Cost

An installation has two kinds of cost: a small one that runs all the time, and runners, which run only while workspaces do. Prices depend on your region and change; use the AWS Pricing Calculator with the sizes below.

All the time

Resource	Default size
Control plane	One machine, instance_type, which also runs the database
Proxy	One machine, proxy_instance_type, and an elastic IP
Route 53	Two hosted zones, $0.50 a month each
S3	What the volumes, the database’s archive, logs and metric backups hold
CloudWatch	The flow log and the machines’ boot logs, 30 days

There is no NAT gateway, no load balancer and no interface endpoint.

While workspaces run

Runners are large spot machines with local NVMe (instance_types). They are the largest cost, and they cost only while they are up:

• The control plane starts the first runner when a workspace needs one.
• It adds another only when a workspace has waited longer than a runner takes to start.
• It removes them all when nothing has run for runner_idle_minutes, and at once during quiet_hours when nothing is running.

A runner holds many workspaces, so one runner is often enough for a team. max_runners caps how many can be up.

A workspace nobody uses is suspended, and so is one that runs past the installation’s limit, so a forgotten workspace does not keep a runner up all night. See Workspaces.

Settings that change the cost

Setting	Effect
runner_idle_minutes	How long runners stay up after the last workspace stops
quiet_hours, time_zone	A window, such as nights, when runners go as soon as nothing runs
max_runners	The most runners at once
runner_spot = false	On-demand runners: more expensive, never reclaimed
runner_instance_types	Smaller or larger runners
instance_type, proxy_instance_type	The size of the control plane and the proxy
flow_logs, log_retention_days	What is kept in CloudWatch

Storage

The volumes bucket keeps every object under Object Lock for object_lock_days, so a deleted workspace’s bytes are paid for until the retention runs out. Clones share their image’s layers, so a hundred workspaces from one image store the image once.