Netflix caters to over 260 million users in 190 countries. [1]

I wrote an article a few days ago about their global outreach and how they successfully run a massive global infrastructure and communicate with their huge user base efficiently.

But what are the repercussions of this in terms of cost?

How much does AWS charge Netflix to run their massive and complex cloud infrastructure that serves hundreds of millions of users worldwide?

Netflix’s Profits

Before I divulge the number of their total AWS bill, you need to have some context into how much revenue Netflix raked in in the last few years.

After a massive debt of 15 billion dollars in 2021, Netflix added 1.75 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2023 which resulted in $8.16 billion in revenue.

Back in 2019, Netflix reported that their AWS bill costs them $9.6 million per month.

Today, Netflix makes over $15 billion in yearly revenue — the last time this was calculated was in 2020.

Needless to say, they have increased revenue and profits since then — seeing how big the streaming giant is today.

Netflix’s AWS Charges Today

AWS charges $0.021 per transferred GB per month.

Netflix transfers about 1 billion GB of data to their customers per week thus 4 billion GB of data per month. [3]

If you calculate that, you get a whopping $84 million per month or $1 billion per year.

That may sound like a lot to you but if you take into account the $15 billion yearly revenue amount we mentioned earlier, AWS costs account for only 7% of their revenue, which is actually quite low.

Why Did Netflix Choose AWS?

If you read my previous articles on Netflix and AWS, you know I mentioned that scalability was the main reason Netflix migrated their entire infrastructure to AWS.

They struggled with scaling servers.

They struggled to be globally available.

They struggled to run servers and storage at scale.

AWS provided all of these benefits and much more.

Netflix profited from high reliability, availability, and scalability while remaining cost-effective.

Ultimately, using AWS meant that Netflix didn’t need to worry about infrastructure maintenance and management and focus solely on business goals — a price most would pay without hesitating.

With the AWS cloud, Netflix didn’t have to spend billions of dollars in upfront costs building data centers, maintaining them, and fixing and updating operating systems when — not if — issues occur.

AWS takes care of all of the above work entirely so you as a business can focus only on delivering value to your customers — and that’s exactly why Netflix adopted the AWS cloud.

Ultimately, it comes down to knowing how to optimize costs for the cloud.

While serverless computing will help a lot in this regard, AWS provides many tools and services with the primary goal of monitoring and optimizing costs on your AWS account.

Conclusion

Netflix’s partnership with AWS has proven to be both strategic and cost-effective, with AWS charges accounting for only 7% of their yearly revenue.

Netflix pays AWS a whopping $9.6 million per month for using Amazon’s cloud platform (2020) but makes a yearly revenue of over $15 billion.

This collaboration allows Netflix to focus on delivering value to their 260 million users worldwide while AWS takes care of infrastructure maintenance and scalability and security challenges.

For businesses considering cloud optimization, leveraging tools and services offered by AWS is essential to manage costs and maximize efficiency in any IT infrastructure.

References

1. How Netflix Migrated To The AWS Cloud To Scale For 260 Million Viewers. Uriel Bitton. May 19, 2024. https://medium.com/towards-aws/how-netflix-migrated-to-the-aws-cloud-to-scale-for-260-million-viewers-8f5257bd8f3d

2. Netflix Architecture: How Much Does Netflix’s AWS Cost? May 23, 2023. https://www.cloudzero.com/blog/netflix-aws/

3. NETFLIX pays $1 Billion/year to Amazon. Faraz A. September 22, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netflix-pays-1-billionyear-amazon-faraz-ali/