Cloud Network Cost
Estimate cloud networking costs from data transfer, NAT gateway and load balancer usage.
About Cloud Network Cost
Cloud networking cost is rarely a single line item — it's the sum of metered data transfer (usually egress-only, since most providers don't charge for inbound traffic), hourly charges for always-on NAT gateways that let private-subnet resources reach the internet, and hourly charges for VPN gateways and load balancers that typically run continuously (730 hours/month). Data transfer costs scale with actual usage while the hourly-billed services accrue cost simply by existing, which is why idle or over-provisioned NAT gateways, VPNs, and load balancers are a common source of unexpected cloud networking spend.
Formula
Monthly cost
monthly = data_transfer_GB × $/GB + nat_hrs × $/hr + (vpn_hrs + lb_hrs) × $/hr
Worked example
With the default values below, Cloud Network Cost returns Total Monthly Cloud Networking Cost of $267.60. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Monthly Data Transfer (Egress)minimum 0 GB
- 2,000 GB
- Data Transfer Rateminimum 0 $/GB
- 0.09 $/GB
- NAT Gateway Hoursminimum 0 hrs
- 730 hrs
- NAT Gateway Rateminimum 0 $/hr
- 0.045 $/hr
- Combined VPN + Load Balancer Rateminimum 0 $/hr
- 0.075 $/hr
Results
- Total Monthly Cloud Networking Cost
- $267.60
- Data Transfer (Egress) Cost
- $180.00
- NAT Gateway Cost
- $32.85
- Projected Annual Cost
- $3,211.20
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Monthly cost
- 3Total Monthly Cloud Networking Cost= 267.60
- 4Data Transfer (Egress) Cost= 180.00
- 5NAT Gateway Cost= 32.85
- 6Projected Annual Cost= 3,211.20
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 5 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
Why do cloud providers usually only charge for data egress, not ingress?
Cloud providers want to make it easy to bring data into their platform (encouraging adoption and stickiness) but the ongoing cost of running the network is recovered on outbound traffic, since egress is what actually traverses expensive internet peering/transit links — this asymmetric pricing model is standard across major providers.
Why does a NAT gateway cost money even with minimal data transfer?
NAT gateways are billed with an hourly charge for simply existing/running (in addition to a smaller per-GB data processing charge), reflecting the managed, highly-available infrastructure the provider maintains for it — this hourly cost accrues whether or not the gateway is actively processing significant traffic, so idle or redundant NAT gateways are a common cost optimization target.
How can I reduce cloud networking costs?
Common levers include using VPC endpoints/private links to avoid NAT gateway traffic for provider-internal services (e.g. object storage), consolidating NAT gateways across availability zones where the availability tradeoff is acceptable, using a CDN to reduce origin egress for cacheable content, and right-sizing or consolidating load balancers rather than running one per small workload.