Amazon CloudFront price classes allow you to optimize the cost of delivering content by selecting the regions from which your content will be served. These price classes help manage expenses by excluding higher-cost edge locations from your distribution.
Key Features and Benefits
Price classes enable you to reduce your delivery costs by excluding the more expensive edge locations from your distribution. By default, CloudFront delivers content from its entire global network of edge locations, minimizing end-user latency. You can choose a price class that fits your budget and performance requirements. You can configure price classes via the AWS Management Console or the Amazon CloudFront API. Latency vs. Cost Trade-off: Using all edge locations ensures the lowest latency. Restricting edge locations to a specific price class may increase latency for some users but will reduce costs. Price Class Options
Includes the lowest cost edge locations only. Covers the United States, Canada, and Europe. Includes all edge locations in Price Class 100 plus additional locations in Asia and Oceania. Includes all edge locations worldwide. Provides the best possible performance by minimizing latency but comes at a higher cost. Price Class Selection Impact
If performance is your primary concern, using all edge locations is recommended to ensure the lowest possible latency. If cost is a priority, you can choose Price Class 100 or 200 to limit the number of edge locations used and reduce expenses. Selecting Price Class 100 or 200 can significantly reduce the cost of content delivery by avoiding higher-cost locations. Price Class 100 is the most cost-effective but may lead to higher latency for users outside the included regions. Occasionally, content might be served from an edge location not included in your selected price class. In such cases, you are charged at the rate for the least expensive location within your selected price class. Configuring Price Classes
Go to the CloudFront distribution settings. Select the desired price class under the "Price Class" section. Use the API to programmatically set the price class for your distribution. Example Use Cases
Cost-Sensitive Applications: For applications where cost is a primary concern and users are primarily located in the US, Canada, or Europe, using Price Class 100 can yield significant savings. Global Applications with Performance Focus: For global applications requiring low latency, using all edge locations ensures the best performance regardless of cost. For applications primarily serving users in specific regions such as Asia or Oceania, Price Class 200 provides a balance between performance and cost.
Exam tips:
With Amazon CloudFront you can set the price class to determine where in the world the content will be cached. One of the price classes is “U.S, Canada and Europe” and this is where the company’s users are located. Choosing this price class will result in lower costs and better performance for the company’s users. 
Price Class
