Note A / Egress
Outbound data is the hidden line item
Per-million pricing is only the headline. Egress can double a bill on payload-heavy APIs. AWS at 100M req/mo with 20 KB responses costs ~$190/mo in transfer alone.
See all hidden costs →Reference Sheet 01/API GATEWAY COST 2026/REV 2026.04
API gateway cost 2026,
drawn to scale.
Independent pricing reference for AWS, Azure, Apigee, Kong, Cloudflare and Traefik Hub. Costs vary by 10x at scale. The calculator below ranks providers by your real workload.
■6 providers compared■$0.08 – $3.50 / 1M req■free tier on all 6
FIG 1.0 · Single gateway, fan-out1:1
Estimate monthly gateway cost across 6 providers
Set your monthly request volume, average payload size, and cache footprint. The calculator ranks providers by total cost (requests + outbound data + caching).
= 10.0M req/mo
= 95.4 GB egress
Response cache footprint
Δ Delta / Savings
$38.12/mo by choosing Cloudflare API Gateway over AWS API Gateway at this volume.
CheapestCloudflare API Gateway
$2.10/moTraefik Hub
$8.27/moAzure API Management
$11.92/moKong Konnect
$14.85/moGoogle Apigee
$37.73/moAWS API Gateway
$40.22/moNOTE: estimate covers requests + egress + caching. Excludes WebSocket, WAF, custom domain, and support. Verify on each vendor's pricing page.
Spec / List Pricing Snapshot
API gateway pricing reference, 2026
Per-million request rates, free-tier allowances, and core add-on costs. Drawn from each vendor's public pricing page; verify before signing a contract.
| Provider | Free tier | Tier 1 ($/1M req) | Egress ($/GB) | WebSocket ($/1M msg) | Cache ($/GB) | WAF ($/1M req) | SLA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AWS API Gateway REST & HTTP APIs on AWS infrastructure | 1M requests/month for 12 months | $3.50 | $0.090 | $1.00 | $0.028 | $0.60 | 99.95% |
Azure API Management Full lifecycle API management on Azure | Developer tier free (limited SLA) | $3.50 | $0.087 | $1.20 | $0.025 | $0.50 | 99.95% |
Google Apigee Enterprise API management by Google Cloud | Apigee X Eval (limited features) | $3.00 | $0.080 | N/A | $0.020 | $0.40 | 99.99% |
Kong Konnect Open-source core with managed control plane | Free tier: 1M requests/month | $0.90 | $0.070 | $0.80 | $0.015 | $0.30 | 99.9% |
Cloudflare API Gateway Edge-native API gateway built into CDN | Included in Workers Free (100k req/day) | $0.30 | FREE | $0.15 | FREE | $0.50 | 99.99% |
Traefik Hub Cloud-native API gateway for Kubernetes | Free tier: up to 3 services | $0.50 | $0.060 | $0.50 | $0.010 | $0.25 | 99.9% |
USD. Egress is outbound transfer. Volume discounts and committed-spend deals not shown. Verify on each vendor's pricing page.
Section Notes
Note B / Free tiers
Free allowances are larger than they read
Cloudflare offers 3M free requests/month indefinitely. AWS gives 1M free for 12 months. Kong Konnect provides 1M free permanently. Side-projects often stay free.
Compare free tiers →Note C / Procurement
Enterprise rates are negotiable
All six vendors quote committed-use discounts. Customers reaching $5,000+/month should talk to sales before paying list. Public list rates are the ceiling, not the price.
Optimization strategies →Index of sheets
11 entries02.PROVIDERAWS API GatewayHTTP vs REST API pricing, egress cost, free tier→03.PROVIDERAzure API ManagementConsumption vs dedicated tiers, break-even point→04.PROVIDERCloudflare API GatewayWorkers pricing, free egress, edge routing→05.PROVIDERKong KonnectKonnect pricing, OSS comparison, plugin costs→06.PROVIDERGoogle ApigeeEval / Standard / Enterprise tier pricing→07.GUIDEFeature comparison20+ features across all 6 providers→08.TOOLCost calculatorStandalone calculator deep-link→09.GUIDEAPI gateway vs load balancerWhen to use which, cost difference→10.GUIDEHidden costsEgress, WAF, caching, WebSocket, support→11.GUIDESelf-hosted vs managedKong OSS, Traefik, NGINX break-even→12.GUIDECost optimization10 strategies to reduce gateway bill→
Frequently Specified
Questions answered on this sheet
Q01.How is API gateway cost calculated?+
API gateway cost typically has three components: a per-request charge (priced per million API calls), a data transfer charge for outbound traffic in gigabytes, and optional add-on costs for caching, WAF rules, WebSocket connections, and custom domains. Most providers offer a free tier of 1-3 million requests per month. Beyond the free tier, pricing ranges from $0.08 to $3.50 per million requests depending on the provider and volume.
Q02.Which API gateway is cheapest at high volume?+
At 100M+ requests per month, Cloudflare API Gateway is typically the most cost-effective at $0.15/million requests with zero data transfer charges. Traefik Hub and Kong Konnect are also competitive at scale. AWS API Gateway and Azure APIM cost more per request but offer tighter cloud-native integration.
Q03.Does AWS API Gateway charge for data transfer?+
Yes. AWS charges $0.09/GB for outbound data transfer. For a typical API returning 10 KB payloads at 100M requests/month, data transfer adds roughly $95/month on top of request charges. This is the most commonly overlooked API gateway cost on AWS.
Q04.What is the difference between AWS HTTP API and REST API pricing?+
AWS HTTP APIs cost $1.00/million requests. REST APIs cost $3.50/million, 3.5x more expensive. HTTP APIs support most common use cases including Lambda proxies, JWT authorizers, and CORS. REST APIs add request/response transformation, API keys with usage plans, and per-stage caching. For most new workloads, HTTP API is the better choice on cost.
Q05.How much does API gateway caching cost?+
AWS charges $0.028/GB/hour for dedicated cache ($20/month for 1 GB). Azure includes caching in the tier price. Cloudflare edge caching is free. Apigee charges $0.02/GB/hour. Caching often pays for itself by reducing backend load on high-traffic endpoints.
Q06.Should I self-host an API gateway?+
Self-hosting Kong OSS, Traefik, or NGINX eliminates per-request charges but adds $200-800/month in infrastructure plus 8-16 hours/month engineering overhead. If you spend over $2,000/month on managed gateway fees, evaluate self-hosted. Below that, operational savings rarely justify the engineering cost.