Virtualization Cost Calculator
Calculate total cost of ownership for virtualization infrastructure
How to use Virtualization Cost Calculator
- 1Enter the number of hosts, their purchase price and expected lifespan.
- 2Enter power, cooling, licensing and admin hours per year.
- 3Read the total cost of ownership and cost per VM over the period.
Total cost of virtualization
tco = capEx + years × (power + cooling + licenses + labor); costPerVM = tco / totalVMsVirtualization TCO includes one-time hardware plus recurring power, cooling, software licenses and staff time, and ignoring any one distorts the comparison.
Dividing TCO by the number of VMs you run shows whether consolidating onto fewer, denser hosts actually lowers cost per workload.
Frequently asked questions
What is the biggest hidden cost?
Software licensing and admin labor usually exceed the hardware itself over a 3–5 year span.
Should I include power and cooling?
Yes, in a data center they can equal or exceed hardware depreciation annually.
Does more VMs always lower cost per VM?
Only up to the point where density hurts performance or reliability; then outages cost more than hardware.
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