Cost Estimator | Skills Pool
Cost Estimator Infrastructure and development cost estimation for technical projects. Use when planning budgets, evaluating build vs buy decisions, or projecting TCO for architecture choices.
Provides frameworks for estimating infrastructure costs, development effort, and total cost of ownership (TCO) for technical projects.
When to Use
Planning infrastructure budgets
Evaluating build vs. buy decisions
Projecting costs at different scale points
Comparing technology options by cost
Creating business cases for technical investments
Cost Categories
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
TCO = Infrastructure + Development + Operations + Opportunity Cost
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Infrastructure Development Operations Opportunity │
│ ──────────────── ──────────── ────────── ──────────── │
│ • Compute • Engineering • Support • What else │
│ • Storage • QA • Monitoring • could team │
│ • Network • DevOps • On-call • be building? │
│ • Third-party • Management • Training │
│ APIs/SaaS • Contractors • Incidents │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
npx skillvault add majiayu000/majiayu000-claude-skill-registry-data-data-cost-estimator-skill-md
星標 4
更新時間 2026年2月5日
職業
Infrastructure Cost Reference
Cloud Compute Pricing (2024-2025)
AWS EC2 On-Demand (US regions) Instance vCPU RAM Monthly Cost Best For t3.micro 2 1GB $8 Dev/test t3.medium 2 4GB $30 Small apps t3.large 2 8GB $60 Light production m6i.large 2 8GB $70 General production m6i.xlarge 4 16GB $140 Medium workloads m6i.2xlarge 8 32GB $280 Heavy workloads c6i.2xlarge 8 16GB $250 CPU-intensive r6i.2xlarge 8 64GB $370 Memory-intensive
GPU Instances Instance GPU VRAM Monthly Cost Best For g4dn.xlarge T4 16GB $380 Inference g5.xlarge A10G 24GB $730 ML training/inference p4d.24xlarge 8x A100 320GB $23,000 Large model training
Savings Options Plan Savings Commitment On-Demand 0% None Reserved (1yr) 30-40% 1 year Reserved (3yr) 50-60% 3 years Spot Instances 60-90% Can be interrupted
Database Pricing
Managed Database (AWS RDS PostgreSQL) Instance vCPU RAM Monthly Cost Connections db.t3.micro 2 1GB $15 50 db.t3.medium 2 4GB $50 100 db.m6g.large 2 8GB $120 200 db.m6g.xlarge 4 16GB $240 400 db.r6g.xlarge 4 32GB $350 500 db.r6g.2xlarge 8 64GB $700 1000
Add for storage : $0.115/GB/month (gp3)
Add for IOPS : $0.02/IOPS/month (over 3000 baseline)
Redis/ElastiCache Node Type RAM Monthly Cost cache.t3.micro 0.5GB $12 cache.t3.medium 3GB $50 cache.m6g.large 6.4GB $100 cache.r6g.large 13GB $175
Storage Pricing Service Cost Use Case S3 Standard $0.023/GB Frequently accessed S3 Infrequent $0.0125/GB Backups, archives S3 Glacier $0.004/GB Long-term archive EBS gp3 $0.08/GB Block storage EBS io2 $0.125/GB + IOPS High performance
Network Costs (Often Overlooked!) Traffic Type Cost Data IN Free Data OUT (first 10TB) $0.09/GB Data OUT (next 40TB) $0.085/GB Inter-AZ transfer $0.01/GB each way Inter-region transfer $0.02/GB CloudFront to internet $0.085/GB
Development Cost Estimation
Engineering Cost Framework Development Cost = (Hours × Hourly Rate) × Complexity Factor × Risk Buffer
Hourly Rate (Fully Loaded):
- Junior Engineer: $75-100/hr
- Mid-level Engineer: $100-150/hr
- Senior Engineer: $150-200/hr
- Staff/Principal: $200-300/hr
Complexity Factors:
- Greenfield, known tech: 1.0x
- Existing codebase, known tech: 1.2x
- New technology for team: 1.5x
- Complex integrations: 1.3x
- Regulatory/compliance: 1.4x
Risk Buffer:
- Well-defined requirements: 1.2x
- Ambiguous requirements: 1.5x
- Experimental/R&D: 2.0x
Story Point to Cost Mapping Size Story Points Hours Cost (Mid-level) XS 1 2-4 $200-400 S 2 4-8 $400-800 M 3 8-16 $800-1,600 L 5 16-32 $1,600-3,200 XL 8 32-64 $3,200-6,400 XXL 13+ 64+ $6,400+
Team Cost Calculator ## Monthly Team Cost
Engineering Team:
- 2 Senior Engineers × $15,000 = $30,000
- 3 Mid-level Engineers × $10,000 = $30,000
- 1 Engineering Manager × $18,000 = $18,000
Overhead (benefits, tools, etc.): 30%
Monthly Burn: ($78,000) × 1.3 = $101,400
Annual Team Cost: ~$1.2M
Build vs. Buy Analysis
Decision Framework Build vs Buy Decision Matrix:
LOW Differentiation HIGH Differentiation
┌────────────────────┬────────────────────┐
HIGH Volume/ │ │ │
Usage │ Consider │ BUILD │
│ Build │ (competitive │
│ (cost savings) │ advantage) │
├────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
LOW Volume/ │ │ │
Usage │ BUY │ BUY │
│ (no question) │ (then consider │
│ │ build if scales) │
└────────────────────┴────────────────────┘
TCO Comparison Template ## Option A: Build Custom Solution
### Initial Development
- Engineering time: X months × $Y/month = $Z
- Infrastructure setup: $A
### Ongoing Costs (Annual)
- Infrastructure: $B
- Maintenance (20% of dev time): $C
- On-call/support: $D
### 3-Year TCO
Year 1: $Z + $A + $B + $C + $D
Year 2: $B + $C + $D
Year 3: $B + $C + $D
Total: $XXX
---
## Option B: Buy SaaS Solution
### Initial Costs
- Implementation/integration: $X
- Training: $Y
### Ongoing Costs (Annual)
- License fees: $Z/year
- Per-user costs: $A × users
- API costs: $B
### 3-Year TCO
Year 1: $X + $Y + $Z + $A + $B
Year 2: $Z + $A + $B
Year 3: $Z + $A + $B
Total: $XXX
Common Build vs Buy Scenarios Capability Build When Buy When Authentication Unique security requirements Standard OAuth/OIDC works Payments Core business differentiator Standard e-commerce Search Domain-specific relevance Generic search needs Analytics Proprietary insights needed Standard dashboards work Email High volume, custom delivery Standard transactional ML/AI Proprietary models needed Pre-trained models work
Cost Projection by Scale
SaaS Application Cost Model Scale Users Monthly Infra Notes Startup 0-1K $200-500 Single server, managed DB Growth 1K-10K $500-2,000 Load balancer, caching Scale 10K-100K $2,000-10,000 Horizontal scaling Enterprise 100K-1M $10,000-50,000 Multi-region, HA Large 1M+ $50,000+ Global, custom CDN
Cost Per User Benchmarks Application Type Cost/User/Month Notes Simple web app $0.05-0.20 Static + API Data-intensive $0.20-0.50 Analytics, storage Real-time $0.50-2.00 WebSockets, streaming ML-powered $1.00-5.00 Inference costs Video/media $2.00-10.00 Transcoding, CDN
E-commerce Cost Model ## Monthly Infrastructure Cost by GMV
$0-100K GMV/month:
- Basic infrastructure: $500
- Payment processing (2.9%): ~$2,000
- Total: ~$2,500
$100K-1M GMV/month:
- Scaled infrastructure: $2,000
- Payment processing: ~$20,000
- Fraud protection: $500
- Total: ~$22,500
$1M-10M GMV/month:
- HA infrastructure: $10,000
- Payment processing: ~$200,000
- Fraud/security: $5,000
- CDN/performance: $3,000
- Total: ~$218,000
Hidden Cost Checklist
Often Missed in Estimates
Cost Optimization Strategies
Quick Wins Strategy Savings Effort Reserved instances 30-60% Low Right-sizing instances 20-40% Medium Spot instances (non-critical) 60-90% Medium Storage tiering 50-80% Low CDN caching 30-50% bandwidth Low
Architecture Optimizations Optimization Impact Complexity Caching (Redis) 50-80% DB load reduction Medium Queue-based processing Smooth traffic spikes Medium Auto-scaling Pay for what you use Medium Serverless (appropriate use) Variable → zero when idle High Multi-region read replicas Reduce cross-region costs High
Cost Estimation Templates
Project Budget Template # Project: [Name]
# Duration: [X months]
## Development Costs
| Phase | Duration | Team Size | Cost |
|-------|----------|-----------|------|
| Discovery/Design | 2 weeks | 2 | $X |
| MVP Development | 8 weeks | 4 | $X |
| Testing/QA | 2 weeks | 3 | $X |
| Deployment | 1 week | 2 | $X |
| **Total Development** | | | **$X** |
## Infrastructure Costs (First Year)
| Component | Monthly | Annual |
|-----------|---------|--------|
| Compute | $X | $X |
| Database | $X | $X |
| Storage | $X | $X |
| Network | $X | $X |
| Third-party APIs | $X | $X |
| Monitoring/Tools | $X | $X |
| **Total Infrastructure** | **$X** | **$X** |
## Ongoing Costs (Annual)
| Category | Cost |
|----------|------|
| Infrastructure | $X |
| Maintenance (20% of dev) | $X |
| Support/On-call | $X |
| Tool licenses | $X |
| **Total Annual** | **$X** |
## Summary
| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Total First Year | $X |
| Annual Run Rate | $X |
| 3-Year TCO | $X |
| Cost per User (at scale) | $X |
Quick Estimate Calculator ## Quick Infrastructure Estimate
Inputs:
- Expected users: [X]
- Requests per user/day: [Y]
- Data storage per user: [Z GB]
- Growth rate: [W%/month]
Calculations:
- Daily requests: X × Y
- Monthly requests: Daily × 30
- Required compute: (Monthly requests / 100K) × $50
- Storage: X × Z × $0.10
- Database: (X / 10K) × $200
- Estimated monthly: Compute + Storage + Database × 1.3
12-month projection with growth:
Sum of (Monthly × (1 + W%)^month) for months 1-12
References 02
Cost Categories
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