The only independent, multi-cloud calculator that shows you the full number — migration labour, egress fees, parallel running costs, and the hidden items that blow up 40% of cloud budgets.
Independent · No lead forms · Updated 2026
Total Project Cost Estimate
Monthly Cloud Cost
$60K
post-migration
Break-Even
86 mo
from go-live
Monthly Savings
+$20K
vs on-premise
Data Egress Cost
$2K
one-time transfer
Cost Breakdown
Estimates based on 2026 market rates. Actual costs vary by workload complexity, geographic region, and negotiated contract terms. Add 20–40% contingency for hidden costs.
Top Cost Drivers for This Scenario
1. Migration labour ($1.4M) · 2. Parallel running ($1.4M) · 3. Egress costs ($2K)
What This Estimate Includes
Most migration quotes only show you the labour cost. We model all six cost components that determine your real project spend — then add a 20% contingency buffer for what you haven't thought of yet.
Assessment & Planning
Discovery, dependency mapping, migration planning
Migration Labour
Engineering time for lift, replatform, or refactor work
Data Transfer & Egress
One-time cost to move data to target cloud
Parallel Running
Running source + destination simultaneously during cutover
Contingency Buffer
Hidden costs, scope changes, unexpected complexity
Tooling & Licensing
Migration tools, temporary licences, monitoring setup
5 Key Variables
Migration Strategy
3–5× cost differenceRefactor costs 5× more than lift-and-shift per workload.
Migration Timeline
Adds 30–60%Longer timelines mean more parallel running costs.
Data Volume
$50–$92/TBEvery TB transferred incurs egress fees.
Consulting Partner
±40%Self-migration vs. managed service cost delta.
Licence Changes
Up to $500K+Oracle/SQL Server licensing on EC2 is expensive.
Migration Strategy
The strategy you choose changes your total bill by 3–5×. Here's what each path looks like.
Move workloads as-is to cloud with minimal modification.
Targeted optimisations — move to managed services without full re-architecture.
Rebuild application to be cloud-native — microservices, serverless, containers.
Provider Comparison
| Cost Component | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly compute (post-migration) | $58K | $62K | $51K |
| Egress during migration | $18K | $18K | $16K |
| Partner consulting (12 months) | $180K | $165K | $155K |
| Annual support plan | $84K | $74K | $68K |
| Discount (Hybrid Benefit / Sustained Use) | — | -$155K (Windows shops) | $184K auto |
| 3-Year Total Cost of Ownership | $2.9M | $2.6M | $2.5M |
Note: Azure total assumes Azure Hybrid Benefit (Windows Server licences already owned). GCP total includes automatic sustained-use discounts. AWS total assumes on-demand pricing. All figures are estimates for budgeting purposes only.
Hidden Costs
$50–$92 per TB
Moving data out of your current environment (or between clouds) triggers egress fees. AWS charges $0.09/GB for the first 10TB. A 50TB migration costs $4,500 in egress alone — before any other costs.
Revenue × downtime hours
Every hour offline during cutover costs money. For an e-commerce site doing $100K/day, a 4-hour cutover window costs $16,700 in lost revenue. Factor in SLA penalty exposure too.
1.5–2.5× monthly infra spend
During migration you run both on-premise and cloud environments simultaneously. A typical 6-month migration with $10K/month on-premise spend adds $60,000–$150,000 in parallel running costs.
$1,000–$5,000 per technical employee
AWS, Azure, and GCP certifications cost $300–$400 each. Training time is 2–4 weeks per engineer. For a 10-person engineering team, budget $10,000–$50,000 for training alone.
$25,000–$200,000 per app
Apps that seemed simple on-premise often need significant rework for cloud. Configuration management, secret handling, logging pipelines, networking — these all need rebuilding.
The 20% rule isn't enough
Industry data shows cloud migration budgets are typically understated by 40–60% when hidden costs are excluded. Our calculator includes a 20% contingency — but read the full hidden costs guide before finalising your business case.
Full hidden costs guideProvider-Specific Guides
Covers MAP credits, EC2 pricing, DataSync, and the 5 costs AWS won't tell you.
View guideAlready at position 10 for 'azure cloud migration cost calculator'. Azure Hybrid Benefit explained.
View guideSustained-use discounts, BigQuery migration costs, and GCP vs AWS/Azure cost comparison.
View guideFAQ