CDN Traffic - How Is Your Traffic Charged?

KeyCDN uses a credit system, which introduces a higher level of abstraction and allows to deduct credits for provided services and delivered CDN traffic. The following services are subject to be charged against the credit balance:

• Outbound data from the KeyCDN edge locations.
• Storage hosted by KeyCDN (applies only to Push Zones).
• Image Processing if enabled.
• Log forwarding of the CDN raw logs.

Traffic is billed in near real time and can be monitored in the KeyCDN dashboard.

How we deliver CDN traffic

KeyCDN uses strategic premium data centers for best performance. We deliver traffic with Tier 1 network providers for lowest latency. We focus on scalability, reliability and performance where every millisecond counts. At the same time our CDN is easy to use and does not require any previous CDN experience. Our CDN Integration guides make an initial setup smooth, all major CMS and frameworks are supported. If we encounter issues with an edge server, CDN traffic is automatically rerouted to the next available point of presence. An issue is noted on our status page.

Different regions means different pricing

Our global network comes with three different regions:

• North America and Europe
• Asia and Oceania
• Africa and Latin America

Each region is charged at a different rate. We provide the best price possible for each region but IP transit prices vary heavily in different countries. Depending on the monthly traffic volume, we can provide a custom price.

Another option is delivering CDN traffic from selected regions only. For example, traffic can be delivered from the US and the EU only. In this case, more expensive regions such as Asia or Latin America are also delivered from the US and the EU, which results in lower CDN costs.

What kind of traffic is not going to be charged?

Some of the CDN traffic is free of charge. Namely the following:

• Fetching content from the origin server will not be charged.
• Push uploads and distribution to the KeyCDN POPs are free of charge.

Free features and functionalities

First of all, we offer free support and are happy to help anytime. Our 24/7 support takes care of issues and questions. We also offer a whole range of features and functionalities which come free of charge. Here the most common ones:

• Let's Encrypt: Allows to use HTTPS for any domain. The Let's Encrypt certificate gets renewed automatically and there's no need for manual intervention.
• Custom TLS: Bring your own TLS certificate at no extra charge.
• Secure Token: Securing assets guarantees that only authorized requests are served.
• Purging: Invalidate assets if content has changed and needs to be updated immediately.
• Zone Aliases: Use a subdomain of your choice.
• Manage referrers: This can be blacklisting or whitelisting.

How to lower CDN Traffic?

Less traffic means lower costs. Some features can lower the operational costs. Delivering images in the WebP format instead of JPEG or PNG will make a difference because WebP images are smaller. Our feature WebP Caching takes care of the whole transformation process to WebP and doesn't require any change on the origin server. Enabling Gzip is another feature which lowers CDN traffic as it compresses a defined list of content types. Speaking about compression, Brotli is the next level of compression. We take the compression level on the origin server and cache it as delivered by the origin. It requires to have an origin server supporting Brotli compression. This approach offers the flexibility to define whichever compression level is best suited. Use our Brotli Test tool to check if your origin supports Brotli.

Reduce CDN traffic on your origin server

Less traffic on your origin server means more spare capacity available. The goal of a CDN is to offload as much traffic from the origin server to the CDN. Therefore, we offer the feature Origin Shield which can further lower the load on your server. With this feature enabled, the edge servers fetch the content from a nearby edge server instead of the origin itself.

Secure and speed up your CDN traffic

Content delivery not only needs to be fast and cost effective, but also secure. KeyCDN provides a wide range of security features for secure content delivery. All CDN traffic should be delivered with HTTPS, regardless of the use case. We offer three different HTTPS options:

• Let's Encrypt will provide a certificate for your custom domain.
• Custom TLS allows to use your existing certificate.
• Shared SSL is an easy way to use HTTPS with a predefined domain.

Manage your CDN traffic

Efficiently managing processes is key. On one hand, we offer a state-of-the-art dashboard for an easy management. On the other hand, the KeyCDN API enables you to automate processes. All Zone settings can be managed and monitored via the API with the same statistics available as shown in the dashboard.

Analyzing your CDN traffic

For those who want to analyze the CDN traffic in more detail, Log Forwarding is the perfect feature for that. The logs can be analyzed on your own server or forwarded to another service. The raw logs provide a much better level of insights that are normally not available. It allows to have a better understanding of the traffic pattern and tweak the website accordingly.