Calculator
What a fleet that follows your load would cost against the one you run today. An estimate; the Observe trial replaces it with your real numbers.
The top of the chart is your fleet today; the bars are the estimate with Hetscale for one peak day. Every day looks like this.
Pay for your normal load. Scale for your peak load.
- Compute today
- €51
- Compute with Hetscale
- from €34
- Hetscale plan
- Growth · €10
- Peak capacity
- 6 nodes, during peaks
- Average capacity
- 3.9–4.6 nodes
Your peak is 6 nodes, the server you already run included, so the plan is Growth: it covers up to 20 nodes.
On a setup this small the saving is small; what you get is a replacement node when one dies, and capacity when a peak comes.
New nodes deploy from a snapshot of your seed, also one Coolify deploys to, or through a webhook.
- Whether your app is CPU-bound. If it waits on I/O, CPU is the wrong signal and the estimate is optimistic.
- Whether the database is the bottleneck. More web nodes do not help a saturated database.
- The real shape of your peak. Three controls stand in for it here.
- Whether your fleet is bigger than your peak needs. The estimate takes today's fleet as the peak; if it is oversized, the real saving is larger.
- Whether your server type can be ordered when the peak comes. Hetzner marks its Cost-Optimized types (CX, CAX) as limited; while yours is out, the group waits or, in a fallback mode, uses a larger type at its own price. The report shows your type's stock.
Replace the estimate with your data — connect read-only and get the report.
Connect read-onlyHow this is calculated
- Baseline nodes = ceil(fleet ÷ peak multiplier), never below 1.
- The traffic shape is three controls: peak hours per day, peak days (every day, weekdays 21.7 a month, weekends 8.7, or 1–10 a month) and how much busier the peak is, as a range (under 1.5× counts as 1.3×). The quick picks: Steady 1.3×, no peak hours; Daily peaks 1.5–2×, 6 h/day, every day; Spiky 2–3×, 2 h/day, every day; Campaign 2–3×, all day, 3 days a month. Hours above baseline per month = peak hours per day × peak days. Every peak day looks the same; the real hourly shape is Observe's job.
- During peak hours the group runs the full fleet you have today; outside them, the baseline.
- Each burst adds one started hour per node and peak day for the scale-out lead (threshold, provisioning, health check) and the scale-in window (threshold, cooldown, drain); Hetzner bills per started hour. That is 61–91 node-hours in this estimate.
- Burst node-hours are rounded up to whole hours because Hetzner bills per started hour; a month is 30.4 days.
- Baseline nodes cost the monthly price; burst node-hours cost the hourly price. Both are Hetzner's net list prices for the chosen location, 2026-09-17. Primary IPv4 addresses and traffic are not included.
- The Hetscale plan is the cheapest one whose node capacity covers every node at the peak, the server you already run included: Starter 5 nodes €5, Growth 20 nodes €10, Pro 50 nodes €20, Team 150 nodes €60 a month. It is never a fee per server, there is no meter, and node groups are unlimited on every plan.
- The low and high end of the peak multiplier give a range; the page shows the saving up to its high end and the autoscaled cost from its low end. This estimate: €34 to €40 compute, €1 to €7 saving.
- The load balancer is a prerequisite of every setup and, like volumes, costs the same with or without autoscaling, so it is left out. So are snapshots: each release Hetscale takes adds one, billed by Hetzner by its size.
- Node-hours per month = nodes × 24 × 30.4 for the fixed fleet; baseline × 24 × 30.4 plus the burst node-hours with autoscaling. "Fewer" is the difference as a share of today's node-hours.
- Utilisation today = load ÷ the fixed fleet's capacity, averaged over the month: 1 ÷ peak multiplier outside the peak hours, 100 % during them. Idle nodes = fleet − baseline.
- Nothing here is a measurement of how fast a node is added or replaced; those numbers are published once measured.
Worked examples
The calculator's model run for each quick pick on one fleet: 4 to 6 cx33 servers at the peak in Falkenstein (fsn1). Estimates, not measurements.
| Traffic shape | Always sized for peak | Following the load | Hetscale plan | Calculator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steadypeaks rarely exceed 1.3× average | €34 to €51 | €34 to €42 | Starter to Growth, €5 to €10 | Open in the calculator |
| Daily peaksabout 6 h/day at 1.5–2×, every day | €34 to €51 | €23 to €40 | Starter to Growth, €5 to €10 | Open in the calculator |
| Spikyabout 2 h/day at 2–3×, every day | €34 to €51 | €19 to €29 | Starter to Growth, €5 to €10 | Open in the calculator |
| Campaignall day at 2–3× on 3 days a month | €34 to €51 | €19 to €29 | Starter to Growth, €5 to €10 | Open in the calculator |
Per month, ex-VAT, Hetzner's net list prices of 2026-09-17. Always sized for peak is the fleet online all month. Following the load is the baseline all month and the rest of the fleet only during the peak, by the hour, as under "How this is calculated" above. The Hetscale plan is the cheapest one whose node capacity covers the fleet at its peak.
Not included: primary IPv4 addresses and traffic, and the load balancer and snapshots, which the calculator leaves out as well.
For Steady and Daily peaks, the hours saved on this fleet cover the plan narrowly or not at all; what you get is a replacement node when one dies, and capacity when a peak comes.