---
title: "CDN Pricing Comparison"
description: "Compare CDN pricing across Edge, Bunny, Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CDN77 — egress rates, minimum spend, and how each pricing model behaves at scale."
url: https://edge.network/academy/cdn-pricing-comparison/
---

# CDN Pricing Comparison

[Back to Academy](https://edge.network/academy)
Best Practices
8 min read

# CDN Pricing Comparison

CDN bills are dominated by bandwidth — but providers price it in very different ways.
Here's how the major pricing models work, and how the numbers compare.

## The three CDN pricing models

Most CDN pricing reduces to one of three models. **Per-GB egress pricing** charges
for every gigabyte delivered to users — the traditional model used by Bunny, Fastly,
Akamai, and CDN77. It ties your bill directly to traffic, which means costs spike with
success: a viral post or a product launch shows up on your invoice.

**Request-based pricing** charges per request served, regardless of size.
This is Edge's model: [$0.25 per million requests](https://edge.network/cdn/pricing) with
bandwidth included, so a million small API responses and a million large images cost
the same. It suits sites whose traffic is heavy in bytes rather than requests — media,
downloads, images — because the expensive part (bandwidth) isn't metered.

**Flat or plan-based pricing** bundles CDN into a subscription, as
Cloudflare does. Predictable at small scale, but limits and enterprise features
typically push growing sites into quote-based contracts where pricing is opaque.

## Provider pricing at a glance

Published rates as compared on our
[CDN comparison pages](https://edge.network/cdn/compare) —
follow the links for full feature-by-feature breakdowns.

| Provider | Egress Fees | Pricing Model | Minimum Spend |
| Edge | Free | $0.25 per million requests | None — free tier included |
| [Bunny.net](https://edge.network/cdn/compare/bunny) | $0.01–0.06/GB | Per-GB egress | None |
| [Cloudflare](https://edge.network/cdn/compare/cloudflare) | Free | Plans; enterprise quote required | Limited free tier |
| [Fastly](https://edge.network/cdn/compare/fastly) | $0.08–0.28/GB | Per-GB egress + requests | $50/month |
| [Akamai](https://edge.network/cdn/compare/akamai) | $0.10/GB+ | Negotiated contracts | Annual contract |
| [CDN77](https://edge.network/cdn/compare/cdn77) | $0.049/GB+ | Per-GB egress | None |

## What the numbers mean in practice

Per-GB rates look small until you multiply them. At Fastly's $0.08–0.28/GB, delivering
10 TB a month costs $800 or more; at Akamai's $0.10/GB+, the same traffic runs past
$1,000, typically under an annual contract with quote-based pricing. Bunny and CDN77
are far cheaper per gigabyte — $0.01–0.06/GB and $0.049/GB+ respectively — but the
bill still scales linearly with every byte you serve.

Cloudflare and Edge both drop egress fees entirely, and differ in what you pay for
instead. Cloudflare uses plan tiers, with enterprise pricing available only through
sales conversations. Edge meters requests: a free tier covers 3 deployments and
500,000 requests a month, then pay-as-you-go at $0.25 per million requests, with
enterprise volume pricing published from $499/month including a 99.99% SLA. There's no
minimum spend and no contract.

Also compare what's bundled. DDoS protection, SSL certificates, and image optimisation
are add-ons or higher-tier features on some providers; Edge includes them in the free
tier, and delivers from 994 edge locations — more than any of the
centralised networks in the table.

## How to choose

Match the pricing model to your traffic shape, not just the headline rate.

### Heavy bandwidth

Video, downloads, and image-rich sites move many bytes per request. Zero-egress pricing removes the largest cost, so request-based billing wins decisively.

### Unpredictable traffic

If traffic can spike, per-GB pricing turns success into a billing risk. Prefer models with caps, free tiers, and no bandwidth metering.

### Enterprise scale

At high volume, insist on published pricing and an SLA. Quote-only contracts make budgeting and comparison impossible.

## Price your workload on Edge

Free for 500k requests a month, $0.25 per million after that — and bandwidth is never
a line item.

[View CDN Pricing](https://edge.network/cdn/pricing) [All CDN Comparisons](https://edge.network/cdn/compare)

## Related articles

[Zero Egress Fees Explained 6 min](https://edge.network/academy/zero-egress-explained) [How to Set Up a CDN 7 min](https://edge.network/academy/how-to-set-up-a-cdn) [Cost Optimization 8 min](https://edge.network/academy/cost-optimization)

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