A method of allocating costs for resource usage in a distributed computing environment includes creating a standardized template for deploying a desired functionality within the distributed computing environment; the standardized template defining computing resources of the distributed computing environment needed to support the desired functionality, associating fixed costs with the computing resources, and calculating a total allocated cost associated with the standardized template by referencing the fixed costs. A system of allocating costs for resource usage in a distributed computing environment includes a standardized template for deploying a desired functionality within the distributed computing environment, the standardized template defining a plurality of interconnected computing resources, a fixed cost associated with each of the plurality of interconnected computing resources, and a software application configured to sum the fixed costs to produce a total cost for deploying the desired functionality.