An often overlooked cost of using cloud services is data egress. This is the cost of sending data out of the cloud provider's network to the public internet.

I've compiled a list of egress pricing for major cloud providers to help you understand the costs:

Cloud Provider	Free allowance	1 TB of egress overage
Cloudflare	--	Free
Heroku	2 TB / app / mo	Not publicly listed
Scaleway	--	Free for most services
Hetzner	20-60 TB / mo per instance	$1.08
Linode	1-20 TB / mo per instance	$5.00
Oracle Cloud	10 TB / mo	$8.50
Backblaze	3x the amount of data stored	$10.00
Bunny CDN	--	$10.00
DigitalOcean	100 GB - 10 TB / mo per instance	$10.00
UpCloud	500 GB - 24 TB / mo per instance	$10.77
Vultr	2 TB / mo for most services	$10.00
Fly.io	100 GB / mo	$20.00
Microsoft Azure	100 GB / mo	$78.30
Amazon Web Services	100 GB / mo	$92.16
Railway	--	$100.00
Zeabur	10-100 GB, depends on plan	$100.00
Google Cloud	Depends on service	$111.60
Render	100 GB - 1 TB, depends on plan	$300.00
Vercel	100 GB - 1 TB, depends on plan	$400.00
Netlify	100 GB - 1 TB, depends on plan	$550.00

Important: We make several assumptions in order to provide these estimates. Cloud provider prices can change over time, and your actual costs may differ from these examples based on your usage.

Understanding cloud egress

If you're a developer, chances are you've used cloud services for tasks like storing files, running your apps, or hosting websites.

These services are typically charged based on usage, but one of the costs you might not be aware of until you get your cloud bill is data egress.

It's important to understand how it works because data egress fees can quickly add up, especially if you're moving a lot of data out of the cloud.

Let's break down what data egress is, how much it costs, and what you can do to keep your data egress costs down.

What is data egress?

Data egress is the term used to describe data leaving a network, more specifically, data leaving your cloud provider's network out to the public internet. This can be data sent from a cloud provider to a user, or data sent from one cloud provider to another.

Cloud providers typically charge for egress based on the amount of data sent out of their network, and it's usually measured in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB) of data transfer per month.

Data egress vs ingress

While egress is the term used to describe data leaving a network, ingress is the term used to describe data entering a network. Ingress is typically free, while egress is charged.

That means, from the cloud provider's perspective:

• When a user uploads a file to a cloud storage service, that's considered ingress.
• When the user downloads the file, that's considered egress.

Why do cloud providers charge for egress?

Cloud providers charge for egress because it costs them money to send data out of their network. They have to pay for the infrastructure and bandwidth required to send data to users.

However, some cloud providers offer a certain amount of free egress each month. For example, as an account-wide allowance (eg. 100 GB / mo), or pooled across the number of servers you have with them (eg. 1 TB / mo per server).

Keeping egress costs down

Here are some factors to consider when trying to keep egress costs down:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN) Cache and serve static assets closer to your users. That way, you can reduce the amount of data transferred from your cloud provider to your users.
• Compression: Compress your data before sending it to reduce the amount of data transferred. Gzip and Brotli are popular compression algorithms.
• Data transfer pools: Consider using a cloud provider that offers a data transfer pool. This allows you to pool together the data transfer allowances of multiple services within the same account.
• Monitoring: Set up usage and billing alerts to notify you when you're approaching your free allowance or a certain threshold.
• Private networking: Your cloud provider may offer free egress for data transferred between services within the same data center or region when using a private network. However, do watch out for NAT gateway charges and other fees that may apply.

Conclusion

Data egress is the cost of sending data out of a cloud provider's network to the public internet. It's important to understand how it works because data egress fees can quickly add up, especially if you're moving a lot of data out of the cloud.

Tip: You can use this website to compare cloud providers and their egress costs to find which one is the best fit for your use case.