Ultimate guide
CDN Pricing 2026 Ultimate Guide Verified: $0.005 to $0.28/GB, 3 Quote-Only Vendors
Everything you need to compare, calculate, and negotiate CDN cost in 2026. Per-GB rates from vendor pricing pages, plan bundle math, hidden cost categories, and a candid view on quote-only vendors.
Verified 17 June 2026 against 9 public pricing pages
Direct answer
What is the 2026 price range for CDN egress?
From $0.005/GB on Bunny's Volume Network up to $0.28/GB on Fastly's Africa and India tier. CloudFront and Fastly sit at $0.08-$0.085/GB NA/EU. Cloudflare bundles unmetered bandwidth into Free/Pro/Business plans ($0/$25/$250 per month). Three vendors (Akamai, Edgio, Azure Front Door) do not publish a per-GB rate.
Source: cdncost.com pricing matrix, verified 17 June 2026
CDN pricing models in 2026
There are five distinct models live on vendor pricing pages today. Knowing which one a vendor uses changes your negotiation completely.
- Per-GB tiered: Fastly, AWS CloudFront, Google Cloud CDN, KeyCDN, Bunny. Rate drops as you cross tier thresholds (10 TB, 50 TB, 100 TB+).
- Plan bundle: Cloudflare ($0/$25/$250), Vercel Edge Network ($20/user/mo + overage), CDN77 Growth ($990/mo for 250 TB). Predictable, but underutilising the bundle raises effective per-GB cost.
- Hybrid plan + overage: Vercel Pro includes 1 TB then $0.15/GB; CDN77 Growth includes 250 TB then $3.96/TB; AWS Bundles include 50 TB with no overage.
- Quote-only: Akamai, Edgio, Azure Front Door at enterprise volume. No public rate card.
- Hyperscaler bundling: AWS CloudFront with EC2/S3 free origin egress; GCP Cloud CDN with Load Balancing. The CDN cost line is part of a wider hyperscaler bill.
Published rate table
CDN pricing matrix
12 vendors, real published rates only. Quote-only labels are honest.
| Vendor | Model | Cheapest published rate | Free tier | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Plan bundle | $0 / unmetered | None published | Active |
| Fastly | Per-GB tiered | $0.080 /GB | 100 GB/mo | Active |
| Akamai | Quote only | Quote only | None published | Quote only |
| AWS CloudFront | Per-GB tiered | $0.080 /GB | 1,024 GB/mo | Active |
| Google Cloud CDN | Per-GB tiered | $0.020 /GB | None published | Active |
| Microsoft Azure CDN / Front Door | Quote only | Quote only | None published | Quote only |
| KeyCDN | Per-GB tiered | $0.010 /GB | None published | Active |
| BunnyCDN | Per-GB tiered | $0.005 /GB | None published | Active |
| StackPath | Quote only | Quote only | None published | Uncertain |
| CDN77 | Plan bundle | $0.004 /GB | None published | Active |
| Edgio (formerly Limelight) | Quote only | Quote only | None published | Uncertain |
| Vercel Edge Network | Plan bundle | $0.150 /GB | 100 GB/mo | Active |
Source: each vendor's own pricing page, verified 17 June 2026.
Region premium reality
NA/EU rates are the floor everywhere. Asia is typically 1.5-2x; Africa and the Middle East are 2-3x. South America sits in between.
- Fastly NA/EU $0.12 -> Asia $0.19 -> Africa $0.28 (per GB, 0-10 TB band).
- Bunny Standard NA/EU $0.01 -> Asia $0.03 -> Africa $0.06.
- Cloud CDN NA/EU $0.08 -> Asia $0.12 -> Oceania $0.20.
- KeyCDN NA/EU $0.04 -> Asia $0.08 -> Africa $0.10.
The cost categories the rate card never mentions
- Per-request fees: AWS CloudFront and Google Cloud CDN bill per 10,000 HTTP/HTTPS requests; ignore them at low volume, watch them at API scale.
- WAF, Bot Management, Image Optimization: priced separately on every CDN except Cloudflare Business and Enterprise. See our WAF + CDN bundles page.
- Cache-miss penalties: Cloud CDN charges both cache-fill (origin to edge) and cache-egress (edge to client) on misses. Low hit ratio doubles cost.
- Premium routing/Argo equivalent: Cloudflare Argo, AWS Global Accelerator, Akamai SureRoute. Often hidden in enterprise quotes.
- Origin egress at your cloud: data leaving S3/EC2/GCS to a non-AWS/GCP CDN can be $0.05-$0.09/GB on top of the CDN bill.
Anti-pitch on quote-only vendors
We list Akamai, Edgio and Azure Front Door for completeness, but if the rep cannot send a written rate card you have no negotiation floor. Our CDN RFP template forces a numbered, dated rate from sales.
Choosing in five questions
- Is monthly traffic predictable? If yes, plan bundles (Cloudflare, CDN77) almost always win.
- Do you need WAF / Bot Mgmt / Image Optimization in one SKU? Cloudflare Business or Enterprise.
- Is your origin on AWS? Default to CloudFront unless egress savings dwarf the per-GB difference.
- Is Asia / Africa / SA a meaningful share of your traffic? Bunny Standard or KeyCDN beat Fastly/CloudFront in that band on rack rate.
- Do you need Compute@Edge / Lambda@Edge / Edge Functions? Fastly, CloudFront, Vercel.
Last verified June 2026.