Is Decentralized Video Delivery Cheaper Than a CDN?

Decentralized video delivery is cheaper than a CDN when you pay metered egress near list price. AIOZ Stream charges a flat $0.02 per GB, while AWS CloudFront's pay-as-you-go rate starts at $0.085 per GB. Against flat-plan CDNs that don't meter bandwidth, the savings case mostly disappears.

So the answer depends on how your current CDN bills you and how much you deliver each month. Below you'll find the three billing models, worked examples at 5 TB, 50 TB and 2 PB, and a way to check the numbers against your own invoice.

TL;DR:

• AIOZ Stream's delivery rate is a flat $0.02 per GB, with no volume tiers and no minimum commitment.
• Against CloudFront's pay-as-you-go list price ($0.085 per GB after the free 1 TB, falling to $0.020 only above 5 PB a month), the flat rate is cheaper at every volume most video products reach.
• Cloudflare's core plans and CloudFront's newer flat-rate plans don't bill per GB, so a per-GB comparison doesn't apply to them. Check their video and usage terms instead.
• Large customers negotiate private rates, so compare against your own invoice before you trust any "always cheaper" claim, including this one.

Updated Nov 4, 2026: added CloudFront's flat-rate plans, tier math rechecked against AWS's pricing page, a billing-models diagram, primary sources and the usage request from our docs.

How do CDNs bill for video delivery?

Every CDN charges you for moving bytes from its edge to your viewers, but it can price that in three different ways. If how egress fees work is new to you, start there: delivery is the egress line of a video bill. A CDN edge node caches your segments close to viewers, and our guide to how a CDN edge node caches and serves video covers the mechanics.

• Metered, tiered per GB. You pay for each gigabyte, and the rate drops as your monthly volume climbs. CloudFront's pay-as-you-go pricing works this way.
• Flat plan with bundled bandwidth. You pay a fixed monthly fee and bandwidth isn't billed per GB. Cloudflare's Free, Pro and Business plans and CloudFront's flat-rate plans work this way, each with its own usage terms.
• Flat per GB. You pay the same rate for every gigabyte at any volume. AIOZ Stream works this way.

If a term like origin, edge or egress is unfamiliar, the video streaming glossary defines each one in a line or two.

What does AIOZ Stream charge for delivery?

The AIOZ Stream payment docs list one delivery rate: $0.02 per GB of data delivered. You pay it from the same account balance as storage ($0.02 per GB per month) and transcoding. There's no tier you need to qualify for, no minimum commitment and nothing to negotiate.

Our docs tie the rate to the network design, describing storage, bandwidth and compute as "provided by decentralized edge nodes, reducing egress cost", with on-chain proofs used to validate delivery and support payouts. The AIOZ DePIN explainer walks through that node network in more detail.

Metered CDN pricing: CloudFront pay-as-you-go

AWS publishes its CloudFront pay-as-you-go rates per region, and for the United States, Mexico, Canada and Europe, the first 1 TB each month is free. After that you pay $0.085 per GB for the next 9 TB, then $0.080 for the next 40 TB and $0.060 for the next 100 TB.

The steps keep going: $0.040 for the next 350 TB, $0.030 for the next 524 TB and $0.025 for the next 4 PB. Only traffic above 5 PB a month is billed at $0.020 per GB, the same as AIOZ Stream's flat rate. Other regions cost more: the group that covers Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong starts at $0.120 per GB.

AWS also discounts in two ways that aren't on the rate card. The CloudFront Security Savings Bundle cuts up to 30% in exchange for a one-year monthly spend commitment. Custom pricing is open to customers who commit to at least 10 TB a month for 12 months, at rates AWS doesn't publish.

Flat-plan CDNs: Cloudflare and CloudFront flat-rate plans

A per-GB comparison breaks down here, because these plans don't charge you per GB. Cloudflare describes its core plans as "free and fixed-rate pricing for websites", with bandwidth bundled into the plan fee. Its video delivery policy sets the limit that matters for you, though.

On Free, Pro and Business plans, Cloudflare may redirect your content if you serve video "without using the appropriate paid service". It points video customers to Cloudflare Stream or to Stream Delivery, which is Enterprise only. So the bundled bandwidth covers ordinary website content, and serving video needs one of those paid products. Other Cloudflare add-ons, such as Argo Smart Routing, use usage-based billing.

AWS now sells CloudFront flat-rate plans too, priced per distribution with no overage charges. The Pro plan costs $15 a month with a 50 TB data transfer allowance. Premium starts at $1,000 for 50 TB and scales to $10,000 for 600 TB. AWS calls the allowances baselines, not hard limits, and if you stay well above yours for months, your delivery "might be adjusted", for example served from fewer or more distant edge locations.

If your traffic fits one of these plans, a lower delivery bill isn't the reason to switch. Read the plan's terms for video and sustained usage, and compare on what else you get.

Two volumes, worked out

These examples use CloudFront's US and Europe list prices and treat 1 TB as 1,000 GB. At 5 TB delivered in a month, AIOZ Stream comes to $100. CloudFront bills the 4 TB after the free allowance at $0.085, which comes to $340, about 3.4 times the flat rate.

At 50 TB a month, AIOZ Stream comes to $1,000. CloudFront crosses the $0.085 and $0.080 tiers and lands at $3,965, about four times the flat rate. Even with the full 30% Savings Bundle discount, that's still about $2,780.

Where the picture flips: 2 PB a month

Both examples above favor AIOZ Stream, so here is a volume where the gap narrows. At 2,000 TB a month, CloudFront's list price works out to about $64,100, an average of roughly $0.032 per GB. AIOZ Stream would charge $40,000 for the same traffic at its flat rate.

A 30% Savings Bundle brings CloudFront down to about $44,900, close to the flat rate. A custom contract at that scale could go lower, and you can't see those rates from outside. Very few video products deliver 2 PB a month, so for most products the flat rate wins clearly up to hundreds of terabytes, and the advantage shrinks as discounts kick in.

Why tiered pricing falls with volume and a flat rate doesn't

A traditional CDN builds and runs its own points of presence, and those fixed costs get spread over more traffic as you grow, which leaves room for volume discounts on large accounts while small ones pay the full rate. That reading is ours, not AWS's, but it matches the shape of the tier table.

A DePIN network pays the people who run edge nodes for delivery they've already done. There's less company-owned capacity waiting to be filled, so there's less reason to reward volume with a lower rate. That's why AIOZ Stream can publish one rate for every account.

So when does decentralized delivery save you money?

It saves you money when you pay metered egress at anything close to list price. The gap is widest for small and mid-sized accounts in the most expensive tiers, often three to four times. It won't lower your bill if you already sit on a bundled plan, Cloudflare's or CloudFront's, where you aren't paying per GB.

In that case the reason to look at AIOZ Stream is what else the same network gives you: storage, transcoding and delivery on one account. And if you already hold a negotiated contract, compare $0.02 per GB with your real invoice, not with a list price neither of you pays.

How AIOZ Stream handles it

Billing runs hourly from your account balance, based on storage, delivery and transcoding use, and you can see daily usage in the dashboard's "History Usage" tab. The Payments API returns the same numbers, with delivery in bytes and delivery_cost for the period you ask for.

The request below is copied from the Payments API reference. We didn't run it here, and you'd swap in your own token and time range:

curl --location 'https://api.aiozstream.network/api/payment/usage?from=1714232234&to=1824232234' \
--header 'accept: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer your_access_token_here'

What the docs don't cover yet: volume discounts, committed-use pricing or per-region delivery rates. The payment page lists a single delivery rate, so for the full rate card and wallet setup, start with the AIOZ Stream payment docs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AIOZ Stream always cheaper than a traditional CDN for delivery?
No. It's cheaper than CloudFront's pay-as-you-go list price at almost every realistic volume. Flat-plan CDNs such as Cloudflare's core plans and CloudFront's flat-rate plans don't bill per GB, so that comparison isn't about price per gigabyte.

At what point does CloudFront's price catch up to AIOZ Stream's?
Its marginal rate reaches $0.020 per GB only above 5 PB a month. At 2 PB the average is about $0.032 per GB at list price, and a Savings Bundle or custom contract can bring it close to the flat rate.

Does Cloudflare charge for bandwidth?
Not per GB on its Free, Pro and Business plans; bandwidth is part of the plan fee. Its policy restricts serving video on those plans without a paid video product, and add-ons such as Argo Smart Routing use usage-based billing.

Are list prices what large customers pay?
No. Large customers negotiate custom rates that aren't public, so for an enterprise account you should compare against your actual invoice.

If delivery is cheaper, is the whole bill cheaper?
Not on its own. Delivery is one line item, and our AIOZ Stream pricing breakdown also covers storage and transcoding.

Why does AIOZ Stream offer one flat rate instead of volume tiers?
Edge-node operators are paid for validated delivery, so there's less fixed, company-owned capacity whose cost has to be spread over volume, and one published rate applies to every account.

Related Reading

• What Is a CDN Edge Node? How Edge Caching Works for Video: the hub overview for video delivery
• Decentralized Storage vs Centralized Cloud for Video: the durability and dependency tradeoff behind the cost numbers here
• AIOZ Stream Pricing Explained: the full rate card across storage, delivery and transcoding
• One DePIN, Three Workloads: why storage, compute and delivery sharing one network matters beyond the delivery bill
• What Are Egress Fees? How Download Charges Work in Storage: the storage side of the same download-charge question

References

• Amazon CloudFront pay-as-you-go pricing: regional data transfer tiers, Savings Bundle and custom pricing terms
• CloudFront flat-rate pricing plans: plan allowances, Premium usage levels and what happens above the allowance
• Cloudflare: Delivering Videos with Cloudflare: fixed-rate plans and the video restriction on Free, Pro and Business
• Cloudflare Argo Smart Routing: get started: usage-based billing for Argo
• AIOZ Stream docs: Payment: delivery, storage and transcoding rates and hourly billing
• AIOZ Stream docs: Adaptive streaming: decentralized edge nodes and validated delivery