Cloud Computing

AWS Data Transfer Costs Breakdown

AWS Data Transfer Costs Breakdown

Understanding AWS data transfer costs is crucial for optimizing cloud expenses. AWS charges for outbound data transfer while inbound traffic is usually free. This blog post breaks down the key aspects of AWS data transfer pricing, helping you minimize unnecessary costs.

Data Transfer Cost Breakdown

1 ELB to EC2 Traffic

  • Traffic between an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) and EC2 instances within the same Availability Zone (AZ) is free.
  • However, when ELB sends traffic to another AZ, AWS applies standard inter-AZ transfer charges.

2 Load Balancer (LB) Costs

  • Application Load Balancers (ALB) charge based on LCUs.
  • Network Load Balancers (NLB) charge based on NLCUs.
  • Gateway Load Balancers (GLB) charge in GLCUs rather than per GB.

3 CloudFront Outbound Traffic

  • AWS CloudFront offers free outbound traffic for the first 1TB per month.
  • Additional usage costs range between $0.02 - $0.12 per GB, depending on the region and usage patterns.

4 General AWS Outbound Data Costs

  • AWS charges $20 per TB for outbound traffic up to 10TB.
  • Discounts apply for larger volumes.
  • The first 100GB per month is free.

5 NAT Gateway Costs

  • Using a Managed NAT Gateway incurs additional charges of $0.045 per GB on top of regular data transfer costs.
  • This also applies to internal transfers (e.g., between S3, Kinesis, etc.).

6 Elastic/Public IPs and Internal Traffic Costs

  • Using public or elastic IPs for internal AWS communication adds extra costs for both incoming and outgoing data.

7 Data Transfer Between AWS Regions

  • AWS charges $0.02 per GB for data transfers between AWS regions.

8 Transit Gateway Charges

  • Sending data via an AWS Transit Gateway incurs a fee of $0.02 per GB.

Optimizing AWS Data Transfer Costs

To reduce AWS data transfer expenses:

  • Use VPC Peering instead of NAT Gateway when possible.
  • Leverage AWS PrivateLink for inter-service communication.
  • Minimize inter-AZ traffic by keeping workloads within the same AZ.
  • Utilize CloudFronts free tier for global content delivery.
  • Monitor data transfer patterns using AWS Cost Explorer.

Conclusion

AWS data transfer costs can add up quickly, especially for large-scale deployments. Understanding pricing models and following best practices can help optimize expenses and reduce unnecessary charges. Always keep an eye on networking costs as part of your AWS cost management strategy.