CDN Cost Calculator

CDNs meter data transfer and HTTP requests as two independent resources, because a request that returns a tiny cached response still consumes edge compute and connection overhead regardless of its payload size. This calculator mirrors that by computing bandwidthCost from your monthly terabytes and requestCost from your monthly request count separately, then summing them — so a site full of small, frequently-requested assets (API responses, thumbnails) can have a low bandwidth bill but a surprisingly large request bill.

Turning on Origin Shield adds a flat 15% surcharge on top of your calculated bandwidth cost, modeling the extra data transfer for the shield's cache-to-cache hop. The calculator doesn't itemize the offsetting benefit — fewer requests hitting your origin server, which can mean real savings on your own hosting or egress bill — so whether it's worth the 15% depends on comparing that surcharge against what a spike in origin traffic would cost you elsewhere.

Both are blended metrics that divide your total monthly cost (bandwidth + requests + SSL + origin shield) by a single dimension — total GB served or total millions of requests — rather than isolating just the bandwidth or request line items. That makes them useful for comparing two different CDN plans or vendors even when one prices mostly by bandwidth and another prices mostly by requests, since the blended number reflects your actual traffic mix.

Most CDNs bundle a free shared or auto-provisioned certificate, so the default SSL cert monthly cost is $0. It only becomes a real line item if you need a dedicated custom certificate — for example, a specific EV cert or one issued outside the CDN's automated system — in which case you'd enter the number of certificates and each one's monthly charge, and the calculator multiplies them together into sslCost.