Azure ExpressRoute Pricing Guide
Real pricing analysis for enterprise ExpressRoute buyers — including the 6 hidden costs that push fully-loaded to 2-3× the port fee list price.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the components of Azure ExpressRoute pricing?
Three cost lines add up to the total. (1) Azure circuit port fee — Microsoft's charge for the ExpressRoute circuit endpoint on the Azure side. Ranges $55/month (50 Mbps Standard) to $8,880/month (100 Gbps Local, unlimited data). (2) Data transfer — depending on plan, either metered ($0.025/GB outbound at Standard/Premium) or unlimited (bundled into the higher port fee tier). (3) Provider circuit — the actual last-mile connection from your data center to the Microsoft edge, priced by the network provider (Equinix, CoreSite, AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, Megaport). Provider markup varies widely; Megaport is typically 30-50% cheaper than Equinix for the same circuit.
What is Local vs Standard vs Premium?
Three service tiers. LOCAL: single-region only, no cross-region data transfer. Cheapest per-Mbps but restrictive. Best for single-region workloads (rare in enterprise). STANDARD: cross-region data transfer within a geopolitical region (US-East to US-West OK). Right for most US-only or EU-only enterprises. PREMIUM: global data transfer across geopolitical regions (US-East to Europe-West OK), plus doubled route table size (10,000 vs 4,000 routes), private peering support for Office 365, and Microsoft peering globally. Right for global enterprises with regulatory reasons to keep traffic on the Microsoft backbone.
When should we choose Metered vs Unlimited data?
Do the math. Metered: $0.025/GB outbound at Standard, $0.045/GB at Premium (US pricing). Unlimited: bundled into the higher port fee tier. Break-even is roughly 3 TB/month outbound on a 1 Gbps Standard circuit. Below 3 TB/month: metered is cheaper. Above 3 TB/month: unlimited is materially cheaper. Enterprises typically underestimate their outbound traffic (backup, replication, Copilot semantic index sync, etc.) and end up regretting the Metered choice within 12 months.
What are the hidden costs enterprise buyers miss?
Six categories. (1) Redundant circuit — Microsoft requires DUAL circuits at different peering locations for the ExpressRoute SLA. Single circuit = no SLA. Double the port fee. (2) ExpressRoute Gateway — the Azure-side gateway ($40-$1,270/month depending on SKU). Non-obvious line item. (3) Provider redundancy — if the primary provider goes down, the failover provider circuit needs its own port fee. (4) Cross-region peering (Standard tier requires it for multi-region workloads). (5) Private endpoint DNS Zone data-processing (small but per-GB). (6) Monitoring add-ons (Network Watcher, Azure Monitor for Networks). Fully-loaded ExpressRoute is often 2-3× the circuit port fee list price.
When is ExpressRoute worth it vs VPN?
ExpressRoute justifies its cost when: (1) You have consistent >100 Mbps sustained cross-premises traffic. (2) You have SLA-driven latency requirements (financial trading, real-time collaboration). (3) You have regulatory reasons to keep traffic off the public internet (some HIPAA / FINRA / FedRAMP interpretations). (4) You have >5 TB/month cross-premises data movement. Below those thresholds, site-to-site VPN or point-to-site VPN often delivers acceptable performance at 5-10% of the cost. EPC Group runs this analysis as part of the Azure Landing Zone engagement.
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