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NAT Gateway Cost Calculator

Estimate NAT Gateway hourly and per-GB charges, the saving from gateway VPC endpoints, and the 55,000-connection limit.

About NAT Gateway Cost Calculator

A NAT Gateway carries two charges that are billed independently: an hourly charge for every gateway that exists, and a data processing charge for every GB that passes through in either direction. Because ingress and egress both count, a chatty workload can spend more on data processing than on the gateway itself, and traffic to S3 or DynamoDB can bypass the charge entirely through a free gateway VPC endpoint. NAT Gateway data processing is one of the most common surprises on an AWS bill, and the fix — a gateway endpoint or a per-zone gateway to avoid cross-zone transfer — is usually a one-day change.

Formula

NAT Gateway Cost

cost = gateways × hours × hourly rate + GB processed × per-GB rate.

gateways
NAT Gateways running, normally one per Availability Zone
GB processed
Bytes sent and received through the gateway
per-GB rate
Data processing price for the region

Worked example

With the default values below, NAT Gateway Cost Calculator returns Estimated Monthly Cost of $188.55. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

NAT Gateways deployedaccepts 0–100 gateways
3 gateways
Price per NAT Gateway houraccepts 0–2 USD
0.045 USD
Price per GB processedaccepts 0–2 USD
0.045 USD
Data processed per monthminimum 0 GB
2,000 GB
Of that, GB reachable via a gateway VPC endpointminimum 0 GB
400 GB
Peak connections to one destinationaccepts 0–200,000 connections
22,000 connections
Billable hours per monthaccepts 1–744 hours
730 hours

Results

Estimated Monthly Cost
$188.55
Gateway Hour Charges
$98.55
Data Processing Charges
$90.00
Saving via Gateway VPC Endpoints
$18.00
Data Processing Share of the Bill
47.7%
Connection Limit Check
Within the 55,000 simultaneous connections per unique destination limit

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2NAT Gateway Cost
  3. 3Estimated Monthly Cost= 188.55
  4. 4Gateway Hour Charges= 98.55
  5. 5Data Processing Charges= 90.00
  6. 6Saving via Gateway VPC Endpoints= 18.00
  7. 7Data Processing Share of the Bill= 47.7
  8. 8Connection Limit Check= Within the 55,000 simultaneous connections per unique destination limit

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 7 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 NAT Gateway Cost calculated?

cost = gateways × hours × hourly rate + GB processed × per-GB rate. A NAT Gateway carries two charges that are billed independently: an hourly charge for every gateway that exists, and a data processing charge for every GB that passes through in either direction. Because ingress and egress both count, a chatty workload can spend more on data processing than on the gateway itself, and traffic to S3 or DynamoDB can bypass the charge entirely through a free gateway VPC endpoint.

Why does NAT Gateway Cost matter?

NAT Gateway data processing is one of the most common surprises on an AWS bill, and the fix — a gateway endpoint or a per-zone gateway to avoid cross-zone transfer — is usually a one-day change.

What values do I need to enter?

This calculator takes 7 inputs: NAT Gateways deployed, Price per NAT Gateway hour, Price per GB processed, Data processed per month, Of that, GB reachable via a gateway VPC endpoint, Peak connections to one destination, Billable 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.

Are these prices current?

The defaults are us-east-1 list prices used as a starting point, and NAT Gateway rates differ by region. Confirm the current price for your region on the Amazon VPC pricing page and overwrite the rate fields before you rely on the figure.

Why deploy a NAT Gateway in every Availability Zone?

A NAT Gateway is a zonal resource. If instances in zone B route through a gateway in zone A, every byte also attracts cross-zone data transfer charges and the zone A outage takes zone B offline with it. One gateway per zone costs more in hourly charges but removes both problems.

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