Case study · Bandwidth
Mailscale: one hero video behind a 10x Webflow bill
A US startup's Webflow bill jumped from $50 to $550+ a month with the same traffic. The cause was one oversized video in the homepage hero.
Bandwidth, February
150 GB
One month vs a 100 GB plan
2.3 TB
Monthly Webflow bill
$50 → $550+
The problem
Bandwidth went from 150 GB in February to over 1 TB in March, with the same number of visitors (around 8,000 a month) and no major changes to the site. The Webflow bill went from $50 to over $550 a month.
Usage blew through every limit, fast. First the plan's 100 GB, then even the 1 TB limit. In the May 15 to June 14 billing month alone, the site used 2.3 TB.
What I did
- Traced the usage to one file: an oversized video in the homepage hero, loaded by every visitor.
- The client wanted to keep the video, so it stayed. I moved its hosting off Webflow to an external video host.
The result
- Same homepage, same video. Nothing changed for visitors.
- The video no longer counts toward Webflow bandwidth, so the biggest driver of the bill is gone.
Webflow bandwidth for May 15 to June 14: 2.3 TB, well past even the 1 TB limit.