Fastly prices differently from volume-tier networks: regional per-GB rates plus a charge per ten thousand requests. Neither cheaper nor dearer by nature, it simply bills a different shape of traffic well.
Object size decides everything
Request fees are trivial for video and large downloads, where each request carries megabytes. They dominate for APIs and small assets, where a gigabyte can be a million requests. The same per-GB headline can hide a total cost that differs by multiples depending on your average object size. The model is neither generous nor stingy; it is opinionated, and the opinion is that requests, not bytes, are the scarce resource worth metering.
Where the model wins
Dynamic content, instant configuration changes and edge logic are where Fastly earns its premium. Teams shipping frequently, doing heavy A/B work at the edge, or serving APIs with strict latency needs often find the model pays for itself in engineering time, not bandwidth arithmetic. Velocity deserves to be priced, not just admired. If instant configuration saves your team a deploy cycle per week, that saving has a salary-denominated value, and it belongs in the same spreadsheet as the bandwidth line.
A concrete contrast shows the stakes. A video platform delivering large segments might see requests contribute low single-digit percentages of its bill, making the per-GB rate the whole conversation. An API business with tiny JSON responses can find requests contributing more than bandwidth, at which point comparing Fastly to a volume-tier network on per-GB headline rates is comparing the wrong numbers entirely. Same provider, same prices, opposite conclusions, decided entirely by object size. That is why the only honest Fastly quote starts with your logs, and why any comparison table that includes it without asking about your request mix is decorating, not informing.
Why we quote it, not table it
A single per-GB number for a request-priced network misleads half its readers, which is why our pricing page tables Akamai and CDNetworks but quotes Fastly against your actual request profile. Honest pricing sometimes means declining to publish a number. The refusal-to-publish stance occasionally costs us an impatient visitor, and we accept the trade. A wrong number published confidently does more damage than a right number that takes one email to obtain.
In practice
To pre-compute your own answer: divide last month’s requests by gigabytes delivered to get requests per GB. Below roughly a few thousand, request fees will be a footnote on your quote. In the hundreds of thousands, they will be the headline, and the comparison against volume-tier networks needs doing properly before anything is signed.
Send us a week of logs and the Fastly quote comes back priced on your real request mix.