Build vs. Buy Calculator

What does it really cost to run your own private cloud?

Comparing the cost of building and operating your own infrastructure against moving to a managed platform is rarely a simple line on a spreadsheet. Enter your environment below to see each line as a monthly cost, then totaled over three years: rolling your own (buying the gear, racking a cabinet, and staffing it) against a managed private cloud on Summit.

Run the Numbers
Hardware, licensing, power, and people all rolled into one comparison.
Your own internal data center, modeled side by side with a colocated private cloud on Summit.
Estimates, not invoices. Use it to frame the conversation, then talk to our team.
Your Environment

Tell us what you’re running, and see the cost over a 3-year term.

Adjust the inputs and the totals update instantly. Hover the markers for sizing guidance.

Redundancy & cluster
N+1 redundant, 3-node cluster
Memory
GB
vCPU ?
Storage ?
Hardware refresh cycle ?
years
Cabinets ?
Build Your Own
Roll-your-own private cloud cost
Physical Servers
Hypervisor Licensing
SAN Storage
IP Transit (10 GbE port)
Network Switches
Firewall (High Avail Pair)
Cabinet, PDUs & Cabling
Colocation (Space & Power)
Staff to Manage It
24/7 U.S.-based SupportNot included
24/7 Remote Hands on siteNot included
Spare parts on siteNot included
Total cost to build
$0
over 3 years
Summit-Managed
Run It On Summit
Managed private cloud cost
Physical Servers
Hypervisor Licensing
Managed SAN Storage
IP Transit (10 GbE port)
Network SwitchesIncluded
Managed Firewall (High Avail Pair)
Cabinet, PDUs & CablingIncluded
Colocation (Space & Power)Included
Staff to Manage ItIncluded
24/7 U.S.-based SupportIncluded
24/7 Remote Hands on siteIncluded
Spare parts on siteIncluded
Total cost on Summit
$0
over 3 years
$0

Estimated savings by running on Summit instead of rolling your own.

These figures are estimates for evaluation only, based on common industry benchmarks rather than your actual contracts. Real costs vary with your workloads, vendors, and location. Treat the output as a starting point for a conversation, not a quote.

How the Math Works

No black box. Here’s what we’re counting.

The honest version of build vs. buy includes the line items teams tend to forget. Expand each to see what goes into the estimate.

Rolling your own means buying and running everything yourself: physical servers, hypervisor licensing, SAN storage with redundancy overhead, IP transit, redundant network switches, a firewall (a high avail pair of Palo Alto 415s, hardware plus support), the PDUs and cabling to rack it, a colocated cabinet for space and power, and the staff to keep it running. Things Summit bundles, 24/7 support, on-site Remote Hands, and on-site spare parts, fall to you and show as not included. We model a realistic single-cabinet deployment, not a full data center build-out, sized to match the same N+1 redundancy Summit delivers.
We model the realistic version: a single colocated cabinet with your own gear, not a ground-up data center. Even at that size, two things dominate. First, you carry the hardware: servers, SAN, and switches bought up front and amortized over your refresh cycle. Second, you carry the people: keeping a private cloud healthy (hypervisor, storage, networking, patching, and on-call) takes real expertise, and that staffing is often the single largest line. Running a colocated private cloud on Summit folds the platform and the people into the service, which is where much of the gap comes from.
With a managed private cloud on Summit, the priced lines are physical servers, hypervisor licensing, SAN storage, IP transit, and a high avail firewall. Network switches, cabinet and cabling, colocation space and power, the staff to manage it, 24/7 U.S.-based support, on-site Remote Hands, and on-site spare parts are all bundled into the service rather than billed as separate line items. The two columns list the same rows in the same order, so you can read across and see exactly where Summit folds a cost into the service.
Each line item is a monthly cost, the way infrastructure is normally quoted, so the Summit figures line up with what you’d see on an actual quote. The total rolls those monthly costs up over a 36-month term, the standard commitment for private cloud, which is why it’s the larger headline number. To keep the comparison fair, the hardware you would buy isn’t expensed all at once: it’s amortized over your refresh cycle, so each month carries only the share of a multi-year asset that it actually uses. A longer refresh cycle spreads the roll-your-own hardware cost thinner, which lowers that side’s monthly figures.
It’s a directional estimate built on industry benchmarks, not your invoices. Your real costs depend on negotiated hardware pricing, licensing terms, energy rates, staffing, and the specifics of your workloads. Use it to size the opportunity, then let our team scope the actual numbers with you.
Why Teams Make the Switch

The savings are real. So is the support.

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Scale is never an issue for Summit. We’re using Summit’s GPUs to test AI/ML algorithms that catch objectionable content without human moderators. If it works, we’ll be able to moderate at scale and move the functions to permanent Summit-hosted servers for efficiency.

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Let’s Talk

Turn this estimate into a real number.

Tell us what you’re running and our team will scope an accurate, side-by-side comparison for your environment, usually within one business day.