CDN Bandwidth & Performance Calculator
Accurately Estimate Bandwidth Needs and CDN Costs.
CDN pricing can be complex. Use our calculator to estimate your monthly bill based on data transfer and request volume. Make an informed decision and optimize your content delivery strategy for cost and performance.
CDN Cost Estimator
Estimate your monthly CDN costs with providers like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai.
About This Tool
The CDN Cost & Performance Calculator is a critical financial planning tool for any business with a significant online presence. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is essential for providing a fast, reliable user experience by caching content close to users. However, CDN pricing models can be opaque, often combining charges for data transferred with fees for the number of HTTP requests, making it difficult to forecast expenses. This calculator demystifies the process. By inputting your expected monthly data transfer and request volume, you can get a clear, side-by-side estimate of your bill from major providers like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai. This empowers you to compare different pricing models, from Cloudflare's predictable flat-rate plans to the usage-based models of Fastly and Akamai, allowing you to choose the most cost-effective solution for your traffic patterns.
How to Use This Tool
- Use the slider to set your estimated total data transfer for the month in Gigabytes (GB).
- Use the second slider to set your estimated total number of HTTP(S) requests for the month.
- Click the "Estimate CDN Costs" button.
- The tool will display a bar chart comparing the estimated monthly bill for different CDN providers.
- Hover over the bars to see the exact cost estimates for your specified usage.
In-Depth Guide
Calculating Bandwidth & Understanding Cost Components
CDN pricing primarily revolves around two metrics. The first is **Data Transfer**, the total volume of data served from the CDN's edge servers to your users. The second is **Request Volume**, the total number of HTTP/HTTPS requests the CDN handles. Providers charge a small fee per 10,000 requests. The final bill is a combination of these charges plus any base plan fees. Some providers, like Cloudflare, offer plans with a flat monthly fee that includes unmetered bandwidth, which can be simpler to predict.
The Importance of Cache Hit Ratio (CHR)
While a CDN bill is important, the primary purpose of a CDN is to avoid requests hitting your origin server (e.g., your AWS S3 bucket). Your Cache Hit Ratio is the percentage of requests served directly by the CDN. A high CHR (ideally >95%) means you are not only giving users a faster experience but also dramatically reducing your origin server's egress fees, which are often much more expensive than the CDN's data transfer fees.
Optimization: Caching, Compression, and Geo-Targeting
To reduce costs and improve performance, enable caching for as many assets as possible with long TTLs (Time-To-Live). Use modern compression like Brotli or Gzip to reduce file sizes. For advanced scenarios, use region-based traffic management to route users to the most cost-effective or performant data centers.
Beyond the Basics: Advanced Features
Top-tier CDNs are more than just caching engines. Their value also comes from advanced features which may have separate costs. These can include Web Application Firewalls (WAF) for security, bot management, DDoS protection, image optimization services, and serverless compute at the edge (like Cloudflare Workers or Fastly Compute@Edge). When choosing a provider, consider the total value of their platform, not just the per-GB cost.