Google Cloud VPN pricing: tunnel hours and egress

In one table

There is no row for people. Ten users or a hundred, the same tunnels carrying the same traffic produce the same bill.

The three things on the meter

Google's pricing page opens by naming three charges: an hourly charge for each tunnel attached to a gateway, a monthly charge for IPsec traffic (the data transfer), and an hourly charge for any external IP address assigned to a gateway but not used by a tunnel. A note adds that "Only VPN tunnels in certain tunnel states are billed."

The page is built around a region picker and opens on Iowa (us-central1), where the tunnel rate reads "$0.05 / 1 hour." Google's own worked examples show $0.075 for asia-northeast1 and $0.065 for europe-west6. The table's caption says "Except where otherwise noted, all details apply to both Classic VPN and HA VPN," so the tunnel rate is the same for both.

Why two tunnels

The 99.99% availability SLA for HA VPN requires two tunnels. The pricing table says so in the rate row itself: "HA VPN only: For 99.99% availability, you must configure two tunnels, or, if working with an AWS peer gateway, four tunnels." The topologies document is more specific: there must be a tunnel from each of the HA VPN gateway's two interfaces to the peer, and configuring only one "doesn't provide enough redundancy to meet the availability SLA because there is an unused interface on the HA VPN gateway."

So the smallest HA VPN that meets its SLA is 2 x $0.05 = $0.10 an hour. A single tunnel is $0.05, but it is not a 99.99% configuration. Classic VPN carries a 99.9% SLA and starts at one tunnel.

How egress is billed

It depends on what is at the far end of the tunnel.

• A gateway outside Google Cloud (an office router, say): billed at "Internet data transfer out rates." Premium Tier is the default.
• Another Cloud VPN gateway: billed at the VM-to-VM data transfer rates within Google Cloud; same region counts as inter-zone traffic.
• The charge is decided by the destination gateway's IP address, not the destination VM.
• Inbound traffic is free.

From Iowa to North American destinations, Premium Tier runs: the first 1 GiB in a month free, $0.12 per GiB from 1 GiB to 1,024 GiB, $0.11 from 1,024 to 10,240 GiB, $0.08 above that. The unit is the GiB, not the GB. The tiers count the account's whole internet egress for the month, so VPN traffic alone does not decide which tier applies.

Google's own example

The page works one through. A gateway in us-central1, two tunnels to a data center in Iowa, 2 TiB sent each way per month, over a 30-day month:

• Gateway: $0.050 x 2 tunnels x 720 hours = $72.00
• Data transfer: 2 TiB (2,048 GiB) x $0.11 = $225.28
• Data in: no charge. Reserved external IP used by a tunnel: no charge
• Total: $297.28

Google applies $0.11 to all 2,048 GiB. Counting the first 1,024 GiB at the $0.12 tier would shift the result by a few dollars; the figures above are Google's, copied as printed.

This site's example: one office-to-cloud link for a month

Fresh assumptions. A 730-hour month, to match the Azure article. HA VPN in us-central1, two tunnels. 500 GiB a month leaving the cloud for the office.

• Tunnels: $0.05 x 2 x 730 = $73.00
• Data transfer: the first GiB free, then 499 GiB x $0.12 = $59.88
• Data in: $0
• Total: $132.88

One Classic VPN tunnel instead: $36.50 + $59.88 = $96.38. The $36.50 between them is the price of the second tunnel that makes it a 99.99% configuration.

If ten people sit behind that link, $132.88 divided by ten is $13.29, and that number is this article's assumptions divided by ten, not a per-user price Google publishes. The distinction in article-07 applies unchanged.

Where it differs from AWS and Azure

All three bill by the hour and the gigabyte and none bills by the person. Where the hourly meter sits is what differs.

• AWS (article-17): $0.05 an hour per Site-to-Site connection plus $0.05 an hour for the Transit Gateway attachment.
• Azure (article-58): one gateway hour (VpnGw1AZ is $0.21 an hour in East US) with up to ten tunnels inside it.
• Google: no gateway hour at all, $0.05 an hour per tunnel, two tunnels for HA.

For a single office over 730 hours, that is $73.00 for Google's two tunnels, $153.30 for Azure's VpnGw1AZ, and $72 in AWS's own 30-day example. Egress is $0.09 per GB at AWS after 100 GB free, $0.087 per GB at Azure after the same 100 GB, $0.12 per GiB at Google after 1 GiB free and up to 1 TiB. The free allowances and even the units do not line up. The structures can be set side by side; the numbers are not sorted into a ranking here.

Who this is not for

Without a VPC in Google Cloud to connect to, none of these charges arise. This is a different product from a business VPN bought by the seat to cover staff laptops; for published per-user prices, the calculator with your headcount is the quicker path.

Sources

• https://cloud.google.com/vpn/pricing — checked 2026-10-02 (tunnel rate, the three billed items, Google's own examples)
• https://cloud.google.com/vpc/network-pricing — checked 2026-10-02 (Premium Tier internet egress tiers)
• https://docs.cloud.google.com/network-connectivity/docs/vpn/concepts/overview — checked 2026-10-02 (HA VPN and Classic VPN SLAs, tunnel bandwidth)
• https://docs.cloud.google.com/network-connectivity/docs/vpn/concepts/topologies — checked 2026-10-02 (two tunnels and the 99.99% SLA)
• https://seatbill.com/vpn-pricing/article-17 — the AWS examples

Related on this site

• What does AWS actually charge for a VPN?
• Azure VPN Gateway pricing: gateway hours, tunnels and data transfer
• What a business VPN price leaves out
• Per user, per device, or per server — the unit is not the same everywhere
• What is a VPN tunnel, and does all of your traffic have to go through it?
• Business VPN cost per user calculator

---

Written by Kaz (pen name). Published October 2, 2026. Prices were checked on the dates given under Sources. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.