AWS Global Accelerator pricing includes a fixed hourly fee per accelerator and a data transfer premium charge based on the dominant direction of traffic flowing through the accelerator. Specifically:
- You pay a fixed hourly fee for each accelerator provisioned in your account, regardless of whether it is enabled or disabled. This fee typically amounts to about $18 per month for one accelerator running continuously[2][3][6].
- In addition to the fixed fee, there is a Data Transfer-Premium (DT-Premium) fee charged per gigabyte of data transferred in the dominant direction (either inbound or outbound, whichever is higher during the hour). This fee varies depending on the AWS Region where the traffic originates and the AWS edge location where it is delivered, ranging approximately from $0.015 to $0.105 per GB[2][3][6][9].
- You are also charged standard AWS data transfer out fees for your application endpoints in AWS Regions, separate from the DT-Premium fee[2].
- There is an additional charge for each public IPv4 address used with your accelerators[3][6].
Regarding hidden fees:
- There are no explicitly stated hidden fees in AWS Global Accelerator pricing; the costs are transparent and primarily consist of the fixed hourly accelerator fee, the DT-Premium data transfer fee, and charges for public IPv4 addresses[4][6].
- However, because the DT-Premium fee depends on the dominant traffic direction and varies by region and edge location, unexpected costs can arise if traffic patterns or geographic usage change, which might feel like hidden or surprise fees if not carefully monitored[6][9].
- Also, standard AWS data transfer costs for your backend resources (e.g., EC2 instances) still apply separately, which can add to your overall bill but are not part of Global Accelerator fees per se[2].
In summary, AWS Global Accelerator does not have hidden fees beyond the documented fixed hourly fees, data transfer premium charges based on dominant traffic direction, and public IPv4 address usage fees. The complexity and variability in data transfer pricing by region and traffic direction can lead to higher-than-expected costs if not carefully managed, but these are part of the published pricing model rather than undisclosed fees[2][3][6][9].
Citations:
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/global-accelerator/pricing/
[2] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/global-accelerator/latest/dg/introduction-pricing.html
[3] https://www.nops.io/blog/6-hidden-aws-costs-that-might-be-driving-up-your-bill/
[4] https://cloudchipr.com/blog/aws-global-accelerator
[5] https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-global-accelerator/
[6] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/gametech/modernize-game-backend-services-with-aws-global-accelerator/
[7] https://www.digitalocean.com/resources/articles/aws-hidden-costs
[8] https://www.cloudoptimo.com/blog/ec2-other-hidden-cost-in-your-aws-bill/
[9] https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/tip/Compare-AWS-Global-Accelerator-vs-Amazon-CloudFront