Work out fargate cost instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
Fargate bills vCPU and memory separately per second, so cost is a linear function of the task definition rather than of instance sizes. Because vCPU is priced about nine times higher per unit than memory, over-allocating CPU is far more expensive than over-allocating memory — the opposite of the intuition from instance-based pricing.
Fargate cost
per task hourly = vCPU x vCPU rate + memory GB x memory rate; monthly = per task hourly x tasks x hours
Per unit of capacity, yes — typically 20 to 50 percent more. It removes instance management and bin-packing waste, which often recovers the difference at low to moderate scale.
Right-size the task definition, use ARM-based tasks where supported, and use Fargate Spot for interruption-tolerant work at a large discount.