In today’s multicloud world, cloud firewalls are meant to be the first line of defense. But according to The State of Cloud Network Security 2025 survey, they’ve also become one of the most expensive and unpredictable line items in IT budgets.
The numbers are eye-opening: 63% of organizations were hit with unexpected cloud firewall costs in the past year, and for many, the overrun was staggering. Over a third of those organizations said the surprise bill was more than $100,000.
Even more surprising: 94% of organizations believe they’re good at forecasting cloud spend. Clearly, something in the firewall equation isn’t adding up.
Why Cloud Firewall Costs Spiral Out of Control
The survey revealed just how common (and costly) cloud firewall challenges have become:
67% struggle to integrate their firewall with other security tools and cloud services
55% experience performance overhead from firewall deployments
50% say scalability is an issue, especially as workloads move across clouds
69% of those with unexpected costs reported overruns of more than $50,000; 35% were over $100,000
The reasons are both technical and structural:
Hidden licensing and throughput fees – Many firewall models charge based on traffic volume or concurrent sessions, leading to unpredictable bills as traffic scales.
Egress fees – Moving traffic through external firewalls can rack up massive outbound data transfer charges.
Operational complexity – Multi-vendor environments demand constant manual policy synchronization, increasing labor costs and deployment delays.
Assumed coverage gaps – Relying solely on CSP-native firewalls often leaves blind spots for east-west and inter-cloud traffic.
The result is a budget sinkhole that keeps getting deeper as your cloud footprint grows.
The Business Impact Beyond the Bill
Cloud firewall costs aren’t just a line-item annoyance; they have a ripple effect across the organization.
Delayed deployments: 67% of organizations report that security reviews tied to firewall changes slow down service rollouts.
Increased risk exposure: 65% experienced firewall-related security incidents, often tied to misconfigurations in complex, multicloud environments.
Fractured visibility: When each cloud or workload segment has its own firewall approach, security teams lose the unified view they need to detect and respond quickly.
These impacts make it clear: the problem is financial, operational, and strategic.
Why the Traditional Approach Isn’t Sustainable
Native CSP firewalls can be effective within their own environments, but they fall short in multicloud and hybrid architectures. You end up with:
Separate policy engines for each provider
No centralized visibility across east-west, inter-cloud, and hybrid traffic
Vendor lock-in that limits flexibility and inflates egress costs
Third-party firewall appliances promise consistency, but they introduce their own problems: additional licensing fees, throughput-based pricing, deployment delays, and ongoing integration work.
Neither approach delivers the combination of security, scalability, and cost predictability that modern cloud operations require.
Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric: Security Without the (Cost) Surprises
Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric (CNSF) was built to solve the exact challenges surfaced in the latest industry survey. Rather than bolting on more hardware or juggling multiple firewall vendors, CNSF embeds enterprise-grade network security directly into the Aviatrix multicloud networking platform.
With CNSF, you get:
Inline Segmentation, Encryption, and PHI/Data Access Controls — Enforce least privilege access (a core zero trust principle) and secure sensitive traffic across all clouds.
Full Runtime Visibility — See every connection, every packet path … eliminating blind spots that lead to risk.
Policy-as-Code — Define, deploy, and manage firewall rules at scale with Terraform and APIs.
Consistent, Centralized Control — One policy engine for all clouds, all workloads.
Optimized Egress Routing — Customers cut egress fees by an average of 25%, eliminating one of the biggest drivers of firewall cost overruns.
By integrating security at the network layer, CNSF eliminates the performance tax, operational complexity, and unpredictable billing that plague traditional firewall deployments.
Calculate Your Savings and See the Difference
If your organization is among the 63% surprised by cloud firewall bills, it’s time to take control. CNSF delivers the protection you need, without the unexpected costs.
Use our TCO Calculator to see how much you could save on firewall and egress costs.
Then schedule a demo to see CNSF in action—predictable costs, centralized control, and cloud-native protection—at the speed your business demands.
