Egress fees are charges that a cloud provider applies to data moving out of its network, such as traffic to the public internet, to another region, or to another provider. Inbound transfer is commonly free or much cheaper, and traffic between resources in the same zone is often free, though rules differ by provider and service.
Why it matters
For sites that serve large files, video or heavy APIs, data transfer can become a major line of the bill, sometimes larger than compute. Egress pricing is also a practical barrier to moving data between clouds, which feeds vendor lock-in. Using a CDN, compressing responses and keeping chatty services in the same region can lower it. Always check the provider's current price tables, since free tiers and tiers by volume change.
Example
A site serves 2 TB of downloads in a month. At a hypothetical rate of $0.08 per GB:
2 TB = 2,000 GB
2,000 GB x $0.08 = $160The rate here is only an illustration, not any provider's actual price.
Common mistakes
- Estimating costs from server size alone and ignoring bandwidth.
- Placing the database and application in different regions, so internal traffic is billed as egress.
- Forgetting that backups copied to another provider also leave the network.
Related
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This page is general information written by our editorial team and updated when documentation changes. Servers and providers differ, so test changes safely first. See our editorial policy and disclaimer.