CloudFront Pricing: How To Manage And Optimize Your CDN Costs

The CDN market is projected to grow from $27.59 billion in 2024 to $127.13 billion by 2033. The surge in online content consumption, e-commerce expansion, and cloud adoption are some of the leading factors behind this growth.

Amazon CloudFront is one of the leading CDN services that offers users efficient and rapid content delivery. However, its costs can be complex due to data transfer fees, request charges, region-specific pricing, and more.

In this guide, we explain how the CloudFront pricing model works and share best practices for cost optimization. But first, let’s explore what CloudFront is and how it delivers content.

What Is Amazon CloudFront?

Amazon CloudFront is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It accelerates the delivery of web content such as images, videos, APIs, and data by caching copies at edge locations worldwide. This ensures that users can access content from a server geographically closer to them.

How does CloudFront deliver content?

Here is a breakdown of how CloudFront works.

Request routing to edge locations

When a user requests content, CloudFront routes the request to the nearest edge location, also known as Points of Presence (PoPs). This is a data center where CloudFront caches content closer to users.

An edge location reduces latency as the content doesn’t have to travel all the way back to your origin server, which could be located halfway across the world. For example, if a user in Boston requests content from your website, CloudFront will serve that content from an edge location in Boston or another nearby city.

CloudFront currently operates over 600 PoPs across more than 100 cities in over 50 countries globally.

Caching and content delivery

When a user request reaches an edge location, CloudFront checks:

Sometimes, CloudFront can also use Lambda@Edge to process requests dynamically before reaching the origin server. 

Source: AWS

This adds flexibility for:

Once CloudFront retrieves the content (directly or via Lambda@Edge processing), it caches it at the edge location to serve future requests faster. This reduces the load on your origin server, optimizes delivery performance, and saves on data transfer costs.

Regional edge caches for faster delivery

For highly requested content, CloudFront uses regional edge caches. These larger caching servers sit between the edge locations and your origin server. This additional caching layer helps reduce the need to retrieve data from your origin server frequently, further improving content availability.

Source: AWS

These are some of the features that set CloudFront apart, making it a top choice for most organizations.

Why Choose CloudFront? Key Benefits For Businesses

In addition to faster content delivery and flexible caching, CloudFront also ensures:

CloudFront’s pay-as-you-go pricing model is another major attraction for most businesses. So, how is CloudFront pricing structured, and what makes it a cost-effective CDN solution?

What Determines Your CloudFront Cost?

CloudFront costs are influenced by several variables that can significantly impact your monthly bill. Here’s a quick breakdown of the key factors

Cost factor	Description	Pricing
Data transfer out (DTO)	– Data delivered from CloudFront edge locations to end-users – Data transfer costs vary by region, with higher rates in regions like South America due to increased infrastructure costs	– US, Europe, Canada: $0.085 per GB – Asia Pacific: $0.120 per GB – South America: $0.170 per GB
HTTP/HTTPS request charges	– Charges based on the volume of HTTP/HTTPS requests – High-traffic websites can incur higher costs due to the large volume of requests processed.	– US, Europe, Canada: – HTTP: $0.0075 per 10,000 requests – HTTPS: $0.0100 per 10,000 requests – Asia Pacific: – HTTP: $0.0090 per 10,000 requests – HTTPS: $0.0120 per 10,000 requests
Lambda@Edge	– Runs serverless functions at edge locations – It is useful for personalization and content modification but can be costly if used heavily	– $0.60 per million invocations – $0.00005001 per GB-second
Field-level encryption	– Encrypting specific data fields for additional security – Increases costs if handling critical data, especially for applications in finance or healthcare	$0.02 per 10,000 requests
Real-time logs	– Provides detailed logs for monitoring and debugging – Useful for insights and analytics but can increase costs if logs are enabled frequently	$0.01 per 1,000,000 log lines
Cache invalidation	– Removing content from edge caches before the TTL expires – Frequent invalidations can drive up costs, so it’s best to use sparingly or use content versioning	First 1,000 invalidations free, then $0.005 per request
Custom SSL certificates	– Using custom SSL/TLS certificates for secure content delivery – It is necessary for branded SSL, which can add to costs, especially if multiple certificates are used	Additional monthly fees based on usage

Pricing classes

CloudFront offers different pricing classes to control which edge locations are used for content delivery, helping you balance costs and performance.

Pricing class	Coverage	Use case	Cost
Price Class All (default)	Includes all edge locations globally	Best for businesses with a global audience needing the fastest delivery	Data transfer: $0.085 – $0.170 per GB depending on region Requests: $0.0075 – $0.012 per 10,000 requests
Price Class 100	US, Europe	Ideal for businesses serving mainly North America and Europe	Data transfer: $0.085 per GB Requests: $0.0075 per 10,000 requests
Price Class 200	South America, Australia	Suitable for major markets while controlling costs	Data transfer: $0.085 – $0.140 per GB Requests: $0.0075 – $0.010 per 10,000 requests

Estimating CloudFront costs

The AWS Pricing Calculator is the go-to tool for estimating most AWS costs, including CloudFront. It enables users to input their expected usage (such as data transfer, request volumes, and regional distribution) for a detailed cost breakdown.

With CloudFront pricing information, you can also get cost estimates.

Here is an example use case:

Consider a media streaming platform that uses CloudFront to deliver HD video content to North America and Europe users.

Breakdown of costs:

Estimated monthly cost: $1,150.05

However, estimates alone aren’t enough. You must follow best practices to optimize costs as your usage changes.

Amazon CloudFront Cost Optimization: Six Tips And Best Practices You Need To Know

Here are some quick tips to help you keep your CloudFront costs in control:

AWS also offers Cost Explorer and CloudWatch for reviewing usage reports, identifying trends, and adjusting configurations to optimize costs. However, they have some limitations, especially for more complex, large-scale cloud environments.

Take Control Of Your CloudFront Costs With CloudZero

As you’ve seen, CloudFront’s pricing model can be pretty complex, especially when you’re scaling and delivering content globally. Costs can also spiral out of control if not managed carefully. 

This is where CloudZero steps in to help you gain visibility, control, and optimize your CloudFront costs.

Why CloudZero for CloudFront cost management?

CloudZero is a cloud cost intelligence platform that goes beyond traditional cost management tools. It enables you to analyze, understand, and optimize your CloudFront costs by providing granular insights into how and where your CDN costs accumulate. 

With CloudZero, you get:

Granular visibility into data transfer and requests

One of the main cost drivers in CloudFront is data transfer costs and the high volume of HTTP/HTTPS requests. AWS Cost and Usage Report offers detailed cost breakdowns. But, these reports can be complex to analyze and often lack the contextual insights needed to understand what drives your CloudFront costs.

CloudZero breakdowns of your CloudFront costs by region, service, or product line. For example, if you’re serving content to multiple regions, you can pinpoint which regions consume the most bandwidth and generate the highest costs.

CloudZero also tracks HTTP/HTTPS request patterns, enabling you to identify traffic spikes that could be driving up costs. This enables you to proactively adjust caching or compression strategies to reduce the load.

Read our comprehensive guide on how CloudZero helps manage all AWS data transfer costs.

Monitoring usage trends and predicting cost spikes

Unexpected traffic spikes can result in hefty bills if you’re not monitoring usage closely. CloudFront’s pay-as-you-go model also means that a sudden surge in data transfer or request volume can catch you off guard.

With CloudZero’s AI-powered anomaly detection, you will receive instant alerts in case of unusual usage patterns or cost spikes.  

CloudZero also uses machine learning to analyze historical data and predict future CloudFront costs. This helps you plan budgets more accurately and set aside resources for upcoming traffic surges.

Leveraging CloudZero’s cost allocation for accurate chargebacks

CloudZero uses tags and metadata to attribute costs directly to specific teams, products, or departments. This means you can allocate costs accurately, ensuring each unit is accountable for its usage.

By tracking cost per user, per feature, or per transaction, CloudZero also helps you understand the true cost of delivering content through CloudFront. This is particularly useful for SaaS businesses that rely heavily on content delivery.

Sound good? to see CloudZero in action.