Check Azure Front Door request and transfer costs
On this page
Separate Front Door profile, request, edge-to-origin, and edge-to-client charges before estimating cache savings, or you may treat billed traffic as free when only the origin transfer component was avoided.
What you need first
- Tool
- Use the checklist below in a text editor or spreadsheet. Start with one Azure Front Door Standard or Premium profile and one billing month, then enter results from billing and configuration records.
- Access
- Ask authorized Azure billing and Front Door colleagues for the profile tier, deployed hours, billing quantities and costs, cache settings, and the selected month's scope. No permission is assumed here.
- If you do not use that tool
- Give those colleagues the profile identifier and billing month. Ask them to complete the checklist with request and transfer quantities by billing zone, applicable agreement rates, and available cache evidence.
Why this is worth a look
Skipping this review can leave a high bill unexplained after origin traffic falls. Standard and Premium profiles have hourly base fees, requests are metered per 10,000 requests, and transfer is metered per GB. A cache hit avoids the edge-to-origin component, but requests and edge-to-client transfer still need review. Rates can vary by serving edge zone and agreement.
Run this check
CHECKLISTComplete this read-only checklist in a text editor or spreadsheet for one Standard or Premium profile and one billing month. Preserve billing units and do not change resources.
SCOPE
[ ] Record profile identifier:
[ ] Confirm tier: Standard / Premium
[ ] Record billing month and period boundaries:
BASE FEE
[ ] Record deployed hours, including partial hours:
[ ] Record billed base fee and applicable tier rate:
[ ] Confirm endpoint count was not used as a base-fee multiplier.
REQUESTS
[ ] Record billed request count and cost by billing zone:
[ ] Record applicable rate per 10,000 requests:
[ ] Record request evidence for the same profile and period:
[ ] Review WAF-blocked requests, if present.
TRANSFER
[ ] Record edge-to-origin quantity in GB and cost by billing zone:
[ ] Record edge-to-client quantity in GB and cost by billing zone:
[ ] Record applicable per-GB rates and original billing units:
[ ] Keep origin-to-Front-Door transfer separate as nonbillable by Front Door.
[ ] If the origin is outside Azure, request a separate provider-charge review.
CACHE
[ ] Record routes with caching enabled:
[ ] Record GET traffic and available X-Cache evidence:
[ ] Record query-string cache behavior:
[ ] Flag authenticated or user-specific routes with caching enabled.
RATE REVIEW
[ ] Match request and transfer rates to serving edge billing zones.
[ ] Use agreement or program pricing, not illustrative prices.
[ ] Record unexplained differences and the colleague responsible for review:
[ ] Keep Edge actions charges outside this four-component review.How to confirm it
- 01
Match profile and billing month
Choose one Standard or Premium profile and record its identifier and billing month. Compare billing and configuration records only when their scope and period match. Use deployed hours to review the profile base fee, not endpoint count.
- 02
Check billed requests
Compare billed requests with available request evidence. A request counts when its Host header matches the profile. Include WAF-blocked traffic because Front Door charges for the request and response even though it does not send the request to the origin.
- 03
Separate transfer directions
Record edge-to-origin and edge-to-client GB and costs separately. Origin-to-Front-Door transfer is nonbillable by Front Door, and transfer from an Azure origin to the edge is free. If the origin is outside Azure, request a separate network-provider charge review.
- 04
Review cache settings safely
Check cache-enabled routes, request methods, and query-string behavior without changing them. Only GET requests are cacheable. With Use Query String, each unique URL, including its query string, has a separate cache entry. Flag authenticated or user-specific routes because Azure warns that caching them can leak personal information.
- 05
Resolve rate differences
Match request and transfer charges to the serving edge pricing zone and applicable tier. Do not use the origin location to price edge-to-origin transfer. Ask billing to use agreement or program rates instead of illustrative prices, then assign unexplained differences for review.
Before making changes
This review assumes one Standard or Premium profile and records covering the same billing month. X-Cache evidence shows cache behavior, not a billable quantity. Each edge site has its own cache, so origin traffic can continue alongside cache hits. The review covers base, request, and transfer charges; review Edge actions separately if present.