Technology and AI

Cloud cost estimator

Estimate the monthly cost of cloud email, office apps, servers, storage and backup.

Get an indicative monthly and yearly cloud bill for your users, servers, storage and backups. Every rate is shown and editable, with the date it was set, so you can swap in your provider’s current prices.

You will need

  • Number of users
  • Servers you would run (size and how often they are on)
  • Storage in GB
  • Optional: your provider’s prices

What you enter

  • People who need cloud email and office apps – Staff who need a business email account, office apps and file storage. Enter 0 if you only want server costs.
  • Productivity suite per user per month – For example a business email, office apps and storage bundle.
  • Virtual servers – Servers you would run in the cloud (applications, databases, file or line-of-business servers). Enter 0 if none.
  • vCPUs per server – Virtual processors per server.
  • Memory per server – Memory (RAM) per server, in GB.
  • Share of the month servers run – Turning servers off out of hours reduces compute cost.
  • Server and file storage – Disk space for servers and shared files beyond what the productivity suite includes.
  • Backup copies kept – How many full copies of your storage the backups add up to.
  • Data downloaded from the cloud per month – Data leaving the cloud to users or the internet. Leave blank if unsure: it is usually small for office use.
  • Compute rate per vCPU per month – Always-on price for one vCPU for a month.
  • Memory rate per GB per month – Always-on price for 1 GB of memory for a month.
  • Storage rate per GB per month – Price of 1 GB of server storage for a month.
  • Backup rate per GB per month – Price of 1 GB of backup storage for a month.
  • Data transfer rate per GB – Price of each GB downloaded from the cloud.
  • Contingency – A buffer added to the total.

How it is calculated

Licences = Users × Suite price. Compute = Servers × (vCPUs × vCPU rate + Memory × Memory rate) × Running time. Storage = Storage × Storage rate. Backup = Storage × Backup copies × Backup rate. Data out = GB out × Data out rate. Monthly total = (sum of the above) × (1 + Contingency). Yearly total = Monthly total × 12.

Assumptions

  • Rates are SMBH planning rates for an Australian region set on 6 November 2026, in AUD excluding GST. They are a starting point, not a quote: replace them with your chosen provider's current prices.
  • Provider: any major public cloud. Prices vary by provider, region, server type and commitment term.
  • Compute is charged for the share of the month the servers run (730 hours = 100%).

Limitations

  • Excludes migration, setup and ongoing management or support, software licences that run on the servers (for example Windows Server or SQL Server), and GST.
  • Reserved or committed-use discounts (often 30–60% off compute) are not applied.
  • This is an indicative estimate. Get a quote or use the provider pricing calculator before you commit.

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