How do I install Infracost — Cloud Cost Estimates for Infrastructure as Code?

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ConfigsApr 16, 2026·3 min read

Infracost — Cloud Cost Estimates for Infrastructure as Code

See cloud cost breakdowns before you deploy. Infracost integrates with Terraform and CI/CD to show how every change impacts your bill.

AI Open Source · Community

TL;DR

CLI tool that shows cloud cost breakdowns for Terraform changes before deployment.

§01

What it is

Infracost is a CLI tool that generates cloud cost estimates from Terraform plans. Before deploying any infrastructure change, you can see exactly how it affects your monthly bill. It supports AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud with pricing data for hundreds of resource types. Infracost integrates with CI/CD pipelines to post cost diffs as pull request comments.

Infracost targets DevOps engineers and platform teams who want cost visibility as part of the infrastructure review process, not as an after-the-fact surprise on the cloud bill.

§02

How it saves time or tokens

Cloud cost surprises typically surface weeks after deployment on the monthly invoice. Infracost shifts cost awareness to the planning stage. A developer proposing a change from t3.medium to r5.2xlarge sees the cost impact immediately in the PR comment. This prevents expensive mistakes and enables cost-informed architecture decisions without waiting for the finance team to flag anomalies.

§03

How to use

Install and authenticate:

brew install infracost
infracost auth login

Generate a cost breakdown:

cd my-terraform-project
infracost breakdown --path .

Compare costs between changes:

infracost diff --path . --compare-to infracost-base.json

§04

Example

Infracost output for a Terraform plan:

Project: my-terraform-project

 Name                          Monthly Qty  Unit   Monthly Cost

 aws_instance.web
   Instance usage (Linux/UNIX, on-demand, t3.medium)  730  hours      $30.37
   root_block_device - Storage (gp3)                   20  GB          $1.60

 aws_rds_instance.db
   Instance usage (on-demand, db.r5.large)            730  hours     $175.20
   Storage (gp2)                                      100  GB         $11.50

 OVERALL TOTAL                                                      $218.67

§05

Related on TokRepo

AI Tools for DevOps — infrastructure and cloud management tools
AI Tools for Monitoring — cost monitoring and observability

§06

Common pitfalls

Infracost estimates are based on list pricing and usage assumptions; actual costs may differ due to reserved instances, savings plans, or usage-based resources
Some resource types (Lambda invocations, S3 requests) require usage estimates in an Infracost usage file; without them, these costs show as $0
Free-tier resources still appear with their standard pricing; Infracost does not account for AWS Free Tier eligibility

Frequently Asked Questions

Which cloud providers does Infracost support?+

Infracost supports AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud with pricing data for hundreds of resource types. Coverage is most comprehensive for AWS, with Azure and GCP having slightly fewer supported resources.

How does Infracost get pricing data?+

Infracost maintains a cloud pricing database updated regularly from official cloud provider pricing APIs. The CLI queries the Infracost Cloud API for pricing lookups. A self-hosted pricing API is available for air-gapped environments.

Can Infracost post comments on pull requests?+

Yes. Infracost integrates with GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, and Bitbucket. In CI/CD, run infracost comment to post a cost diff summary directly on the pull request for reviewers to see.

Does Infracost work with OpenTofu?+

Yes. Infracost works with both Terraform and OpenTofu. It reads the plan file output, which is compatible between both tools.

Is Infracost free?+

Infracost CLI is open source and free for individual use. Infracost Cloud (the SaaS dashboard with team features, governance policies, and cost tracking) has a free tier and paid plans for larger teams.

Citations (3)

Infracost GitHub— Infracost cloud cost estimates for Terraform
Infracost Docs— Infracost documentation and CI/CD integration
Terraform Docs— Terraform infrastructure as code

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