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Kubernetes Network Cost Calculator

The network bill for a multi-zone Kubernetes cluster: cross-zone service traffic, NAT for image pulls and egress, priced on each cloud.

Updated · By Niraj Kumar · 14 sources

Where

Servers and users inServers and users in
Enter volumes inEnter volumes in

Traffic to users

GB / month

Everything your servers, storage and CDN send to users and other services on the internet.

%
No CDNAll of it

Each provider's own CDN: CloudFront, Cloud CDN, Front Door, Cloudflare or Spaces CDN.

Traffic inside the cloud

GB / month

Replication, backups and calls to services in a different region.

GB / month

Service-to-service calls, load balancing and database replicas in other zones of the same region.

NAT and servers

GB / month

Outbound calls, package and image pulls from private subnets.

Usually one per availability zone.

Sets pooled transfer allowances and Cloud NAT's per-VM fee.

Cheapest cloud with serversOracle Cloud$0 a month: this traffic fits in its included allowance
AWS
$1,246 a month
$14,957 a year
Google Cloud
$1,051 a month
$12,615 a year
Microsoft Azure
$828 a month
$9,935 a year
Every provider on this traffic, per month, North AmericaHover or focus a row for its line items.
  1. 1Cloudflarebandwidth only$0.00Cloudflare runs no servers, so region, zone and NAT traffic is priced on whatever compute sits behind it.
  2. 2Oracle Cloud$0.00
  3. 3DigitalOcean$0.00DigitalOcean has no managed NAT gateway to bill; servers reach the internet on their own addresses.
  4. 4Akamai Cloud (Linode)$0.00Linode has no managed NAT gateway to bill; servers reach the internet on their own addresses.
  5. 5Hetzner Cloud$0.00Hetzner has no managed NAT gateway to bill; servers reach the internet on their own addresses.
  6. 6Microsoft Azure$828
  7. 7Google Cloud$1,051
  8. 8AWS$1,246
Line by line, per month
ProviderInternet egressInter-regionCross-AZNAT gateway hoursNAT data processedTotal
Cloudflare–––––$0.00
Oracle Cloud–––––$0.00
DigitalOcean–––––$0.00
Akamai Cloud (Linode)–––––$0.00
Hetzner Cloud–––––$0.00
Microsoft Azure$259$10.00–$98.55$461$828
Google Cloud$348$10.00$205$27.59$461$1,051
AWS$267$10.00$410$98.55$461$1,246

How is cloud data transfer billed?

monthly = tiered(internet egress) + CDN delivery + misses × origin fetch + inter-region GB × rate + cross-AZ GB × rate + NAT gateways × hourly × 730 + NAT GB × processing rate

This page uses the same method as the Cloud Egress Cost Calculator, which explains each term and assumption in full.

Worked example

A nine-node Kubernetes cluster spread across three availability zones: service-to-service calls push 20 TB a month across zones, and image pulls and outbound API calls send 10 TB through a NAT gateway in each zone. Priced on AWS in North America.

  1. 1Internet egress: $267
  2. 2Inter-region: $10.00
  3. 3Cross-AZ: $410
  4. 4NAT gateway hours: $98.55
  5. 5NAT data processed: $461
  6. 6Total: $1,246 a month

$1,246 a month on AWS, $14,957 a year. The cheapest cloud listed that runs servers, Oracle Cloud, would cost $0.00 a month.

Frequently asked questions

Why is cross-zone traffic so expensive in Kubernetes?

Because the scheduler spreads pods across zones and services load-balance across all of them, so in a three-zone cluster about two-thirds of service-to-service calls cross a zone boundary. AWS bills that at $0.01 per GB each way and Google at $0.01; Azure no longer charges for it. Topology-aware routing keeps calls inside a zone where a local endpoint exists.

Which cloud is cheapest for the data transfer of a multi-AZ Kubernetes cluster?

On this page's workload (3 TB a month to the internet, 500 GB to another region, 20 TB across zones, 10 TB through NAT), the lowest monthly transfer bills are Cloudflare $0.00, Oracle Cloud $0.00, DigitalOcean $0.00. The cheapest that also runs the servers is Oracle Cloud at $0.00, against $1,246 on AWS, at prices checked September 28, 2026.

Sources

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