CI/CD Pipeline Cost Calculator

Calculate total CI/CD cost including platform fees and developer wait time.

Builds per day

Avg build time (min)

Cost per build minute ($)

Parallel jobs

Number of developers

Avg developer hourly rate ($)

Tab to move between fields

Total monthly CI/CD cost

$4,557.60

≈ 5 smartphones

Platform cost / month$57.60

Platform cost / year$691.20

Developer wait cost / month$4,500.00

Build minutes / month7,200

Platform cost per build$0.10

Savings if 50% faster$2,278.80

How to Use This Calculator

Enter Builds per Day, Average Build Time (min), and Cost per Build Minute for your CI platform.
Set the number of Parallel Jobs to model concurrent pipeline capacity.
Enter Developer count and Average Developer Hourly Rate to capture wait-cost opportunity loss.
Review Total Monthly CI/CD Cost, Platform Cost, and Developer Wait Cost.
Use Platform Cost per Year to compare self-hosted vs. SaaS CI/CD pricing.

How the result changes with Builds per day

Builds per day: Total CI/CD pipeline runs per day across all branches and repos.
Avg build time (min): Average wall-clock time for a complete pipeline run.
Cost per build minute ($): CI platform cost per build minute (GitHub Actions ~$0.008, CircleCI ~$0.006).
Parallel jobs: Number of parallel stages/jobs in the pipeline (reduces wall-clock time).
Number of developers: Team size contributing to CI/CD builds.
Avg developer hourly rate ($): Fully-loaded cost per developer hour (salary + benefits + overhead).

Total monthly CI/CD cost: Platform cost + developer wait time cost per month.
Platform cost / month: Direct CI/CD service charges per month.
Platform cost / year: Annual CI/CD service charges.
Developer wait cost / month: Lost productivity cost from waiting on builds.
Build minutes / month: Total build minutes consumed per month.
Platform cost per build: Average CI platform cost per pipeline run.
Savings if 50% faster: Monthly savings if you cut build times in half.

Identify Input Parameters
4 parameters
Builds per day = 20, Avg build time (min) = 12, Cost per build minute ($) = 0.008, Parallel jobs = 2 = 6 input(s) provided
Calculate Total monthly CI/CD cost
Total monthly CI/CD cost = platformCostMonth + devWaitCostMonth
4557.6 = $4,557.6
Calculate Platform cost / month
Platform cost / month = totalBuildMinutesMonth * costPerBuildMinute
57.6 = $57.6
Calculate Platform cost / year
Platform cost / year = platformCostMonth * 12
691.2 = $691.2