Amazon CloudFront Cost Optimization
CloudFront costs come from data transfer out and HTTP requests. Low cache hit ratios mean CloudFront is forwarding requests to your origin instead of serving cached content, which defeats the purpose and doubles your transfer costs. Price class settings and origin shield can significantly impact costs.
Common CloudFront cost waste patterns
Low cache hit ratio
CloudFront forwarding too many requests to origin because of misconfigured caching policies, query string forwarding, or short TTLs.
Expensive price class
Using the default "All Edge Locations" price class when your users are concentrated in specific regions. Less-trafficked edge locations cost more per GB.
No Origin Shield
Without Origin Shield, each edge location fetches from your origin independently on cache miss. Origin Shield consolidates these into a single request, reducing origin load and cost.
How to reduce your CloudFront costs
Optimize cache hit ratio
Save 20-40% mediumReview your cache policy: only forward query strings and headers that your origin actually uses to vary responses. Increase TTLs where possible. Target a cache hit ratio above 90%.
Set the right price class
Save 10-25% easyIf your users are primarily in North America and Europe, use Price Class 100 instead of "All Edge Locations." Price Class 200 adds Asia, Middle East, and Africa. This excludes the most expensive edge locations.
Enable Origin Shield
Save 10-20% easyOrigin Shield adds a centralized caching layer between edge locations and your origin. It reduces origin fetches and can improve cache hit ratio by 10-30%.
Compress responses
Save 30-50% easyEnable automatic compression for text-based content (HTML, CSS, JS, JSON). Compressed responses reduce data transfer out charges.
How ZapStack finds CloudFront waste
ZapStack automatically scans your AWS environment and surfaces CloudFront cost savings you can action immediately.
- Monitors cache hit ratio per distribution
- Flags distributions using expensive price classes
- Detects distributions without Origin Shield
- Identifies uncompressed content types
- Estimates savings from configuration changes
Frequently asked questions about CloudFront costs
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