AWS Knowledge
Understanding Google Cloud CDN Pricing 2025
Piyush Kalra
Jan 3, 2025
How can Google Cloud platform's CDN help businesses boost website performance while keeping costs in check? That’s exactly what we’re here to explore in this guide.
Google Cloud Content Delivery Network improves website performance, scalability and security, all of which make it a top choice for businesses. On the other hand, let’s get serious – lots of users have an issue with pricing. Understanding Google Cloud CDN pricing unlike alternative like Amazon CloudFront may save you up to 30% in costs and a lot of headache too.
Developers who want to customize their settings or managers who intend to budget their accounts next year will learn how Google Cloud CDN operates, its 2025 pricing structure will be well explained, and there will be recommendations for cost-cutting that are not hard to implement.
What Is Google Cloud CDN?
(Image Source: Cloud CDN)
Google’s Content Delivery Network is a service built to deliver web content much faster and more reliable manner to users all over the world. By caching your content on Google's global network of edge locations, Google Cloud CDN ensures that users get data from the closest server to them which cuts down on loading time and latency.
Key Features of Google Cloud CDN
Global reach through the vast presence of edge servers by Google.
Low latency for better user experience.
Default DDoS protection and support for HTTPS/ SSL as security features.
Cache invalidations lead to real-time updates, reflecting changes within seconds.
Smooth workflow through the integration of all Google Cloud products.
Why Businesses Choose Google Cloud CDN
For all types of businesses, such as startups, big companies, and e-commerce sites, reliable loading speed, less workload on servers, and tough safety are among the benefits that Google Cloud CDN offers. It also helps to streamline performances during high-traffic periods, thereby ensuring a good user experience.
How Google Cloud CDN Works
(Image Source: Cloud CDN)
Google Cloud CDN uses caching and edge locations to optimize data delivery. Here is a simplified breakdown of how it works in practice:
User Requests Content: When a website visitor wants content (e.g., via a browser), the request is sent to the closest edge server of Google to the user.
Cache Check: The edge server checks if the content is cached locally.
Cache Hit: If the requested content is already cached, it is immediately delivered to the user.
Cache Miss: If not, then it must retrieve the data from its original location, which can be at your backend or storage bucket, cache it, and then send it to the user.
Subsequent Requests: After the content is cached, future user requests for the same data are served directly from the cache, reducing latency even further.
What Are Edge Locations?
These are strategically located facilities across various parts around the globe where they have put data centers at. A CDN is indispensable for serving global users since they cache frequently sought after content enabling it to be delivered faster.
Deep Dive Into Google Cloud CDN Pricing Structure
Understanding the pricing structure is critical to optimizing your usage costs. The Google Cloud CDN pricing model comprises three main components:
Cache Egress Costs
This is the charge for content served from Cloud CDN's cache to users. Pricing varies based on the region and monthly usage volume.
Cache Fill Costs
This pricing covers data transfer from the origin server to Cloud CDN’s cache in case of a cache miss:
Within North America or Europe: $0.01 per GiB
Within Asia Pacific and other regions: $0.02 per GiB
Inter-region transfers (e.g., North America to Asia): $0.04 per GiB
HTTP/HTTPS Cache Lookup Requests
You're charged every time a user request initiates a cache lookup (via HTTP GET and HEAD methods), whether the cache hits or misses.
Cost per 10,000 Requests: $0.0075
Pricing Models in Google Cloud CDN
Different usage patterns and needs fit with two primary pricing models in Google Cloud CDN:
Pay-as-You-Go: It is best for small to medium-scale use cases, wherein you pay based on what you actually use with no upfront costs.
Committed Use Discounts: Companies with continuous usage can save as much as 57% of their monthly bill by committing to a definite level of usage (for example, bandwidth or cache lookups) for 1 or 3 years.
Volume-Based Discounts
The more data you use, the less you pay per GiB. Higher usage volumes unlock lower egress rates. For example, your business might be spending a certain rate per GiB if it moves 100 TiB each month; however, this rate decreases, saving you money when your usage rises to 500 TiB per month. Besides, businesses that move over 500 TiB monthly can consult Google for customized pricing tailored to their specifications.
Monthly Usage Scenario
A North America-based e-commerce business uses Google Cloud CDN to serve its website. Here’s the breakdown for a month of traffic.
Usage Summary:
Cache Egress in North America = 500 GiB
Cache Fill = 25 GiB
Cache Lookups = 5,000,000 requests
Pricing Calculation:
Cache Egress = 500 GiB x $0.08 = $40.00
Cache Fill = 25 GiB x $0.01 = $0.25
Cache Lookups = 5,000,000 / 10,000 x $0.0075 = $3.75
Total Monthly Cost: $44.00
Case Study: How Dailyhunt improved user engagement that runs on a hybrid cloud CDN
Dailyhunt is a platform that offers local language content in 17 languages and has 2 billion page views monthly. The platform was grappling with scalability, and adaptability, and ensuring a frictionless experience for its users. It was necessary to manage unexpected traffic surges due to breaking news or viral content as well as supply personalized, low-latency content across India and beyond in over 16 languages.
Solution
Dailyhunt switched to Google Cloud solutions:
Cloud CDN for scalable, low-latency content delivery.
BigQuery for real-time data analysis.
BigQuery ML for traffic insights.
Secret Manager for security.
Results
Managed huge sudden traffic surges without any problem.
Delivered faster-personalized content, which increased engagement.
Extended into other markets, including the Middle East.
Gained real-time data insights for quick decisions.
Tips to Optimize Google Cloud CDN Costs
Increase Cache Hit Ratio: Ensure popular files are cached effectively by setting appropriate cache expiration policies.
Compress Your Content: Turn on content compression such as gzip to reduce total data transferred, which cuts egress costs
Enable CDN Prefetching: By pre-fetching content to CDN caches before users request it, you can further reduce cache misses.
Use Geographic Traffic Routing: Serve content from edge locations closest to user locations to minimize higher inter-region transfer fees.
Monitor Usage Regularly: Use Google Cloud's billing reports and monitoring tools to identify any cost anomalies or unexpected spikes in usage.
Opt for Committed Use Discounts: If your traffic levels are predictable, committed contracts can significantly lower your per-unit cost.
Conclusion
By now, you should have developed a complete and detailed understanding of Google Cloud CDN pricing and how it can be optimized. With its transparent cost structure and scalable features, Google Cloud CDN stands out as an excellent solution for businesses aiming to improve user experience while staying within budget.
Start with an assessment of specific CDN needs, make use of pricing calculator, optimize this incredible tool following the discussed optimization techniques.
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