Reduce NAT Gateway costs

What Are Cloud NAT Gateways?

Cloud NAT (Network Address Translation) gateways are a managed network service offered by cloud providers. They allow resources in private subnets to access the internet or other external services without exposing them to inbound internet traffic. In simpler terms, they let your virtual machines and other resources talk to the internet securely while staying hidden from outside threats.

From NAT Instances to Cloud NAT Gateways

Before managed NAT gateways, we used to set up NAT instances. These were just virtual machines configured to handle outbound traffic. While they got the job done, they weren’t perfect. You had to manage everything—configuring the OS, scaling for traffic spikes, and patching vulnerabilities. If the instance failed, you’d often be scrambling to fix it. Scaling was manual, downtime was a real risk, and the whole setup was just a hassle.

Cloud NAT gateways came along to fix all of that. They’re fully managed by the cloud provider, so you don’t have to worry about infrastructure. They’re scalable, resilient, and easy to set up, which makes them the go-to choice for modern applications.

Why Do You Need a Cloud NAT Gateway?

If your resources in private subnets need internet access—to fetch updates, communicate with APIs, or any outbound traffic—a NAT gateway is often the best option. It’s secure because it blocks inbound traffic by design, so you’re minimizing the attack surface. Plus, it’s resilient and scales with your needs without any manual intervention.

The Costs: Let’s Crunch Some Numbers

Here’s the thing about Cloud NAT gateways—they’re not cheap if you have a lot of traffic. You’re paying for two main things:

1. The hourly charge for running the gateway.
2. A data processing fee for every gigabyte of traffic.

For example, let’s say you’re pushing 5000GB of traffic in a month:

• Hourly charge: $0.045/hour for 720 hours (a month) = $32.40.
• Data processing: 5000GB x $0.045 = $225.00.
• Total: $257.40/month.

Want to play around with your own numbers? Head over to our calculator to see a breakdown tailored to your workload.

Ways to Save Costs with Cloud NAT Gateways

If you’re going to stick with Cloud NAT gateways, here are some tips to keep the costs under control:

• Consolidate Traffic: Instead of deploying multiple NAT gateways, route traffic through a single, central gateway. This reduces the hourly charges you’re paying across your environment.
• Minimize Unnecessary Data Transfers: Review your data usage patterns to ensure you’re not sending excessive or redundant traffic out to the internet. Caching frequently accessed data locally or using a CDN can help here.
• Right-Size Your Resources: Scale your infrastructure efficiently to avoid over-provisioning instances or services that drive up outbound traffic.
• Enable Monitoring: Turn on logging and monitoring for your NAT gateway to analyze and optimize traffic patterns. This helps identify wasteful data flows.

Alternatives to Cloud NAT Gateways

Before NAT gateways, we used NAT instances. They’re still a solid option for certain use cases, especially for development environments or workloads that don’t need high resilience. Here’s why:

• Cost Advantage: NAT instances don’t have data processing fees, just standard egress charges.
• Flexibility: You can turn them off during downtime, like weekends or overnight, to save costs. (Check out TurnItOff.ai, a new SaaS that makes managing this easier.)
• Control: If you’re comfortable with Linux and tools like iptables or nftables, NAT instances let you fully customize the configuration.

However, they’re not for everyone. You need to know your way around Linux networking, and managing scaling or availability can get tricky.

Looking for Something Better? Try Enforza

If you want a NAT gateway replacement without the Linux headaches, meet Enforza. It’s not just a NAT gateway—it combines NAT functionality, firewall capabilities, and FQDN filtering into one powerful solution. With Enforza, you get visibility and control that simply isn’t possible with traditional NAT gateways or NAT instances. Here’s why Enforza is worth considering:

• Integrated Features: Enforza isn’t just about enabling outbound internet access. Its built-in firewall with FQDN filtering gives you fine-grained control over traffic, letting you define exactly which domains are allowed or blocked.
• Centralized Management: Everything is managed through a user-friendly UI console. No need to dive into Linux or deal with complex configurations.
• Cost Efficiency: Despite offering more features, Enforza is usually cheaper than a standard cloud NAT gateway alone. Check our calculator to see how much you could save.
• Cloud Agnostic: Deploy it across AWS, Azure, GCP, or any other cloud platform with ease.

Enforza is designed to simplify cloud security and networking, giving small and medium-sized businesses the tools they need to protect their environments without unnecessary complexity or costs. It’s the next step in cloud network management, making it easier and more affordable to secure your workloads while maintaining control over your traffic.

Important Update for Azure Users

Changes are coming to Azure in 2025 that could impact how you use public IPs and NAT gateways. These updates might affect costs, configurations, and overall usability for many users.

Make sure you’re prepared. Read our detailed breakdown of these changes and what they mean for your cloud infrastructure at this article.

Final Thoughts

Cloud NAT gateways are a great tool for enabling secure outbound internet access, but they come with a price tag that can add up quickly. Whether you’re sticking with NAT gateways, exploring alternatives like NAT instances, or stepping up to Enforza for centralized management with added features, understanding your needs and costs is key to making the right choice.

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