AWS Networking Bills: How NAT Gateways and Cross-AZ Hops Turned One Team's Oversight into $10K Daily Burn
Your AWS bill looks fine until 'EC2-Other' balloons. Inside? Networking sneak-attacks via NAT and cross-AZ traffic. Here's the how, why, and fixes that actually stick.
DevTools FeedApr 03, 20264 min read
⚡ Key Takeaways
Traffic within single AZ on private IPs is free; every boundary crossed incurs fees that stack fast.𝕏
NAT Gateway + egress = $0.135/GB; real teams saved $310K/month switching to Direct Connect.𝕏
Enable topology-aware routing in Kubernetes for one-line cross-AZ savings up to 94% of data bills.𝕏
The 60-Second TL;DR
Traffic within single AZ on private IPs is free; every boundary crossed incurs fees that stack fast.
NAT Gateway + egress = $0.135/GB; real teams saved $310K/month switching to Direct Connect.
Enable topology-aware routing in Kubernetes for one-line cross-AZ savings up to 94% of data bills.