Work out on premises vs cloud tco instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
A fair comparison must include everything on the on-premises side: hardware, rack space, power, cooling, network, support contracts and the staff time to operate it. Cloud usually loses on steady-state cost at scale and wins on elasticity, speed and avoided capital risk — which is why the crossover year matters less than whether the workload's demand is actually flat.
TCO comparison
on-premises = capex + annual operating x years; cloud = monthly x 12 x years; crossover = capex / (annual cloud - annual on-premises operating)
Staff time, floor space, power and cooling, network equipment, spare inventory, and the refresh at end of life. Including only hardware makes on-premises look far cheaper than it is.
Not fully. Elasticity, time to provision and avoided capital commitment have real value that a straight cost comparison cannot express.