How this calculator works
| Metric | Formula |
|---|---|
| On-premise per year | servers × hardware ÷ refresh years + facility × 12 + admin hours × rate × 12 + licences |
| Cloud per year | servers × cloud cost × 12 × (1 − right-sizing %) + admin × cloud admin % + licences × cloud licence % |
| Payback (months) | migration cost ÷ (yearly saving ÷ 12) |
Worked example
With these inputs:
- Currency: USD ($)
- Servers (physical or VMs): 20
- Hardware cost per server: 8,000
- Hardware refresh cycle: 5 years
- Data centre, power & cooling per month: 3,000
- Admin hours on infrastructure per month: 160
- Loaded cost per admin hour: 45
- Software licences & support per year: 25,000
- Cloud cost per equivalent server per month: 250
- Saving from right-sizing & auto-scaling: 25%
- Admin hours in the cloud vs today: 60%
- Licence cost in the cloud vs today: 90%
- One-off migration cost: 40,000
- Years to compare: 5
Saving per year: $60,060. On-premise costs about $179,400 a year and cloud about $119,340, a saving of $60,060 a year.
| On-premise cost per year | $179,400 |
|---|---|
| Cloud cost per year | $119,340 |
| Saving per year | $60,060 |
| Payback period | 8 months |
| Net saving over 5 years (after migration) | $260,300 |
Open this example in the calculator
Where cloud savings come from
- No hardware purchases or refresh cycles — capacity is rented as needed.
- Right-sizing: most on-premise servers run far below capacity; cloud instances can match real load.
- Auto-scaling and scheduling: scale down at night and switch off test environments when idle.
- Reserved or committed-use pricing for steady workloads.
- Less time spent on hardware, patching hypervisors and data centre work.
Costs that surprise teams after migrating
- Data transfer out of the cloud (egress) and between regions.
- Over-provisioned instances copied directly from old servers.
- Forgotten resources: unattached disks, old snapshots and idle environments.
- Licences that cost more in the cloud, or that cannot move at all.
Migration approaches
| Approach | What it means | Cost & speed |
|---|---|---|
| Rehost (lift and shift) | Move servers as they are | Fastest and cheapest to move; smallest savings |
| Replatform | Swap parts for managed services (e.g. managed database) | Moderate effort; better savings and less admin |
| Refactor | Redesign for containers or serverless | Highest effort; lowest running cost and best scalability |
| Retire / replace | Switch off or replace with SaaS | Often the biggest saving of all |
Open this calculator with your numbers
Every option can be set in the web address, so you can bookmark a scenario or send it to a colleague. AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity can use the same parameters to open this calculator with your numbers and the result already on the page.
| Parameter | What it sets | Accepted values |
|---|---|---|
currency |
Currency | one of USD, INR, AED, GBP, EUR |
servers |
Servers (physical or VMs) | number from 1 to 100000, default 20 |
hardware |
Hardware cost per server | number from 0 to 10000000 (in the chosen currency), default 8000 |
refresh_years |
Hardware refresh cycle | number from 1 to 10 (years), default 5 |
facility |
Data centre, power & cooling per month | number from 0 to 100000000 (in the chosen currency), default 3000 |
admin_hours |
Admin hours on infrastructure per month | number from 0 to 100000, default 160 |
hourly_cost |
Loaded cost per admin hour | number from 0 to 10000 (in the chosen currency), default 45 |
licences |
Software licences & support per year | number from 0 to 1000000000 (in the chosen currency), default 25000 |
cloud_per_server |
Cloud cost per equivalent server per month | number from 0 to 1000000 (in the chosen currency), default 250 |
rightsizing |
Saving from right-sizing & auto-scaling | number from 0 to 80 (%), default 25 |
cloud_admin |
Admin hours in the cloud vs today | number from 0 to 200 (%), default 60 |
cloud_licences |
Licence cost in the cloud vs today | number from 0 to 300 (%), default 90 |
migration_cost |
One-off migration cost | number from 0 to 1000000000 (in the chosen currency), default 40000 |
years |
Years to compare | number from 1 to 10, default 5 |
Also available as plain text for AI assistants and a free JSON API (OpenAPI spec).
Last reviewed by the Infikey Technologies team.
Disclaimer
This calculator is provided free for general information and planning only. Results are estimates based on the inputs you enter and the assumptions described on this page, reference data such as published prices may change, and actual costs and outcomes will differ. Nothing on this page is financial, legal, tax, investment or other professional advice. Infikey Technologies Private Limited, Infikey Technologies LLC and their directors, employees and affiliates make no warranty, express or implied, about the accuracy, completeness or suitability of this tool or its results, and accept no liability for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, arising from its use or from reliance on its results. Verify all figures independently and seek professional advice before making any decision. Use of this tool is at your own risk.