What are egress fees?
Egress fees are charges a cloud provider bills for data that leaves its network, measured per gigabyte. The typical case is traffic to the internet: web pages, API responses, file downloads and backup restores. Data sent into the cloud, called ingress, is usually free, so the fee only shows up when data flows back out.
Think of a self-storage unit that lets you drive boxes in for free but charges by the kilo every time you carry something out. Storing is cheap and filling it is easy. The cost appears when you use what is inside, or when you want to move everything somewhere else.
What counts as egress?
The simple rule is direction. Bytes your servers send are outbound, bytes they receive are inbound. A small request that triggers a large response is mostly egress, because the response is what leaves the network.
Traffic to the internet
This is the main egress charge. Every image a user downloads, every API response and every object read from a bucket by a client outside the provider counts. Some providers include a free monthly allowance and lower the rate in tiers as volume grows.
Traffic inside the provider
Data can also be billed when it moves between zones or regions of the same provider. Traffic between two servers in one zone is often free, while the same transfer across zones or regions may cost a smaller per-GB fee. A database that replicates across zones pays it on every write that crosses.
Processing charges
Some network components bill for the data passing through them, on top of plain egress. NAT gateways and load balancers are common examples. A private cluster that pulls container images through a metered NAT gateway pays for that traffic even though it is inbound.
How much can egress cost?
Egress scales with how much your users read, not with how much you store. Here is a worked example with round illustrative numbers, not any provider’s real prices:
- An app stores 5 TB of files at 0.02 euros per GB a month: 5,000 GB x 0.02 = 100 euros.
- Users download 50 TB of those files a month at 0.05 euros per GB: 50,000 GB x 0.05 = 2,500 euros.
- One full restore of a 20 TB backup at the same rate: 20,000 GB x 0.05 = 1,000 euros.
In this example egress costs 25 times more than storage each month. The restore also shows why egress matters for leaving a provider: moving all your data out is one large egress bill, and it can make a cloud exit expensive.
How to keep egress down
Compress responses and cache static files so repeat downloads do not leave your origin. Keep services that talk to each other a lot in the same zone where your availability needs allow it. Check whether NAT, load balancers or cross-zone traffic carry their own per-GB charges.
How enum handles egress fees
Incoming traffic is not billed on enum, and outgoing traffic is billed per GB from the first byte, at one rate for all products. Object storage API calls are free with no retrieval fees, and outbound NAT from private clusters is included without per-GB processing fees. Current rates are on the pricing page.
FAQ
Why is ingress usually free? Inbound data brings workloads and storage onto the platform, which providers then bill for in other ways. Charging only for outbound data keeps uploads cheap and moves the cost to the moment data is read or moved out.
Do egress fees apply to traffic between my own servers? It depends on where they are. Traffic inside one zone is often free, but transfers across zones or regions may be billed per GB. Read the data transfer section of the price list before you design for several zones.
How do I estimate egress before I migrate? Take outbound traffic from your current bills or network metrics, in GB per month. Multiply it by the new provider’s per-GB rate, then add one-off transfers such as the initial data move and any planned restore tests.