a business case on it.
Does this calculator send my numbers to Parsivex?
No. The whole calculation runs in your browser. There is no signup, no email gate, and no request carrying the values you type. You can use it with the network tab open and read the page source to confirm.

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