AWS Pricing Calculator — Estimate Generator

Describe your AWS setup in plain English → get an official AWS Pricing Calculator link with real costs already filled in. No AWS account, no logins, no JSON.

$ aws-calc --prompt "2 t3.large EC2 with 50GB, RDS MySQL db.m5.large 100GB, 500GB S3, an ALB"

✅ Monthly cost: $352.13 USD
🔗 https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=03fecc46f00312e0f3e868b62365de5758b9621d

Use it from the command line, inside Claude / Cursor / any AI IDE (it's an MCP server), or as a small REST API. One install does all three.

Install

pipx install aws-calculator-mcp      # recommended
# or:  pip install aws-calculator-mcp

That's all. The first time you make an estimate it downloads a small browser engine once (~150 MB) to read live prices — you don't install anything else.

(On Ubuntu/Debian, if pip says "externally managed", use pipx or add --break-system-packages.)

3 ways to use it

1) Plain English (easiest)

aws-calc --prompt "1 t4g.medium server with 50GB and daily snapshot, plus a 100GB S3 bucket"

It prints exactly what it understood, then the link:

   Understood from your prompt:
     • ec2 (instances=1, instance_type=t4g.medium, storage_gb=50,
            snapshot_frequency=daily, snapshot_changed_gb=10)
     • s3 (storage_gb=100)
   Monthly cost: $40.83 USD
   🔗 https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=1096b9ed939063ec3e4e5ff0b16628c6b2ccc0da

↑ that's a real link from this exact prompt — open it to validate.

• Add --group to organise by category (Compute, Database, Network…).
• Add --region ap-south-1 (Mumbai) etc. Default is us-east-1.
• Typos are okay (lamda, buckit, dynmodb all work).

2) Interactive (it asks you)

aws-calc -i

Estimate name [My Estimate]: Prod
AWS region [us-east-1]: ap-south-1
Group services by category? (y/n) [y]: y
Describe your infrastructure: 2 m5.large EC2, RDS MySQL db.m5.large 100GB, an ALB
→ $417.81/mo 🔗 https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=5c6523f2ed925c250ddfa2c90f84a4def7c36858

3) Inside Claude / Cursor / any MCP client

Add this to your MCP config (e.g. Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json, or Claude Code / Cursor settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aws-calculator": { "command": "aws-calc-mcp" }
  }
}

Restart the app, then just chat:

"I'm building a small website with ~10k visitors. Suggest a budget AWS setup and create a pricing link."

The assistant designs the stack and calls the tool — you get the official link back.

Tip: if the tool doesn't show up, the command isn't on PATH. Use the full path instead, e.g. "command": "/home/you/.local/bin/aws-calc-mcp" (find it with which aws-calc-mcp).

What you can put in an estimate

~50 services. Just name them; sizes/counts are optional (sensible defaults apply):

Handy things you can say:

• Instance type: "t4g.medium", "db.m5.large", "cache.r6g.large"
• Storage / transfer: "50GB storage", "1TB data transfer"
• Requests: "2M requests", "10k messages per day"
• Snapshots: "daily snapshot of 20GB" (also weekly / monthly)
• Savings: "reserved 3 year", "savings plan 1 year"
• Auto-scaling / part-time: "runs 5 hours per day"

Real examples — click to validate

Each prompt below produced a real, live AWS Pricing Calculator link. Open any of them to verify the costs yourself:

1. Vague idea — "a small website with a database and a 100GB bucket" → $148.62/mo https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=3bc90edb5879c1c8bda43ad2384ec052b0d69e49

2. Budget blog — "cheapest setup: 1 t4g.small server with 20GB for a personal blog" → $13.86/mo https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=b3a7dbb5284a327014f7330d670d6a2c16fa385a

3. Site + daily snapshot — "1 t4g.medium server 50GB with daily snapshot, plus a 100GB S3 bucket" → $40.83/mo https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=bff1a75683a9137aca838217b29e2e334db130ad

4. Web app (grouped) — "3 t3.large EC2 with 50GB, RDS MySQL db.m5.large 100GB multi-az, 500GB S3, an ALB, CloudFront 1TB" → $641.24/mo https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=8c3cf1097ccee1b08379067d882c064acb889503

5. Serverless API (grouped) — "Lambda with 10M requests, DynamoDB, API Gateway, 200GB S3" → $28.56/mo + $180 upfront https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=0dc7dcc6a28c504943f3d18d2ecffd66a8f18ad7

6. Enterprise (grouped) — "4 m5.xlarge EC2, Aurora MySQL db.r6g.large 2 nodes, Redis cache.r6g.large, CloudFront 2TB, WAF, GuardDuty, CloudTrail" → $1,311.13/mo https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=ddb66ce8d0a726a1e539dd7e742072717b084744

Use it with other AI tools

It's a standard MCP server, so any MCP-capable assistant can call it. The config block is the same everywhere — {"command": "aws-calc-mcp"}:

Once added, just ask the assistant in plain language:

"Design a budget AWS setup for a 10k-user app and create a pricing link."

It picks the services and calls the tool — you get the official link back.

Optional: run it as a REST API

Only if you want an HTTP endpoint (e.g. for ChatGPT actions or automation):

pip install "aws-calculator-mcp[api]"
aws-calc-api                # http://localhost:8080

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/v1/estimate -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prompt": "2 m5.large EC2, RDS MySQL db.m5.large 100GB, 500GB S3", "group": true}'

Docs at /docs. For ChatGPT, import /openapi.json as a Custom GPT Action.

Good to know

• Costs come from AWS itself — the tool fills the official calculator and reads the real numbers, so they match calculator.aws exactly.
• Friendly errors — unknown service → "did you mean…?"; it also tells you if it skipped a part it didn't understand.
• A few calculator forms may need manual tweaks after opening the link (notably AWS Backup and EC2 standard Reserved — use Savings Plans instead).
• The natural-language reader is a helper; an AI client (Claude/ChatGPT) handles messy descriptions even better.

Changelog

• 1.3.4 — Cleaner calculator payloads: no empty optional transfer sections, default EC2 boot storage for plain-English prompts, fixed Aurora node parsing, DRS/data-transfer regressions covered by tests.
• 1.3.0 — EBS snapshots (daily/weekly/monthly); simpler README + real example links; AI-tool integration guide.
• 1.2.x — plain-English prompts, interactive mode, auto-grouping, self-contained baking (auto-installs the browser engine), multi-service phrases, friendly errors, typo tolerance.
• 1.0.x — initial release: MCP server + CLI + REST API, ~50 AWS services, real baked-in costs.

Issues & ideas: github.com/vireshsolanki/aws-calculator-mcp · MIT licensed · not affiliated with AWS (uses the public calculator.aws endpoints).