AWS Route 53 Cost Calculator

Estimate Route 53-style costs with a simple model: hosted zone monthly fees + standard DNS query charges + health checks. Compare baseline vs peak query volume with your pricing.

Inputs

Hosted zones
Standard queries (per month)
Avg 190.36 qps. Enter your estimated DNS queries.
Avg QPS
Use resolver or Route 53 query metrics.
Queries per app request
Typical range 1-3 for chatty clients.
Est 600,000,000 queries/month.
Est 525,312,000 queries/month.
Health checks
Price ($ / hosted zone-month)
Price ($ / 1M queries)
~$400.00 per 1B queries.
Price ($ / health check-month)
Use your effective region pricing.
Scenario presets
This model estimates hosted zones + standard queries + health checks only. Advanced routing features may add line items.

Results

Estimated monthly total
$215.00
Hosted zones
$10.00
Queries
$200.00
Health checks
$5.00
Queries/month
500,000,000

How to get your inputs

  • Inputs: use billing exports, metrics, or logs to get real counts/GB where possible.
  • Units: convert throughput (Mbps) or rates (RPS) into monthly units when needed.
  • Scenarios: build a baseline and a high-usage scenario to avoid under-budgeting.

Result interpretation

  • Queries usually dominate; hosted zones and health checks are steady base costs.
  • Low TTL or retry loops can create steep query spikes.

Common mistakes

  • Using a single average and ignoring peak/incident scenarios.
  • Double-counting or missing adjacent line items (transfer, logs, retries).

Scenario planning

Scenario Zones Queries Health checks
Baseline Configured Expected Configured
Peak Same High Same

Validate after changes

  • Compare your estimate to the first real bill and adjust assumptions.
  • Track the primary driver metric (requests/GB/count) over time.

Next steps

Guides All calculators Guide: Route 53 pricing Guide: estimate DNS queries Guide: reduce Route 53 costs CDN request cost calculator
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Example scenario

  • 20 hosted zones, 500M queries/month, and 10 health checks using your $/zone, $/1M queries, and $/health-check-month pricing.
  • Peak 220% scenario highlights DNS spikes during incidents.

Included

  • Hosted zone fees from zone count and $/zone-month.
  • Standard DNS query charges from queries/month and $ per 1M queries.
  • Health check charges from check count and $/check-month.
  • Optional QPS to monthly query estimator.
  • Optional query-per-request estimator.
  • Baseline vs peak scenario table for query spikes.

Not included

  • Advanced routing and feature add-ons unless modeled separately.
  • Downstream costs like traffic steering, monitoring, or external DNS providers.

How we calculate

  • Hosted zone cost = zones x $ per zone-month.
  • Query cost = (queries per month / 1,000,000) x $ per 1M queries.
  • Health check cost = health checks x $ per check-month.
  • Total = hosted zones + queries + health checks.

FAQ

Why do DNS query charges spike?
Query spikes often come from low TTLs, many services/pods doing DNS lookups, resolver misconfiguration, or incident-driven retry loops. Measure queries and check TTL settings.
What should I use for query volume?
Use measured query counts from Route 53 metrics or resolver logs over a representative time window, then roll up to monthly.

Related tools

Guide: Route 53 pricing Guide: estimate DNS queries Guide: reduce Route 53 costs CDN request cost calculator

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Disclaimer

Educational use only. Not legal, financial, or professional advice. Results are estimates based on the inputs and assumptions shown on this page. Verify pricing and limits with your providers and documentation.

Last updated: 2026-01-29