AWS recently announced flat-rate pricing plans with no overages for website delivery and security. According to the company, the plans combine CloudFront’s global content delivery with multiple AWS services and features into a monthly price with no overage charges, regardless of whether users’ website or application goes viral or faces a DDoS attack.
The company states that Flat-rate pricing plans offer a simple monthly price that includes features such as CloudFront CDN, AWS WAF and DDoS protection, bot management and analytics, Amazon Route 53 DNS, Amazon CloudWatch Logs ingestion, serverless edge compute, and monthly Amazon S3 storage credits. Furthermore, these plans are available in Free ($0/month), Pro ($15/month), Business ($200/month), and Premium ($1,000/month) tiers to match users’ application needs.
Christian Graziano, a Principal Product Manager at AWS, explains:
Plans do not require an annual commitment to get the best available rates. Select the plan tier that matches your application’s features and usage allowances. Upgrade to access more capabilities as your needs evolve.
(Source: AWS Networking & Content Delivery blog post)
Graziano highlights that CloudFront, AWS’s global content delivery network introduced in 2008, has evolved alongside AWS customers, enabling them to scale applications effectively. The AWS pay-as-you-go model, featuring a 1TB free tier, allows flexibility without upfront costs. However, customers often struggle with unpredictable costs due to complex pricing and factors like product launches or DDoS attacks. In response, AWS decided to improve the system by eliminating charges for requests blocked by AWS WAF and providing affordable DDoS protection. Moreover, AWS is launching flat-rate pricing plans for essential services, including a free tier, to ensure predictability and support personal websites and educational projects without unexpected charges.
Luc Donkersgoed, an AWS Serverless Hero, commented on the strategic implications of the change:
Thinking about this a little deeper, flat-rate pricing opens a whole new world of opportunities. I’m hoping for a “Serverless Starter Pack” with a base allowance for Lambda, SQS, EventBridge, S3, and DynamoDB. This would allow new developers to hit the ground running and build full – and I mean FULL – applications with the guarantee they will not incur any costs, even if the app goes viral. It would also be a great jab towards competitors like Vercel, which have better DX but way worse overage protections.
In addition, Christian Greciano, an AI Software Engineer at Reakto, commented on LinkedIn regarding the shift to flat-rate models:
My own experience with flat-rate vs. pay-as-you-go pricing is mostly with electricity bills. I have found that flat-rate costs me a lot more over the year than pay-as-you-go, even without factoring in consumption. But if I had ever been obsessed with consuming less electricity, not to get super high bills, I would have gone with a flat rate. Flat rate is what I do with public transport, for example.
Lastly, more details about the plans are available on the Plans and Pricing and CloudFront Developer Guide.
