Kafka broker-hours + storage
Amazon MSK Pricing Calculator
Model provisioned broker-hours and EBS storage or Serverless cluster + partition + data charges before your streaming platform bill surprises finance.
- No signup
- Instant results
- ~2 min
Rates reviewed
Cluster mode
us-east-1list rates, pricing as of 2026-10-17. Express brokers bill retained storage ($0.10/GB-month) and data written ($0.01/GB) on top of broker-hours. MSK Connect MCU-hours optional. Replicator and cross-AZ transfer excluded. Minimum 3 brokers for provisioned. Source: AWS public pricing.
Cluster scale
Minimum 3 brokers (one per AZ).
720 hrs ≈ 30 days continuous.
Partitions × hours active.
Serverless and Express brokers only.
Serverless and Express brokers only.
$0.11/MCU-hour. Leave 0 if you do not run MSK Connect.
Estimated MSK Cost
Kafka platform charges
Total Monthly Cost
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FactualMinds helps teams choose MSK Provisioned vs Serverless, right-size broker counts, and evaluate MSK vs Kinesis for net-new streaming workloads.
Talk to Data Platform Experts →Who This Tool Is For
Data platform engineers and architects running Apache Kafka on AWS — or evaluating MSK vs self-managed Kafka or Kinesis.
Why We Built This Tool
MSK Provisioned has a ~$460/month floor (3× kafka.m5.large) before storage. MSK Serverless removes broker sizing but bills cluster hours, partition-hours, and data movement separately.
What Problem It Solves
- Minimum cluster cost. Three brokers across AZs is mandatory for production HA — model the floor before committing.
- Storage retention. Long retention on EBS at $0.10/GB-month adds up; tiered storage lowers cold-data cost.
- Serverless vs Provisioned. Bursty workloads under 200 MB/s often fit Serverless; sustained throughput favors right-sized provisioned brokers.
Compare platforms in Kinesis vs MSK or explore cost optimization.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do these MSK prices come from?
AWS published us-east-1 list prices (Amazon MSK pricing), pricing as of 2026-10-17.
What is the minimum MSK Provisioned cluster cost?
Production clusters require at least 3 brokers (one per AZ). At kafka.m5.large ($0.21/hr), 720 hours/month ≈ $453.60 in broker charges before storage.
How is MSK storage billed?
Provisioned clusters bill EBS storage at $0.10 per GB-month per broker. Total storage = brokers × GB per broker. Tiered storage offloads cold data to S3-backed tiers at lower rates (not modeled here).
When should I use MSK Serverless?
MSK Serverless fits variable or bursty workloads up to ~200 MB/s write without sizing brokers. You pay cluster hours ($0.75/hr), partition-hours ($0.0015/hr), and data in/out ($0.10/$0.05 per GB).
Does this include MSK Connect or Replicator?
No. MSK Connect connector capacity and MSK Replicator cross-cluster replication are excluded from this v1 estimate.
MSK vs Kinesis — which is cheaper?
At low throughput, Kinesis On-Demand often costs less (no minimum broker hours). At sustained high throughput, MSK Provisioned with right-sized brokers is typically more cost-effective. See our Kinesis vs MSK comparison guide.
