Public Internet Egress Costs: AWS vs Azure vs GCP vs Hetzner Comparison
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Price basis: Hetzner values checked on 3 August 2026, net and excluding VAT. Hyperscaler plans, regions and exchange rates can change; validate every example against current calculators and the actual invoice before making a decision.
Public Internet Egress – traffic leaving your cloud to the internet – is one of the most underestimated cost factors in the cloud. User downloads, API responses, file transfers: all of this costs real money with the major hyperscalers.
In this article, we compare the egress costs of AWS, Azure and GCP and show why Hetzner is the significantly cheaper alternative for many workloads.
Table of Contents
- What is Public Internet Egress?
- Egress Costs Overview
- Calculation Examples: 1 TB, 10 TB, 50 TB
- Why Hetzner is So Affordable
- Conclusion
What is Public Internet Egress?
Public Internet Egress = Traffic leaving your cloud to the internet.
This includes:
- User downloads (files, images, videos)
- API responses to external clients
- Files from Object Storage to end users
- Backup transfers to external systems
Not included: Traffic between regions/zones/VPCs or provider-internal traffic – these are separate cost items.
Egress Costs Overview
AWS (Data Transfer Out to Internet)
| Volume | Price per GB |
|---|---|
| First 100 GB/month | Free |
| Up to 10 TB | $0.09/GB |
| 10–50 TB | $0.085/GB |
| 50–150 TB | $0.07/GB |
| From 150 TB | $0.05/GB |
Source: AWS EC2 Pricing - Data Transfer
Detailed Analysis: AWS Egress Fees vs Hetzner
Azure (Bandwidth - Internet Egress)
| Volume | Price per GB |
|---|---|
| First 100 GB/month | Free |
| Up to 10 TB | $0.087/GB |
| 10–50 TB | $0.083/GB |
| 50–150 TB | $0.07/GB |
| From 150 TB | $0.05/GB |
Source: Azure Bandwidth Pricing
Detailed Analysis: Azure Egress Fees vs Hetzner
GCP (Internet Data Transfer - Premium Tier)
| Volume | Price per GiB |
|---|---|
| 0–1 GiB/month | Free |
| 1–1,024 GiB | $0.12/GiB |
| 1–10 TiB | $0.11/GiB |
| From 10 TiB | $0.085/GiB |
Note: GCP calculates in GiB (1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 Bytes), not GB!
Source: GCP VPC Network Pricing
Detailed Analysis: GCP Egress Fees vs Hetzner
Hetzner (Traffic)
| Volume | Price |
|---|---|
| At least 20 TB included (EU locations) | €0 |
| Each additional TB | €1.00/TB net |
Important: Hetzner only counts outgoing traffic. Incoming and internal traffic are free.
Source: Hetzner Traffic Documentation
Calculation Examples: 1 TB, 10 TB, 50 TB
Example 1: 1 TB Egress per Month
| Provider | Cost/Month |
|---|---|
| AWS | ~$82 (900 GB × $0.09) |
| Azure | ~$78 (900 GB × $0.087) |
| GCP | ~$110 (1,000 GiB × $0.11) |
| Hetzner | €0 (included) |
Hetzner egress line item in this example: €0
Example 2: 10 TB Egress per Month
| Provider | Cost/Month |
|---|---|
| AWS | ~$900 |
| Azure | ~$870 |
| GCP | ~$1,100 |
| Hetzner | €0 (included) |
Hetzner egress line item in this example: €0
Example 3: 50 TB Egress per Month
| Provider | Cost/Month |
|---|---|
| AWS | ~$4,165 |
| Azure | ~$4,015 |
| GCP | ~$4,700 |
| Hetzner | ~€30 (30 TB overage × €1.00) |
Result of this egress example; not a statement about total infrastructure cost.
Why Hetzner is So Affordable
The price differences have several reasons:
1. Business Model
Hyperscalers deliberately profit from egress – it's a profit center. Hetzner calculates traffic as operating costs.
2. Infrastructure Ownership
Hetzner operates its own data centers and network infrastructure in Germany and Finland. No margin for third parties.
3. No Vendor Lock-in Incentive
At AWS/Azure/GCP, ingress is free, egress is expensive – making switching harder. Hetzner doesn't have this interest.
4. Focus on Europe
Less global edge network means lower infrastructure costs passed on to customers.
How to Reduce Egress Costs?
Regardless of provider, there are strategies to reduce egress:
- Use CDN – CloudFlare, Bunny.net or Hetzner's own CDN
- Enable compression – gzip/brotli for API responses
- Optimize caching – Browser and edge caching
- Avoid bulk downloads – Streaming instead of full downloads
- Switch providers – Migrate to Hetzner for traffic-intensive workloads
Conclusion
The egress costs of major hyperscalers can quickly reach thousands of euros per month for traffic-intensive applications. Hetzner offers an alternative that can be substantially cheaper depending on the traffic profile with 20 TB included traffic and €1.00/TB net for overage.
For workloads with high outbound traffic (APIs, file sharing, streaming, downloads), a different traffic model can materially change the egress line item. Total savings must be calculated from the current invoice and target architecture.
Next Steps
We analyze your current cloud infrastructure and show you specifically how much you can save through migration.
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Compare egress costs using your real traffic
We normalise AWS, Azure, GCP, and Hetzner tariffs against measured outbound traffic and include the target architecture in the decision.
Written by
Timo Wevelsiep
Co-Founder & CEO
Co-Founder of WZ-IT. Specialized in cloud infrastructure, open-source platforms and managed services for SMEs and enterprise clients worldwide.
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