What is the difference between Premium and Standard tiers?

Premium tier routes traffic over Google's private global network (cold-potato routing), providing lower latency, higher reliability, and global anycast IPs. Standard tier routes traffic over the public internet (hot-potato routing) with regional external IPs. Premium tier supports global load balancing while Standard tier is regional only.

How much cheaper is Standard tier?

Standard tier egress pricing is approximately 25-50% cheaper than Premium tier, depending on region and destination. For example, in us-east1, Standard tier to internet is roughly $0.085/GB vs. Premium at $0.12/GB. The savings are most significant for egress-heavy workloads like content delivery.

Can I mix tiers in the same project?

Yes. Network tier is configured per resource (per external IP address), so you can use Premium tier for production load balancers and Standard tier for development environments within the same project. This allows you to optimize costs per workload.

GCP Network Tier Compare

NetworkingGCP

Compare GCP Premium vs Standard network tiers for features, routing, and pricing.

Network Tier Comparison

Monthly Egress (GB)

Estimated monthly internet egress for cost comparison (first 1 TB US pricing).

Workload Type

Feature Category

Raw JSON

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About This Tool

The GCP Network Tier Compare tool provides a side-by-side comparison of Google Cloud's Premium and Standard network tiers. Premium tier routes traffic through Google's global fiber backbone with anycast IPs and cold-potato routing, while Standard tier uses the public internet with regional IPs and hot-potato routing. The tool covers performance, availability, pricing, and feature differences.

When to Use This Tool

•Deciding between Premium and Standard network tiers for a customer-facing application's external IPs.
•Estimating the cost savings from switching development environments to Standard tier.
•Understanding the performance implications of each tier for users in different geographic regions.
•Evaluating which tier meets SLA requirements for production workloads.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Premium and Standard tiers?: Premium tier routes traffic over Google's private global network (cold-potato routing), providing lower latency, higher reliability, and global anycast IPs. Standard tier routes traffic over the public internet (hot-potato routing) with regional external IPs. Premium tier supports global load balancing while Standard tier is regional only.
How much cheaper is Standard tier?: Standard tier egress pricing is approximately 25-50% cheaper than Premium tier, depending on region and destination. For example, in us-east1, Standard tier to internet is roughly $0.085/GB vs. Premium at $0.12/GB. The savings are most significant for egress-heavy workloads like content delivery.
Can I mix tiers in the same project?: Yes. Network tier is configured per resource (per external IP address), so you can use Premium tier for production load balancers and Standard tier for development environments within the same project. This allows you to optimize costs per workload.

Related Learning Guides

GCP Networking Deep Dive30 min read
Cost Optimization Guide24 min read

Disclaimer: This tool runs entirely in your browser. No data is sent to our servers. Always verify outputs before using them in production. AWS, Azure, and GCP are trademarks of their respective owners.