The Cost of AWS VPC
AWS VPC lets you employ the scalable infrastructure of AWS and launch resources into a logically isolated virtual network. But how much will it really cost us? Let’s use the example in the previous article AWS Virtual Private Cloud to find out the total AWS VPC cost.
AWS VPC Cost
The following three components will be charged under AWS VPC:
NAT Gateways
In the example, we created two NAT gateways under US West region. AWS will charge two parts on NAT gateways: Data processing charges on per Gigabyte processed and service usage charges on total hours of using NAT gateway. Each partial NAT Gateway-hour consumed is billed as a full hour. For example, you will see the following charge in your bill:
| Price | Units | Total |
| $0.045 per GB Data Processed by NAT Gateways | 0.000000340 GB | $0.00 |
| $0.045 per NAT Gateway Hour |
10 Hrs
|
$0.45 |
Please go to AWS VPC pricing to review the pricing on the different regions.
VPC Endpoints
There are two types of VPC endpoints: interface and gateway. Interface Endpoints (Powered by AWS PrivateLink) support services such as CloudWatch Logs, EC2 API, Kinesis Data Streams, SNS, KMS, Systems Manager, and ELB API. AWS will charge two parts on AWS PrivateLink: Data processing charges per Gigabyte processed and service usage charges on total hours of using PrivateLink per AZ. Each partial VPC endpoint-hour consumed is billed as a full hour. For example, US West region will charge $0.01 per VPC endpoint per AZ per hour plus $0.01 per GB data processed. Please go to AWS VPC pricing to review the pricing on the different regions.
Gateway endpoints support services on S3 and DynamoDB. Data transfer charges are not incurred when accessing AWS services. In the example, we created the S3 endpoint. If you used S3 buckets, you will be charged based on AWS S3 Pricing. If you access AWS S3 through VPN connection, then there will be a charge as the part of VPN connection charge in VPC.
VPN Connection
If you choose to create a VPN Connection to your VPC using a Virtual Private Gateway, you are charged for each “VPN Connection-hour” that your VPN connection is provisioned and available. Each partial VPN Connection-hour consumed is billed as a full hour.
- $0.05 per VPN Connection-hour
- $0.048 per VPN Connection-hour for connections to the Tokyo Region and Osaka-Local Region
- $0.065 per VPN Connection-hour for AWS GovCloud (US) Region
Conclusion
The total cost of this multi-AZ, multi-Subnet VPC is $0.45 for 10 hours. However, you may create other AWS services such as EC2, RDS, Elastic Load Balancer, Route 53 in VPC. Each service will use its own pricing rate. AWS provides a great customer support even with the basic support plan. I once identified a charge issue on its Route 53. AWS responded next day with the extra credit to my account. Stay tuned, I will write an article to elaborate on how to estimate and optimize AWS cost that is based on AWS’ pay-as-you-go approach of pricing.
Video Tutorial
The video tutorial on creating Multi-AZ, Multi-Subnet VPC is available in YouTube channel! If you liked this video, please subscribe the channel. Please review AWS Virtual Private Cloud for more instructions.
