You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you receive a hefty bill you weren't expecting, especially when you then have to justify it to your finance team or face making cuts elsewhere to cover budget overrun? That is what some content delivery network (CDN) customers experience when they get slammed with bandwidth fees without warning. To avoid those painful conversations, it's important to understand how bandwidth fees work. Knowing precisely what you are paying for and how you use the cloud service can help prevent eye-popping bills you weren't prepared for.

A CDN can be an excellent way to speed up your website, improve performance, and boost SEO, but not all vendors are created equal-some charge significantly more for data transfer than others. As a leading provider of specialized cloud storage, Backblaze offers free egress to leading CDN providers like Fastly, bunny.net, and Cloudflare. Backblaze also offers tools for developers that help manage storage efficiently while integrating smoothly with CDN services.

So, let's talk about bandwidth fees and how they work to help you decide which CDN provider is right for you.

What are CDN bandwidth fees?

Most CDN cloud services work like this: You can configure the CDN to pull data from one or more origins (such as a Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage Bucket) for free or for a flat fee, and then you're charged fees for usage, namely when data is transferred when a user requests it.

These fees are known as bandwidth, download, or data transfer fees. (We'll use these terms somewhat interchangeably.) Typically, storage providers also charge fees when data is retrieved by a CDN.

The fees aren't a problem in and of themselves, but if you don't have a good understanding of them, it could lead to unexpected costs.

For example, if you're a game-sharing platform, and one of your games goes viral, bandwidth and egress fees can add up quickly. CDN providers usually charge in arrears, meaning they wait to see how much of the data was accessed each month, and then they apply their fees.

Some of the cost factors to consider include traffic spikes, regional distribution of your users (as some regions have higher transfer rates), and frequency of transferring large media files. Monitoring and managing data transfer fees can be challenging, especially during high-traffic events, as fees can quickly escalate without warning.

Although some CDN services offer calculation tools, these are estimates and may not always account for sudden increases in data transfer. It's important to know exactly how these fees work so you can plan your workflows better and position your content strategically to reduce fees and increase cost efficiency.

How do CDN bandwidth fees work?

Data transfer occurs when data leaves the network. An example might be when your application server delivers an HTML page to the browser or your cloud object store serves an image via the CDN. Another example is when your data is moved to a different regional server within the CDN to make access faster for users in nearby locations.

Each instance where your data may be accessed or moved incurs a cost, and these fees can quickly add up. Typically, CDN vendors charge a fee per GB or TB up to a specific limit. Once you hit these thresholds, you may advance up another pricing tier or incur expensive overage charges. A busy month could cost you a mint, and traffic spikes for different reasons in different industries-like a Black Friday rush for an e-commerce site or around events like the Super Bowl for a sports betting site, for example.

Price comparison of bandwidth fees across CDN services

To get a better sense of how each CDN service charges for bandwidth, let's explore the top providers and what they offer and charge. Each CDN varies in bandwidth fees, additional costs, and value-added features such as enhanced security and caching options.

As part of the Bandwidth Alliance and the CDN Alliance, some of these vendors have agreed to discount customer data transfer fees when transferring one or both ways between member companies. What's more, Backblaze offers free egress with CDN partners Fastly, bunny.net, and Cloudflare, among other vendors, helping reduce costs for businesses with high data transfer fees.

When comparing CDNs, consider not only their per-GB costs but also factors like regional pricing variations, tiered pricing thresholds, and any add-ons for specific services like DDoS protection, web application firewalls (WAF), or dedicated support. These factors can significantly impact total costs, especially for businesses with varying traffic levels.

Note: Prices are as published by vendors as of 11/21/2024.

1. Fastly

Fastly offers edge caches to deliver content instantly around the globe. The company also offers SSL services for $20/per domain per month. They have various additional add-ons for things like web application firewalls (WAFs), managed rules, DDoS protection, and their Gold support.

Their CDN pricing offers flexibility through three main options:

1. Free Tier: This option provides up to $50 in monthly usage for any product (including CDN), with no request throttling and no cap on redirects or page rules.
2. Usage Tier: This option at $50 per month plus usage fees. It includes up to $100 in monthly CDN and Compute usage, with no cap on usage, five included TLS domains, mutual TLS, and SSO authentication.
3. Packages: Start at $1,500 per month and include various features, with tiers designed to support growing and large businesses needing predictable, scalable CDN services.

Fastly proudly partners with Backblaze, so mutual customers enjoy zero egress fees. Fastly also offers custom enterprise pricing and trials for hands-on experience. For more info you can check out how Fastly's CDN beats AWS CloudFront.

2. bunny.net

bunny.net labels itself as the world's lightning-fast CDN service, with affordable region-based pricing. This makes them another strong alternative to AWS Cloudfront for companies with a limited budget. For the Standard Network (123 PoPs), rates start at $0.01/GB per month for North America and Europe, $0.045/GB for South America, $0.03/GB for Asia and Oceania, and $0.06/GB for the Middle East and Africa.

For businesses with higher bandwidth needs, the Volume Network offers a global rate of $0.005/GB up to 500TB, with tiered discounts available up to 2PB and beyond.

bunny.net partners with Backblaze to offer free egress. Check out how bunny.net compares to AWS CloudFront.

3. Cloudflare

Cloudflare offers a limited free plan for hobbyists and individuals. They also have tiered pricing plans for businesses called Pro, Business, and Enterprise. Instead of charging bandwidth fees, Cloudflare opts for the monthly subscription model, which includes everything.

The Pro plan costs $20/month (for 100MB of upload). The Business plan is $200/month (for 200MB of upload). You must call to get pricing for the Enterprise plan (for 500MB of upload).

Cloudflare partners with Backblaze, and joint customers enjoy free egress between the two services. It also offers dozens of add-ons for load balancing, smart routing, security, serverless functions, etc. Each one costs extra per month.

4. AWS Cloudfront

AWS Cloudfront is Amazon's CDN and is tightly integrated with its AWS services. The company offers tiered pricing based on bandwidth usage. The specifics are as follows for North America:

• First 1TB of data transfer per month is free.
• $0.085/GB for the next 9TB per month.
• $0.080/GB for the next 40TB per month.
• $0.060/GB for the next 100TB per month.
• $0.040/GB for the next 350TB per month.
• $0.030/GB for the next 524TB per month.

Their pricing extends up to 5PB per month, and there are different pricing breakdowns for different regions.

Amazon offers special discounts for high-data users and those customers who use AWS for their application storage. You can also purchase add-on products that work with the CDN for media streaming and security.

Sure it's pretty. Until you know all those lights represent possible fees.

5. Google Cloud CDN

Google Cloud CDN offers fast and reliable content delivery services. However, Google charges bandwidth, cache egress fees, and for cache misses. Their pricing structure is as follows:

• Cache Egress: $0.02-$0.20 per GB.
• Cache Fill: $0.01-$0.04 per GB.
• Cache Lookup Requests: $0.0075 per 10,000 requests.

Cache egress fees are priced per region, and in the U.S., they start at $0.08 for the first 10TB. Between 10-150TB costs $0.055, and beyond 500TB, you have to call for pricing.

Google charges $0.01 per GB for cache fill services.

6. Microsoft Azure

The Azure content delivery network is Microsoft's offering that promises speed, reliability, and a high level of security.

Azure offers a limited free account for individuals to play around with. Depending on the zone, the price will vary for data transfer. For Zone One, which includes North America, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, pricing is as follows:

• First 10TB: $0.158/GB per month.
• Next 40TB: $0.14/GB per month.
• Next 100TB: $0.121/GB per month.
• Next 350TB: $0.102/GB per month.
• Next 500TB: $0.093/GB per month.
• Next 4,000TB: $0.084/GB per month.

Azure charges $.60 per 1,000,000,000 requests per month and $1 for rules per month. You can also purchase WAF services and other products for an additional monthly fee.

Comparing the CDNs

How to save on bandwidth fees

A CDN can significantly enhance the performance of your website or web application and is well worth the investment. However, finding ways to save on bandwidth fees pays dividends. Here are some strategies:

• Look for Bandwidth Alliance partners. Many CDN providers, including those in the Bandwidth Alliance, offer discounted rates for bandwidth and egress fees when transferring data between member companies.
• Choose affordable origin storage. Select origin storage that integrates seamlessly with your chosen CDN provider, reducing your data transfer costs. Backblaze B2, for example, offers completely free egress to partners like Fastly, bunny.net, and Cloudflare, and free egress up to 3x the amount you store for transfer to other services.
• Optimize caching and edge settings. Fine-tuning caching rules to keep frequently accessed data at edge locations can reduce the amount of data transferred, helping to avoid unnecessary bandwidth fees.
• Implement data compression. Compressing files, especially large media, reduces the data size served by the CDN, which in turn reduces bandwidth usage.
• Minimize redirects and request loops. Reducing redirects and optimizing request loops helps keep data transfer low and avoids additional bandwidth fees.
• Use tiered or reserved data transfer plans. Some CDNs offer reserved or tiered data transfer options that provide discounts on larger volumes; consider these if your data transfer needs are predictable and high.

Here at Backblaze, we think the world needs lower egress fees, and we offer free egress from Backblaze B2 to many CDN partners like Fastly, bunny.net, and Cloudflare.

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