Azure ExpressRoute Calculator

Compare metered and unlimited ExpressRoute circuits, find the break-even traffic volume and add the gateway cost.

About Azure ExpressRoute Calculator

An ExpressRoute circuit is billed as a fixed fee for the reserved bandwidth plus, on the metered plan, a per-GB charge for outbound traffic only — inbound is always free. Dividing the fixed-fee difference by the per-GB rate gives the volume at which the unlimited plan wins, which is why heavy-egress workloads like offsite backup almost always belong on unlimited. Two circuits at different sites, the ExpressRoute gateway in each VNet and the Premium add-on are all separate meters, so the circuit fee alone understates the real cost; the connectivity provider's own charge sits on top of everything Azure bills, so confirm both with the Azure pricing calculator and your carrier.

Formula

Azure ExpressRoute

break-even outbound GB = (unlimited fee − metered fee) ÷ metered per-GB price; monthly = circuit fee + premium add-on + metered outbound GB × price + gateway rate × 730.

metered fee: Fixed monthly circuit charge on the metered plan
break-even: Outbound volume at which the unlimited plan becomes cheaper
gateway: ExpressRoute virtual network gateway, billed separately from the circuit

Worked example

With the default values below, Azure ExpressRoute Calculator returns Monthly Cost of $1,074.70. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Billing planone of Metered — lower fixed fee, pay per outbound GB, Unlimited — higher fixed fee, no data charge: Metered — lower fixed fee, pay per outbound GB
Circuit bandwidthaccepts 50–100,000 Mbps: 1,000 Mbps
Metered circuit feeaccepts 0–200,000 USD/month: 436 USD/month
Unlimited circuit feeaccepts 0–500,000 USD/month: 1,700 USD/month
Outbound dataaccepts 0–100,000,000 GB/month: 20,000 GB/month
Metered outbound price per GBaccepts 0–5 USD: 0.025 USD
Premium add-onaccepts 0–100,000 USD/month: 0 USD/month
ExpressRoute gateway rateaccepts 0–20 USD/hour: 0.19 USD/hour
Billed hours per monthaccepts 1–744 hours: 730 hours

Results

Monthly Cost: $1,074.70
Circuit Charge: $436.00
Outbound Data Charge: $500.00
Gateway Charge: $138.70
Break-even Outbound Volume: 50,560 GB/month
Circuit Utilisation at Average: 6.2%
Cheaper Plan at This Volume: Metered — below the break-even volume

Step by step

1Values used
2Azure ExpressRoute
3Monthly Cost= 1,074.70
4Circuit Charge= 436.00
5Outbound Data Charge= 500.00
6Gateway Charge= 138.70
7Break-even Outbound Volume= 50,560 GB/month
8Circuit Utilisation at Average= 6.2

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 9 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Azure ExpressRoute calculated?

break-even outbound GB = (unlimited fee − metered fee) ÷ metered per-GB price; monthly = circuit fee + premium add-on + metered outbound GB × price + gateway rate × 730. An ExpressRoute circuit is billed as a fixed fee for the reserved bandwidth plus, on the metered plan, a per-GB charge for outbound traffic only — inbound is always free. Dividing the fixed-fee difference by the per-GB rate gives the volume at which the unlimited plan wins, which is why heavy-egress workloads like offsite backup almost always belong on unlimited.

Why does Azure ExpressRoute matter?

Two circuits at different sites, the ExpressRoute gateway in each VNet and the Premium add-on are all separate meters, so the circuit fee alone understates the real cost; the connectivity provider's own charge sits on top of everything Azure bills, so confirm both with the Azure pricing calculator and your carrier.

What values do I need to enter?

This calculator takes 9 inputs: Billing plan, Circuit bandwidth, Metered circuit fee, Unlimited circuit fee, Outbound data, Metered outbound price per GB, Premium add-on, ExpressRoute gateway rate, Billed hours per month. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.