CloudWatch can outspend the app — estimate the stack before it does
Roll up logs, metrics, Insights, Container Insights, and Application Signals / X-Ray traces into one monthly number — and see what 7 / 30 / 90 day retention does to the bill. AMP ingest and AMG seats are out of scope.
- No signup
- Instant results
- ~3 min
Rates reviewed
Logs & metrics
us-east-1list rates, pricing as of 2026-07-22. Source: AWS public pricing.
Ingest is usually the largest CloudWatch line item.
Modeled at a higher effective rate than standard custom metrics.
Who This Tool Is For
DevOps and FinOps leads whose CloudWatch line item keeps climbing — or who are sizing observability before a launch.
Why We Built This Tool
Logs ingest at $0.50/GB dominates most stacks. Metrics, Insights scans, Container Insights, and Application Signals / X-Ray traces stack on top. This roll-up uses us-east-1 list rates as of 2026-07-22 so you can budget before the invoice. AMP ingest and AMG seats are not modeled here.
What Problem It Solves
- Logs share warning. Flagged when ingest+storage exceed ~60% of the stack.
- Retention what-if. 7 / 30 / 90 day totals side by side.
- More than CloudWatch metrics. Container Insights and Application Signals / X-Ray traces included.
- Free tier toggle. Model first-account vs established accounts.
Drill into the CloudWatch calculator, the AMG workspace guide for seats, or the security compliance stack for GuardDuty/Config roll-ups.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is log storage estimated?
Steady-state storage ≈ daily ingest × retention days. Actual storage depends on compression and how evenly ingest arrives.
What is the Container Insights rate?
A planning rate of $0.07 per node-hour for enhanced observability. Confirm current Container Insights pricing for your configuration.
How are Application Signals / X-Ray traces priced here?
Uses the classic X-Ray planning rate of $5.00 per million traces after the first 100,000 free traces per month (when free tier is enabled). Unified Application Signals / Transaction Search span pricing can differ — verify on the CloudWatch pricing page for your span volume.
Does this include AMP or Amazon Managed Grafana?
No. AMP ingest and AMG seats are out of scope. See the Amazon Managed Grafana 2026 guide and the observability-cost-model.csv artifact for those line items.
Are third-party APM tools included?
No — this models native AWS meters only. Datadog, New Relic, and similar are separate contracts.
Why do high-res metrics cost more in this model?
High-resolution custom metrics are billed at a higher effective rate; we apply a 3× multiplier on the standard custom-metric rate as a planning estimate.
How accurate is this?
Matches published CloudWatch list arithmetic for your inputs as of 2026-07-22. Cross-region, vended logs discounts, Application Signals span meters, and Contributor Insights API charges may differ.