AWS Direct Connect pricing calculator
Ports, DTO, and SiteLink Cost Estimator. Estimate your costs using AWS list prices.
Estimates from AWS list prices, not an AWS quote. Discounts, taxes and credit terms may affect your bill.
01 · How AWS Direct Connect pricing works
What you pay for
- Port hours by connection type and speed (dedicated 1 Gbps $0.30/hour, 10 Gbps $2.25/hour in standard locations; hosted from $0.03/hour for 50 Mbps).
- Data transfer out from AWS over Direct Connect, priced by source Region and Direct Connect location ($0.02/GB from US Regions to contiguous-US locations); inbound is free.
- SiteLink per VIF-hour plus SiteLink transfer; Transit Gateway or Direct Connect gateway attachments are billed by those services.
Common cost traps
- Port hours start when the connection is available or 90 days after you request it, whichever comes first, even if you never complete the cross-connect.
- Partner and colocation charges are separate bills and often exceed the AWS port fee.
- Transfer to distant Direct Connect locations costs much more than to local ones.
Ways to reduce cost
- Use Direct Connect when monthly egress is large enough that $0.02/GB beats internet egress ($0.09/GB) after port fees.
- Start with a hosted connection and move to dedicated as volume grows.
- Delete unused connections and virtual interfaces promptly.
Free Tier & account eligibility
Free Tier depends on account age. Accounts created on or after 15 July 2025 get a $100 sign-up credit plus up to $100 more for completing onboarding activities; on the Free plan these last 6 months (or until used up), on the Paid plan unused Free Tier credits stay usable for 12 months from sign-up. Accounts created before 15 July 2025 keep the legacy Free Tier (12-month offers plus always-free offers). Always-free offers apply on both plans. No Free Tier for Direct Connect; new-plan accounts can pay AWS-billed charges from Free Tier credits.
02 · AWS credits & runway
Do credits cover AWS Direct Connect?
Direct Connect port hours (dedicated and hosted) billed by AWS, data transfer out over Direct Connect and SiteLink are eligible usage and are offset by credits. General rules: credits only offset charges from the billing cycle in which they were applied onward (never past bills), they apply only to the services listed on the credit in Billing and Cost Management > Credits, they expire on the date shown there, and accounts on the AWS Free plan cannot receive Activate credits until they upgrade to the Paid plan.
Check my creditsExcluded charges & conditions
- Fees charged by Direct Connect partners, colocation providers and carriers (cross-connects, circuits, hosted-connection partner fees) are billed outside AWS and are not covered.
- Upfront payments for Savings Plans and Reserved Instances (All Upfront, and the upfront part of Partial Upfront). The recurring hourly fee of a No Upfront commitment is billed as normal usage and can be offset.
- AWS Marketplace charges (Activate credits make an exception for third-party foundation models used through Amazon Bedrock).
- AWS Enterprise Support, Enterprise On-Ramp, Unified Operations, resold support and partner-led support.
- Amazon Route 53 domain name registration and transfer fees.
- Taxes (sales, use, VAT and similar), AWS Professional Services, Training and Certification, Mechanical Turk, AWS Managed Services, and any use for cryptocurrency mining.
Illustrative credit runway
Single-service examples from the supplied data, not your calculator result. Months = credit amount ÷ monthly cost, before credit expiry. Credits can expire before these theoretical months are used; coverage and other AWS services can shorten runway.
| Usage profile | Monthly estimate | $10,000 | $25,000 | $100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | $186.96 | 53.5 mo. | 133.7 mo. | 534.9 mo. |
| Medium | $847.60 | 11.8 mo. | 29.5 mo. | 118.0 mo. |
| Large | $8,111.00 | 1.2 mo. | 3.1 mo. | 12.3 mo. |
Small profile assumptions
Hosted 500 Mbps connection, 2 TB out to on-premises (contiguous US) | Hosted 500 Mbps port: 730 port-hours x $0.2 = $146.00; Data transfer out (contiguous US): 2,048 GB x $0.02 = $40.96 | Total ~$186.96/month, us-east-1 on-demand list prices, before Free Tier, taxes and support.
Medium profile assumptions
2 x dedicated 1 Gbps ports (redundant), 20 TB out | Dedicated 1 Gbps ports: 1,460 port-hours x $0.3 = $438.00; Data transfer out (contiguous US): 20,480 GB x $0.02 = $409.60 | Total ~$847.60/month, us-east-1 on-demand list prices, before Free Tier, taxes and support.
Large profile assumptions
2 x dedicated 10 Gbps ports, 200 TB out, SiteLink on 2 VIFs | Dedicated 10 Gbps ports: 1,460 port-hours x $2.25 = $3,285.00; Data transfer out (contiguous US): 204,800 GB x $0.02 = $4,096.00; SiteLink VIF-hours: 1,460 VIF-hours x $0.5 = $730.00 | Total ~$8,111.00/month, us-east-1 on-demand list prices, before Free Tier, taxes and support.
04 · Questions
AWS Direct Connect pricing FAQ
When does Direct Connect pay for itself?
When the per-GB saving versus internet egress (about $0.07/GB in US Regions) covers port and partner fees. A 1 Gbps dedicated port is about $219/month on the AWS side alone.
Is inbound data free?
Yes, data transfer into AWS over Direct Connect is not charged.
Do credits cover partner fees?
No. Only charges on your AWS bill are covered. Partner, carrier and colocation fees are separate.
When does port billing start?
When the connection becomes available, or 90 days after the request if it is not yet connected, whichever is first.
05 · Sources & estimate notes
Content pack dated 2026-10-19. Calculator rates remain their existing snapshots; this content update is not a price refresh.
Verification notes
- Runway prices come from the calculator repository snapshot rate card direct-connect (no AWS Price List mapping in the build). Confirm the main unit prices on https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/pricing/ before publishing.