Find what flows through your NAT gateways, then move it to free or cheaper paths. Prices, break-even math, and a command for each fix.

By Evgeny Anikiev, AWS-certified DevOps engineer with 10+ years running build automation, CI/CD, and Kubernetes in production. Prices verified October 22, 2026, against AWS public pricing pages (US East list prices; check your Region).

TL;DR: A NAT gateway charges $0.045 per hour per AZ plus $0.045 for every GB it processes, including traffic to S3, ECR, and other AWS services. Most of that traffic doesn't need a NAT at all.…