AWS CloudWatch Pricing Calculator
Model log GB ingestion, retention storage, custom metrics, and alarms before observability becomes a top-5 AWS spend category. us-east-1 list pricing.
- No signup
- Instant results
- ~2 min
Read the full breakdown — Amazon CloudWatch Pricing covers billing dimensions, traps, and a 30-day cleanup plan.
Log volume profile
us-east-1list rates, pricing as of 2026-08-03. Logs ingest/storage, custom metrics, alarm types, Insights scan, optional OTLP + managed collector lines; optional free tier. Source: AWS public pricing.
us-east-1 rates (2026-08-03): $0.50/GB ingested, $0.03/GB-mo stored, $0.50/GB OTLP metrics when using managed collectors.
Cloud cost optimization ·Cloud cost rollup
CloudWatch Logs ingestion — application, VPC flow, and container logs.
Average GB stored during the month at $0.03/GB-mo.
Who This Tool Is For
SREs, platform engineers, and FinOps analysts who own CloudWatch Logs, Container Insights, or custom metric sprawl. When the Management & Governance line climbs without new services, logs and metrics are frequent culprits.
Why We Built This Tool
CloudWatch pricing spans ingestion, storage, custom metrics, alarms, query scan volume, and (since Jul 31, 2026) managed Prometheus collector-hours plus OTLP metric GB — each with different units. This calculator uses us-east-1 list pricing as of 2026-08-03 for the meters teams most often underestimate.
What Problem It Solves
- Log ingestion vs storage. Separate one-time ingest GB from retained GB-month storage.
- Custom metric count. Model the first-tier $0.30/metric rate explicitly.
- OTLP vs classic metrics. Optional managed-collector GB and collector-hour lines — see the July 2026 collectors post.
- Alarm inventory. Standard alarms at $0.10 each add up in microservices estates.
- Query cost. Logs Insights GB scanned is distinct from log ingestion.
See cloud cost optimization or the AWS Cloud Cost Calculator for account-wide rollups.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do these prices come from?
Amazon CloudWatch us-east-1 list prices as of 2026-08-03: $0.50/GB log ingestion, $0.03/GB-mo log storage, $0.30/custom metric (first 10,000 metrics tier), $0.10/standard alarm, $0.005/GB Logs Insights scanned, $0.50/GB OTLP metric ingestion, $0.04/managed collector-hour. Confirm on the AWS CloudWatch and AMP pricing pages.
Are free tiers included?
Optionally — enable Apply free tier (5 GB ingest, 10 metrics, 10 standard alarms). Composite/anomaly alarms and OTLP/collector lines are not free-tier eligible in this model.
What about Container Insights or Lambda logs?
They bill through the same CloudWatch Logs ingestion and storage meters — include their GB in your ingestion and storage sliders.
Do composite or anomaly alarms cost more?
Yes — choose Standard ($0.10), Anomaly ($0.30), or Composite ($0.50) under alarm type. Retention can also derive storage GB from ingest × days.
How do managed Prometheus collectors fit?
Since July 31, 2026, agentless scrapers can land metrics in CloudWatch via OTLP ($0.50/GB) plus collector-hour and samples-collected fees on the AMP CreateScraper surface. Use the OTLP and collector-hour sliders here, or the full cost CSV in the managed collectors blog post.
Higher custom metric tiers?
AWS reduces per-metric pricing above 10,000 metrics. This tool uses the $0.30/metric first-tier rate for simplicity — overestimate cost if you publish tens of thousands of metrics.
How accurate is this estimate?
Arithmetic matches published rates for your inputs. Missing items include metric API charges, dashboards, Contributor Insights, X-Ray, VPC transfer between collector ENIs and targets, and PromQL API query scans.