AWS CloudTrail Pricing Calculator
Compare management vs data events, Lake ingestion, and Insights — see why wildcard S3 selectors blow up the bill.
- No signup
- Instant results
- ~2 min
Rates reviewed
Read the full breakdown — AWS CloudTrail Pricing covers billing dimensions, traps, and a 30-day cleanup plan.
Which billing dimensions apply?
us-east-1list rates, pricing as of 2026-06-26. First management-event trail per account is free. S3 log storage billed separately at S3 rates. Source: AWS public pricing.
Who This Tool Is For
Security and FinOps teams governing audit logging across multi-account AWS Organizations.
Why We Built This Tool
Management events are free on the first trail — but data events on busy S3 buckets and CloudTrail Lake ingestion routinely push CloudTrail from near-zero to five figures.
What Problem It Solves
- Wildcard data events. Every S3 GetObject on a CDN origin bucket at $0.10/100K adds up fast.
- Duplicate trails. Additional trails re-bill management events at $2.00/100K.
- Lake premium. Lake ingestion at $2.50/GB is ~100× S3 Standard storage for the same events.
Read the CloudTrail pricing deep-dive or explore cloud security services.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are management events really free?
For the first copy per account. The first trail capturing management events is free. Additional trails billing the same events cost $2.00 per 100K events.
Why are data events so expensive?
Data events capture every S3 GetObject/PutObject, Lambda Invoke, and DynamoDB operation at $0.10 per 100K. A bucket with 100M GETs/month adds $100 from data events alone.
What is CloudTrail Lake and when should I use it?
Lake is a managed event store with SQL queries. Ingestion is $2.50/GB — far more than S3 + Athena. Use Lake when integrated retention and SQL convenience justify the premium.
How does Insights pricing work?
Insights analyzes management events for anomalies at $0.35 per 100K events analyzed — not per Insight emitted. Worth it on security-critical accounts; skip on sandboxes.
What is the cheapest way to query CloudTrail logs?
CloudTrail to S3 + Athena at $5/TB scanned. Partition your S3 bucket and use the Athena Pricing Calculator to model query cost.
Should I use organization trails?
Yes for orgs above ~5 accounts. Pricing is the same per account, but one configuration point prevents per-account drift and duplicate trails.