Compare costs between CloudWatch Logs Standard and Infrequent Access (IA) tiers. Adjust the region, daily ingestion volume, and Standard/IA split to see how different scenarios affect your monthly costs.

Interactive Cost Calculator

Adjust the sliders to see how different scenarios affect your CloudWatch Logs cost.

Pricing snapshot as of August 2026. Check current AWS pricing for accuracy.

5 TB
50% / 50%

Tier Progression

Cumulative Cost Comparison

Savings: Positive = Mixed cheaper, Negative = All Standard cheaper

How to use

  1. Select your region - Pricing varies by AWS region
  2. Set daily ingestion - Your estimated daily log volume in TB
  3. Adjust the split - What percentage goes to Standard vs IA log groups

The calculator shows:

  • Tier progression - How your cumulative volume moves through pricing tiers over the month
  • Cost comparison - All Standard vs Mixed (Standard + IA) cumulative costs
  • Savings chart - Positive means Mixed is cheaper, negative means All Standard is cheaper
  • Break-even points - Where one approach becomes cheaper than the other

Key insight

At high volumes (50+ TB/month), the Standard tier’s aggressive volume discounts mean IA provides almost no benefit. For mid-to-large enterprises, keeping everything in Standard class often results in lower costs.

For the full analysis, read the CloudWatch Logs Cost Deep Dive.