Route 53 Query Cost Calculator
Price Route 53 hosted zones, tiered DNS queries and health checks, allowing for alias records that answer free.
About Route 53 Query Cost Calculator
Route 53 bills a flat monthly charge per hosted zone, a tiered charge per million queries that steps down after the first billion, and a monthly charge per health check. The detail that changes the total is alias records: a query answered by an alias pointing at a CloudFront distribution, an Elastic Load Balancer or an S3 website endpoint is free, so replacing CNAMEs with aliases removes those queries from the bill entirely. DNS looks like a rounding error until a chatty client with a short TTL multiplies query volume tenfold, at which point the query line is larger than the hosted zones and health checks combined.
Formula
Route 53 Query Cost
cost = zones × zone rate + first billion billable queries × standard rate + remainder × overage rate + health checks × health check rate.
- billable queries
- Queries not answered by an alias record to an AWS target
- standard rate
- Price per million queries within the first billion each month
- overage rate
- Reduced price per million beyond the first billion
Worked example
With the default values below, Route 53 Query Cost Calculator returns Estimated Monthly Cost of $233.00. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Hosted zonesaccepts 1–500 zones
- 12 zones
- Price per hosted zone per monthaccepts 0–10 USD
- 0.5 USD
- Queries per monthminimum 0 million
- 800 million
- Share answered by alias records to AWS resourcesaccepts 0–100 %
- 30 %
- Price per million queries in the first billionaccepts 0–10 USD
- 0.4 USD
- Price per million queries beyond a billionaccepts 0–10 USD
- 0.2 USD
- Health checksaccepts 0–200 checks
- 6 checks
- Price per health check per monthaccepts 0–20 USD
- 0.5 USD
Results
- Estimated Monthly Cost
- $233.00
- Query Charges
- $224.00
- Hosted Zone Charges
- $6.00
- Health Check Charges
- $3.00
- Billable Queries
- 560.0 million
- Queries Answered Free by Alias Records
- 240.0 million
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Route 53 Query Cost
- 3Estimated Monthly Cost= 233.00
- 4Query Charges= 224.00
- 5Hosted Zone Charges= 6.00
- 6Health Check Charges= 3.00
- 7Billable Queries= 560.0 million
- 8Queries Answered Free by Alias Records= 240.0 million
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 8 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Route 53 Query Cost calculated?
cost = zones × zone rate + first billion billable queries × standard rate + remainder × overage rate + health checks × health check rate. Route 53 bills a flat monthly charge per hosted zone, a tiered charge per million queries that steps down after the first billion, and a monthly charge per health check. The detail that changes the total is alias records: a query answered by an alias pointing at a CloudFront distribution, an Elastic Load Balancer or an S3 website endpoint is free, so replacing CNAMEs with aliases removes those queries from the bill entirely.
Why does Route 53 Query Cost matter?
DNS looks like a rounding error until a chatty client with a short TTL multiplies query volume tenfold, at which point the query line is larger than the hosted zones and health checks combined.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 8 inputs: Hosted zones, Price per hosted zone per month, Queries per month, Share answered by alias records to AWS resources, Price per million queries in the first billion, Price per million queries beyond a billion, Health checks, Price per health check per month. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Which queries are free?
Queries answered by an alias record whose target is an AWS resource such as CloudFront, an Elastic Load Balancer, an API Gateway endpoint or an S3 website. Standard records, CNAMEs and alias records pointing at another record in the same zone are all charged.
Are these prices current?
The defaults reflect published list prices at the time of writing, including the cheaper rate for hosted zones beyond the first 25 which is not modelled here. Confirm the current tiers on the Amazon Route 53 pricing page and adjust the rate fields.
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