Untagged Resource Cost Calculator

Work out untagged resource cost instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Untagged Resource Cost Calculator

Untagged resources are a proxy for unowned ones, and a meaningful fraction of them are orphans left behind by deleted projects, failed deployments and departed engineers. Estimating spend from the resource share is rough but sufficient to justify a cleanup: at 15 percent untagged and a quarter of those orphaned, over 5,000 a month is being spent on nothing.

Formula

Untagged spend

untagged share = untagged resources / total; untagged spend = total spend x share; orphan spend = untagged spend x orphan share

Worked example

With the default values below, Untagged Resource Cost Calculator returns Monthly spend on untagged resources of $22,142.86. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Total monthly spendminimum 0: 150,000
Untagged resourcesminimum 0: 620
Total resourcesminimum 1: 4,200
Share of untagged resources suspected orphanedaccepts 0–100 %: 25 %

Results

Monthly spend on untagged resources: $22,142.86
Share of resources untagged: 14.8%
Monthly spend on suspected orphans: $5,535.71
Annual cost of suspected orphans: $66,428.57

Step by step

1Values used
2Untagged spend
3Monthly spend on untagged resources= 22,142.86
4Share of resources untagged= 14.8
5Monthly spend on suspected orphans= 5,535.71
6Annual cost of suspected orphans= 66,428.57

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges 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 are orphans identified safely?

Check for zero network traffic, no attached compute, no recent API access and no recent logins. Snapshot before deleting so a mistake is recoverable.

Why do orphans accumulate?

Because nothing deletes them. Resources created outside infrastructure-as-code have no lifecycle owner, which is the strongest argument for creating everything declaratively.