Redshift Cluster Cost Calculator
Price a Redshift cluster across node hours, managed storage, concurrency scaling above the free credits and Spectrum scans.
Inputs
ra3.4xlarge is around $3.26/hour and ra3.xlplus around $1.086 in us-east-1.
Estimated Monthly Cost
$9,736.20
Node Hours
$9,519.20
Managed Storage
$192.00
Concurrency Scaling
$0.00
Redshift Spectrum
$25.00
Free Concurrency Scaling Credits
30hours
Step by step
Values used
Nodes in the cluster = 4 nodes; Node price = 3.26 $/hour; Cluster hours per month = 730 hours; Reserved node discount = 0 %; RA3 managed storage = 8,000 GB; Managed storage price = 0.0240 $/GB-month; Concurrency scaling used = 10 hours; Redshift Spectrum data scanned = 5 TB; Spectrum price = 5 $/TB
Redshift Cluster Cost
monthly = nodes × hourly × hours × (1 − reserved discount) + managed GB × rate + max(0, scaling hours − credits) × nodes × hourly + Spectrum TB × rate, where credits = 1 free hour per 24 hours of cluster uptime up to 30.
Estimated Monthly Cost
= 9,736.20
Node Hours
= 9,519.20
Managed Storage
= 192.00
Concurrency Scaling
= 0.00
Redshift Spectrum
= 25.00
Free Concurrency Scaling Credits
= 30 hours
How it works
Node-hours dominate, but the two components people forget are concurrency scaling and Spectrum. Redshift earns one free hour of concurrency scaling for every 24 hours the main cluster runs, so a cluster that is up all month accrues about 30 free hours and only the excess is billed at the same per-node rate — and Spectrum queries are priced per TB scanned exactly like Athena, entirely separately from the cluster. Every rate is an editable input with a realistic us-east-1 default, so confirm current Redshift prices with AWS for your region. A pause-and-resume schedule cuts node-hours but also cuts the concurrency-scaling credits it earns, so the cheapest configuration is rarely the one with the fewest running hours.
Formula
Redshift Cluster Cost
monthly = nodes × hourly × hours × (1 − reserved discount) + managed GB × rate + max(0, scaling hours − credits) × nodes × hourly + Spectrum TB × rate, where credits = 1 free hour per 24 hours of cluster uptime up to 30.
- credits
- One free concurrency-scaling hour per 24 hours the cluster runs, capped at 30 per month
- managed storage
- RA3 storage billed per GB-month independently of node count
- Spectrum
- External queries over S3, billed per TB scanned
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Redshift Cluster Cost calculated?
monthly = nodes × hourly × hours × (1 − reserved discount) + managed GB × rate + max(0, scaling hours − credits) × nodes × hourly + Spectrum TB × rate, where credits = 1 free hour per 24 hours of cluster uptime up to 30. Node-hours dominate, but the two components people forget are concurrency scaling and Spectrum. Redshift earns one free hour of concurrency scaling for every 24 hours the main cluster runs, so a cluster that is up all month accrues about 30 free hours and only the excess is billed at the same per-node rate — and Spectrum queries are priced per TB scanned exactly like Athena, entirely separately from the cluster. Every rate is an editable input with a realistic us-east-1 default, so confirm current Redshift prices with AWS for your region.
Why does Redshift Cluster Cost matter?
A pause-and-resume schedule cuts node-hours but also cuts the concurrency-scaling credits it earns, so the cheapest configuration is rarely the one with the fewest running hours.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 9 inputs: Nodes in the cluster, Node price, Cluster hours per month, Reserved node discount, RA3 managed storage, Managed storage price, Concurrency scaling used, Redshift Spectrum data scanned, Spectrum price. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Are these prices current?
The defaults are realistic us-east-1 on-demand figures for RA3, but Redshift pricing varies by region and node family and Serverless is billed per RPU-hour instead. Confirm against the AWS Redshift pricing page for your region.