Systems and methods are provided for ink estimation. One embodiment is a system for dynamic ink use estimation. The system includes a cloud computing system. The cloud computing system includes a cloud event service able to receive a print job and potential configurations of a printer selected for printing the print job, and to initialize virtual printers for the printer that each correspond with one of the potential configurations. The cloud computing system also includes the virtual printers, which are able to operate in parallel to estimate amounts of ink used for each configuration during printing of the print job, and to store the estimated amounts of ink in a cloud storage.