A/B Testing Cloud Cost (Annual) Calculator
Estimate the annual cloud and experiment-tooling cost of running A/B tests based on traffic allocation, test duration and test frequency.
Overview
Estimate what your A/B testing programme could cost each year by entering the full-traffic monthly cloud cost of the baseline and variant, the variant traffic split, test length, annual test volume, and experiment-tooling cost.
How it works
The calculator converts each test duration into a fraction of a 30-day month. It applies the baseline cloud cost to the baseline traffic share and the variant cloud cost to the variant traffic share, then adds the prorated tooling cost. That produces a cost per test, which is multiplied by the number of planned tests. It also compares this amount with the estimated baseline-only cloud cost for the same test periods.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter the monthly cloud cost for the baseline version at full relevant traffic.
- 2Enter the equivalent estimated monthly cloud cost for the variant.
- 3Set the percentage of test traffic that will be sent to the variant.
- 4Enter the duration of each test and the number of similar tests planned per year.
- 5Add the monthly cost of experimentation tools and review the annual estimate.
Example Calculation
Baseline monthly cloud cost
$5,000
Variant monthly cloud cost
$6,500
Variant traffic share
50%
Test duration
14
Tests per year
24
Monthly experiment tool cost
$200
Estimated annual testing cost
$66,640
With a $5,000 baseline monthly cloud cost, a $6,500 variant cost, a 50/50 split, and 24 tests lasting 14 days, estimated annual testing cost is about $66,640, or about $10,640 more than baseline-only cloud costs for those periods.
Frequently asked questions
What does the A/B Testing Cloud Cost (Annual) Calculator estimate?
It estimates the yearly cloud and experimentation-tooling cost of a planned set of A/B tests, plus the additional cost compared with using the baseline alone during the same periods.
Why do I need both baseline and variant cloud costs?
The two versions may use different compute, database, storage, API, or data-processing resources. Separate estimates allow the calculator to reflect that difference.
Does the calculator include the cost of the baseline traffic during a test?
Yes. The estimated cost per test includes the baseline's allocated traffic cost, the variant's allocated traffic cost, and prorated tooling cost.
What is the annual additional cost?
It is the projected testing cost above the estimated cost of serving all relevant traffic through the baseline for the same test durations. It can be negative if the variant is cheaper and offsets tooling costs.
Should I include feature flag and analytics subscriptions?
Include the recurring monthly portion of any experimentation, feature flagging, analytics, or monitoring tools that you want to allocate to each test.
What costs are not included automatically?
The estimate does not automatically include engineering time, setup work, data egress, third-party API charges, taxes, vendor commitment changes, or unexpected traffic spikes.
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Assumptions and warnings
Assumptions
- Monthly cloud-cost estimates scale proportionally with the share of traffic assigned to each version.
- A 30-day month is used to allocate monthly cloud and tooling costs to each test duration.
- Each planned test is assumed to have similar traffic, duration, infrastructure use, and tooling costs.
- The baseline-only comparison excludes experiment-tool costs because those costs arise from running the experiment.
- Results are estimates and do not include one-off engineering, data transfer, support, tax, or vendor overage charges unless included in the entered costs.
Warnings
- This calculator provides budget estimates only and is not financial advice.
- Actual cloud spending can vary with traffic patterns, autoscaling behavior, caching, storage, data transfer, and vendor pricing.