Enter your monthly cloud bill split into fixed and variable cost, and the customers you serve. The calculator gives the average and marginal cost per customer, how many customers you need to break even, and what the bill looks like as you grow. Everything runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Your numbers
Total a month
$1,600.00
Average per customer
$4.00
Marginal per customer
$2.00
Margin on a new customer
$4.00
Break-even customers
200
Each new customer leaves $4.00 after serving cost.
If customers grow
Cost at each customer count
Customers
Fixed
Variable
Total
Average per customer
Margin per customer
Profit a month
400 (now)
$800.00
$800.00
$1,600.00
$4.00
$2.00
$800.00
800
$800.00
$1,600.00
$2,400.00
$3.00
$3.00
$2,400.00
1,600
$1,400.00 (stepped up)
$3,200.00
$4,600.00
$2.88
$3.13
$5,000.00
Variable cost is assumed to stay the same per customer as you grow. If your marginal cost rises (a busier database, more support), raise the variable cost and check again.
Heavy customers
If 20 heavy customers use 10 times what a light one does, a light customer costs about $1.38 a month to serve and a heavy one about $13.79. Heavy customers cause 34% of the variable bill, and at this price each one loses money. The average above hides this: look at your top customers by cost.
How the numbers are worked out
Average cost is the whole bill divided by active customers. It falls as fixed cost is spread over more customers.
Marginal cost is the variable cost divided by active customers: what one more customer adds. If it is above the price, growth loses money.
Break-even customers is the fixed cost divided by the price minus the marginal cost, rounded up. With a fixed cost step, it ignores the step.
The projection keeps the variable cost per customer the same and adds the fixed cost step once customers reach the number you give.
Heavy customers splits the variable bill between a few heavy users and everyone else, so you can see how much of the bill a small group causes.
CloudCostCompare