CDN Cost & Pricing Guide (bandwidth, requests, origin egress)

If you search for CDN cost or CDN pricing, you will usually see "$/GB" tables. In practice, a complete estimate often needs three buckets:

  • Edge bandwidth: GB delivered from the CDN edge to end users.
  • Request fees: request-based charges (common on some plans).
  • Origin egress (cache fill): bytes pulled from your origin to the CDN (billed by your origin provider).

CDN pricing shortcuts (fast sanity checks)

  • Cost per GB = bandwidth charges / GB delivered (use this as a blended rate).
  • Requests cost = (requests/month / 10,000) x $ per 10k (or per 1M if priced that way).
  • If you only have RPS or Mbps, convert to monthly units before pricing (see the tools linked below).

Step 1: Estimate bandwidth (GB/month)

Bandwidth is the anchor input for almost every CDN cost calculator. Get it from CDN analytics if you have them. If you only have throughput charts (Mbps), convert Mbps to GB/month using the Units Converter or this guide: estimate CDN bandwidth.

Then price it with CDN Bandwidth Cost Calculator.

Step 2: Estimate request fees (requests/month)

Many pricing pages list request fees as "$ per 10k" or "$ per 1M". If you have requests/month from analytics or logs, use it. If you only have RPS, convert it with RPS to Monthly Requests.

Then price it with CDN Request Cost Calculator.

Step 3: Model origin egress (cache fill) if you pay for it

The most common under-estimate is forgetting that cache misses (and cache fill) move bytes from your origin to the CDN. That traffic is typically billed as origin egress by your origin provider (object storage, load balancer, VM, etc.).

A simple starting point if you do not have metrics yet:

  • Origin egress (GB/month) ~ CDN bandwidth (GB/month) x (1 - cache hit rate)

You can estimate this quickly with the CDN Origin Egress Calculator, then price it using your origin provider's $/GB rate.

For a deeper explanation (and common double-counting mistakes), see origin egress vs CDN bandwidth.

Validate your estimate (before you trust the number)

  • Confirm whether your origin provider bills origin-to-CDN traffic as internet egress, inter-region transfer, or a special CDN integration line item.
  • If you use multiple origins (API + static assets), estimate origin egress per origin (they often have different $/GB).
  • Sanity check with logs/metrics: cache hit rate, origin request rate, and bytes served from origin.

Other line items that can matter

  • WAF / bot protection: often billed per request and can spike with bot traffic.
  • Logs / analytics: delivery, retention, and query/scan charges depending on provider.
  • Optimization add-ons: image optimization, video packaging, signed URLs, functions, etc.
  • Invalidations: sometimes billed, sometimes free within limits.

Worked example (quick sanity check)

Suppose you expect 4,000 GB/month delivered and 300M requests/month:

  • Bandwidth: 4,000 x $0.06/GB = $240/month
  • Requests: 300,000,000 / 10,000 x $0.0075 = $225/month
  • Total (before origin egress): about $465/month

If your cache hit rate is 85%, a rough cache-fill estimate is 4,000 x (1 - 0.85) = 600 GB/month of origin egress, priced at your origin provider's rate.

Related tools

CDN cost calculator CDN bandwidth cost CDN request cost CDN origin egress Origin egress cost

More CDN guides

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Educational use only. Always confirm billable units (GB vs GiB, request class, per-10k vs per-1M) and regional pricing in your provider documentation.

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Related calculators

CDN Cost Calculator
Estimate total CDN cost from bandwidth and request pricing.
CDN Bandwidth Cost Calculator
Estimate monthly CDN bandwidth cost from GB transferred and $/GB pricing.
CDN Request Cost Calculator
Estimate CDN request fees from monthly requests and $ per 10k/1M pricing.
Data Egress Cost Calculator
Estimate monthly egress spend from GB transferred and $/GB pricing.
API Response Size Transfer Calculator
Estimate monthly transfer from request volume and average response size.
VPC Data Transfer Cost Calculator
Estimate data transfer spend from GB/month and $/GB assumptions.

FAQ

What are the main line items on a CDN bill?
Most CDNs bill primarily for bandwidth delivered to end users (GB/month). Some plans also charge request fees (per 10k or per 1M). Many teams also need to model origin egress (cache fill) billed by the origin provider.
Do cache hits reduce CDN bandwidth cost?
Not usually. Cache hit rate mainly reduces origin egress and origin request volume. End-user delivery is still bandwidth delivered from the CDN edge.
How do I estimate monthly requests?
Use CDN analytics if available. If you only have RPS, convert it with the RPS to Monthly Requests tool.
What is a 'billable request'?
It depends on the provider. CDNs typically bill by HTTP/HTTPS requests, sometimes separated by request class. Always confirm the provider definition and request units (per 10k vs per 1M).
How do I handle tiered pricing by region or volume?
Use an effective blended rate ($/GB and $ per 10k/1M) for your expected mix, or run scenarios for multiple regions/tiers and sum them.
Last updated: 2026-02-23