Azure bandwidth & egress pricing
Azure undercuts AWS in the first two tier bands, then matches it from 50 TB up. The zone-based pricing system confuses engineers coming from AWS. This is the consolidated reference: zones, tiers, ExpressRoute, Front Door, with a calculator and a worked example.
Headline rate: $0.087/GB first 10 TB Zone 1, after the 100 GB free tier. Source →
Zone 1 internet egress tiers
USD per GBfree across all regions
Zone 1, post-free
10-50 TB band
50-150 TB band
high-volume
[01]Calculate your Azure egress
Tier-aware calculation, post-free-tier. Each GB charged at the rate of the tier it falls into. Prefer a dedicated tool? Open the Azure egress cost calculator → for worked dollar examples at common volumes.
[02]Azure pricing zones
Egress price depends on the source region's zone. Zone 1 is cheapest, Zone 3 most expensive. Pick the right region matters at scale. For the full per-GB rate table by zone, including Azure bandwidth egress pricing for Asia (Zone 2) per GB → and the complete region-to-zone mapping.
| Zone | Regions | Entry rate |
|---|---|---|
| Zone 1 | US, Canada, EU, UK | $0.087/GB |
| Zone 2 | Asia Pacific (Japan, Singapore, India, Korea), Australia | $0.12/GB |
| Zone 3 | South America, Africa, Middle East | $0.181/GB |
[03]Per-service notes
Most services use the standard zone tier rates. The ones below have specific gotchas.
Blob Storage
Standard zone tiers. ZRS replication is free in-region; GZRS adds geo-replication egress.
Azure CDN (legacy)
Being wound down. The Edgio (formerly Verizon) tier shut down 15 Jan 2025; Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) retires 30 Sep 2027 and has taken no new profiles since 15 Aug 2025. Price Front Door instead.
Front Door
Microsoft's CDN + global LB. $0.0825/GB first 10 TB from NA/EU edges on Standard; Premium adds WAF at the same data rates.
VPN Gateway
Per-hour gateway charge plus standard outbound egress on top.
ExpressRoute Metered
$0.025/GB egress (Zone 1) + circuit fee. Cheaper than internet above ~7 TB / mo on a 1 Gbps circuit.
ExpressRoute Unlimited
Flat-rate circuit ($5,700 / mo at 1 Gbps Zone 1). Only wins above ~65% sustained port utilisation.
Private Link
Backbone routing eliminates egress for in-region service-to-service traffic.
App Service
Standard egress tiers. CDN integration recommended for content-heavy apps.
[04]Worked example, 20 TB / month from West Europe
A .NET SaaS serving 20 TB / month from a West Europe deployment with multi-zone Blob Storage and an App Service tier.
Equivalent AWS workload from us-east-1 would cost approximately $1,784 in base egress alone (versus $1,732.50 here).
Azure vs AWS vs GCP, side by side
Azure undercuts AWS below 50 TB and matches it above. GCP Premium is more expensive; its Standard Tier is the cheaper option. Use the comparison tool to see exact costs at your volume.
[05]Frequently asked
Q.01How much does Azure charge for egress?
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Azure charges $0.087 per GB for the first 10 TB of internet egress from Zone 1 regions (US, EU, UK, Canada), $0.083 per GB for the next 40 TB, $0.07 per GB for the next 100 TB, and $0.05 per GB above 150 TB. The first 100 GB per month is free across all services and regions. Zone 2 (Asia Pacific) and Zone 3 (South America, Africa, Middle East) regions have higher rates.
Q.02What are Azure pricing zones?
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Azure groups regions into three pricing zones for outbound bandwidth. Zone 1 includes US, Canada, EU, UK, France, Switzerland and Norway, with the lowest rates ($0.087/GB starting). Zone 2 includes Asia Pacific (Japan, Singapore, India, Korea) and Australia, with mid-range rates ($0.12/GB starting). Zone 3 includes South America, Africa, and Middle East, with the highest rates ($0.181/GB starting). All zones share the same tier bands: first 10 TB, next 40 TB, next 100 TB, over 150 TB.
Q.03Is Azure cheaper than AWS for egress?
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Azure is slightly cheaper than AWS in the first two volume bands: $0.087/GB versus $0.09/GB for the first 10 TB, and $0.083/GB versus $0.085/GB for the next 40 TB. Beyond 50 TB the two are identical ($0.07/GB to 150 TB, $0.05/GB above). The saving is therefore modest and concentrated at low-to-mid volume: at 100 TB/month, Azure comes out roughly $113/month cheaper than AWS at list price.
Q.04What is Azure ExpressRoute pricing?
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ExpressRoute pricing combines a port charge ($55-$10,500/month depending on bandwidth from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps) with either metered or unlimited data plans. Metered plans charge per GB egressed (typically $0.025-0.05/GB depending on zone), but ingress is free. Unlimited plans are flat-rate per port. For high-volume hybrid workloads (>10 TB/mo egress), ExpressRoute is significantly cheaper than internet egress despite the port costs.
Q.05Does Azure charge for cross-zone traffic within a region?
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No. Microsoft stopped charging for data transfer between Availability Zones within the same region on 21 May 2024, for both private and public IP addressing. Cross-zone VM-to-VM traffic is now free, so multi-AZ high-availability architectures on Azure carry no internal cross-zone transfer fee. That is a genuine advantage over AWS and GCP, which both still charge $0.01/GB each way for cross-AZ traffic. Azure still bills inter-region transfer (from $0.02/GB between US or European regions).
Q.06What is MACC and how does it affect egress?
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Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment is an enterprise discount programme where customers commit to spending a set amount over 1-5 years in exchange for discounted pricing. Egress is included in MACC consumption. Discounts on egress are typically 5-20% depending on commitment size, but rarely advertised: customers must negotiate. For organisations spending $250K+/year on Azure, MACC is worth pursuing for egress savings alone.