Engineering Utility · Free Tool
Cloud & VPS Cost Simulator
Compare your real infrastructure bill across Hyperscale Cloud (AWS / Vercel), Edge-Native Zero-Egress (Cloudflare), and Lean Self-Hosted VPS (Hetzner).
Select a typical workload baseline or tune custom sliders below:
View Verified Unit Rates & Pricing Model (AWS, Cloudflare, Hetzner, Vercel)▼
• Invocations: $0.20 / 1M reqs
• AWS Egress (Data Out): $0.09 / GB
• S3 Standard Storage: $0.023 / GB
• Managed DB: $25–$220/mo (RDS/Supabase)
• Extra reqs: $0.50 / 1M reqs
• R2 Egress: $0.00 / GB (100% Free)
• R2 Storage: $0.015 / GB (10GB incl.)
• Serverless DB: $0–$110/mo (Neon/D1)
• CPX31 (4 vCPU, 8GB): ~$16.00/mo (€14.40)
• CCX23 (4 Ded. vCPU, 16GB): ~$38.00/mo
• Bandwidth: 20TB incl. free (€1/TB after)
• Postgres DB: $0 license (Self-hosted)
Workload Parameters
Tune to your scaleEstimates 2 hrs/mo of sysadmin/patching time ($60/hr) for self-hosted VPS vs zero-ops serverless.
$0 / year
Switching from Hyperscale Cloud to Edge-Native or Lean VPS eliminates compounding bandwidth markups.
AWS / Vercel Pro
Vercel/ECS + AWS S3 + RDS
$0 / yr
Cloudflare Workers
Workers + R2 + Serverless DB
$0 / yr
Hetzner / Coolify
Dedicated VPS + Self-Hosted DB
$0 / yr
Monthly Expense Proportions
Visual breakdownUnit rates audited August 2026 from official AWS us-east-1, Cloudflare Global, Vercel, and Hetzner documentation.
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The Hidden "Cloud Tax": Why Egress Breaks Budgets
Most early-stage teams choose hyperscale serverless platforms like Vercel Pro and AWS Lambda for frictionless zero-config deployments. However, as an application scales past its first million requests or begins serving rich media, bandwidth egress taxes and database compute surcharges rapidly outpace raw compute expenses.
AWS & Vercel
Great for zero-ops early prototyping, but penalties kick in at scale: $0.09/GB egress, per-seat pricing, and $70+/mo managed database baselines.
Cloudflare & R2
The modern sweet spot. 100% zero egress fees on Workers and R2 storage, distributed global caching, and instant sub-50ms execution worldwide.
Hetzner & Coolify
Maximum compute per dollar. 8 vCPUs and 16GB RAM for $15–$30/mo, 20TB free bandwidth, and complete ownership over your database hardware.
Architecture Comparison Matrix
Key trade-offs across deployment models
| Dimension | AWS / Vercel | Cloudflare Edge | Hetzner / VPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egress Fee | $0.09 / GB | $0.00 (Zero) | $0.00 (20TB incl.) |
| Cold Starts | 100–800ms | < 5ms (V8 Isolates) | 0ms (Always On) |
| Ops Maintenance | Zero Ops | Zero Ops | 1–2 hrs/month |
| Global Latency | Single region unless paid | 330+ Global PoPs | Single DC location |
| Best Suited For | Enterprise Next.js apps | APIs, SaaS, static/SSR web | Heavy DBs, background jobs |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is AWS egress bandwidth so expensive compared to Cloudflare or Hetzner?
AWS charges between $0.05 to $0.09 per GB for data transfer out (egress) to the public internet because egress fees serve as a high-margin lock-in mechanism. In contrast, Cloudflare Workers and Cloudflare R2 charge $0.00 for egress, and VPS providers like Hetzner include 20TB of free high-speed bandwidth with a $15/month server.
How does Hetzner in the US and Europe compare to AWS (us-east-1 / eu-central-1)?
Hetzner operates Tier-3+ data centers in the US (Ashburn VA, Hillsboro OR) and Europe (Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki). While AWS us-east-1 and Frankfurt charge $0.09/GB for egress plus high compute markups, Hetzner provides 4-8 vCPU dedicated hardware for $15–$35/month with 20TB free bandwidth, saving US and EU startups thousands annually.
When should a startup choose Cloudflare Workers over a traditional VPS?
Cloudflare Workers is ideal when your workload needs global sub-50ms latency across 330+ cities, zero server maintenance, instant auto-scaling to millions of requests, and heavy asset storage via R2 without egress fees. A VPS is better when you run long-running persistent background jobs, require complex Docker microservices, or want a dedicated PostgreSQL instance on NVMe storage without connection pooling limits.
How does GDPR and data sovereignty affect Cloudflare vs VPS choices in Europe?
For European startups subject to GDPR and data localization rules, self-hosting PostgreSQL on European VPS infrastructure (Hetzner in Germany/Finland, Scaleway in France, OVHcloud) ensures data strictly remains within the EU. Cloudflare also supports EU data residency boundaries and zero-egress R2 storage in EU regions.
What is the true operational cost (TCO) of self-hosting on a VPS?
While bare-metal and VPS hosting offers fixed monthly hardware costs (e.g. $10–$40/month), true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes 1–3 hours of developer time per month for security patching, OS updates, database backup verification, and uptime monitoring. Using modern orchestration tools like Coolify or Dokku drastically reduces this overhead.
How does Cloudflare R2 eliminate AWS S3 storage bills?
AWS S3 charges $0.023/GB for storage plus $0.09/GB for data transfer out. If your app serves 5TB of images or videos per month, AWS charges ~$450 just for the download bandwidth. Cloudflare R2 charges $0.015/GB for storage and exactly $0.00 for data egress, saving 90%+ on bandwidth-heavy apps.
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