Equinix is the most expensive place to put a cabinet in most of the metros it serves, and it is also the easiest colocation bill to document, because its interconnection products carry published list prices and its public sector customers file their orders line by line. Its own annual report adds the number nobody else publishes: what the average cabinet actually bills. Together those sources turn "Equinix is expensive" into specific figures, which is what you need to decide whether the premium buys something your deployment uses. For how Equinix compares to the rest of the market, see our Best Colocation Providers ranking, our Equinix vs Digital Realty verdict, and our guide to how colocation pricing works.
What you will actually pay
| What is priced | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Private cage, 12 cabinets | $22,822 /mo | Cage space with a 37 kVA power cap; the twelve cabinets inside are a $0 line and circuits are extra |
| Power circuit, 208 volt 30 amp | $868 /mo each | One single phase circuit, primary or redundant, before any kilowatt hour billing |
| Power circuit, 120 volt 20 amp | $224 /mo each | The smallest circuit on the order |
| Cross connect, single mode fiber | $386 /mo | One fiber link to a carrier or partner in the same building, plus a one time install |
| Cross connect, copper | $141 /mo | Copper links, now limited to existing switches under Equinix policy |
| Fabric port, 10 Gbps | $210 /mo | The port that carries virtual connections to clouds and partners |
| Fabric virtual connection to a cloud | $289 to $987 /mo | 1 to 2 Gbps to a cloud on ramp, local or to another metro |
| Internet access, dual 10 Gbps ports | $3,255 /mo | With 5 Gbps of committed bandwidth |
| Network Edge virtual device | $700 to $3,200 /mo | Published US list by processor count; 12 to 36 month terms take 8 to 25 percent off |
The whole of that county order, a twelve cabinet cage with roughly twenty circuits, seven cross connects, five Fabric ports, a dozen cloud connections, and dual 10 gigabit internet, bills $60,919 a month on a 60 month term. Every line on it stepped up exactly 5 percent on January 1, 2026, which is the escalator written into the order. A state agency's cage in Equinix's flagship Chicago building runs about $23,800 a month plus a $75,000 install fee on a five year sole source award. And Equinix's own annual report puts the average cabinet in the Americas at $2,694 a month in recurring revenue, power and cross connects included, at 79 percent utilization. Procurement benchmark data brackets a single cabinet in a tier one metro at $1,500 to $3,000 a month, power at $150 to $300 per kilowatt a month, and cross connects at $100 to $300 a month, all before the discounts that ten plus cabinets and three year terms earn.
The context is a market with almost no vacancy. The 2026 analyst surveys put 250 to 500 kilowatt asking rates at $190 to $235 per kilowatt a month in Northern Virginia and $200 to $230 in Chicago, up nearly 15 percent in a year there, with vacancy under 2 percent in both. Equinix told investors its pricing is firm across every region, and its filings show it. There is no discount era to wait for.
What moves the price
- The circuits, not the cabinet. On the county order the cabinets themselves are free and the cage line is modest; the money is in the circuits at $868 a month each and the kilowatt hour billing behind them. Equinix circuits are usable to 80 percent of their rating, so a 30 amp circuit delivers about 5 kVA, and a redundant pair may not draw more than one circuit's limit combined or both bill as primaries.
- How power is metered. Equinix's published policy offers metered power with a monthly minimum plus a per kilowatt hour rate, a pass through model where the bill is usage times Equinix's all in utility rate times a PUE factor, or fixed kVA with kilowatt hours passed through. The utility rate can change month to month under the pass through model, and in 2023 Equinix passed through roughly $350 million of higher power costs to customers in a single year.
- Cross connects at scale. The first cross connect into a cabinet includes its patch panel; everything after is a line of its own, and a deployment built around interconnection can carry more in cross connects and Fabric than in space. Existing cross connects hold their rate for the term and reprice to standard list at renewal.
- Metro. Cage and cabinet pricing is set per building. The same specification in a secondary metro quotes well below the flagship Ashburn, Chicago, and Silicon Valley campuses, and the order you read above is a Miami price.
- Term and volume. Equinix contracts run one to five years and renew in one year increments. Published network products take 8 to 25 percent off for 12 to 36 month terms, and inter metro Fabric connections drop 15 to 50 percent on term; colocation discounts are negotiated per deal and deepen past ten cabinets.
Contract factors to watch
- The escalator is the contract. The county order carries a 5 percent increase on all products after the first 12 months and 5 percent at each renewal, with a carve out letting Equinix raise power fees by the actual electricity cost increase when that exceeds the escalator. A carrier's published guide for reselling Equinix space states at least 3 percent every 12 months plus power repricing. Get the number, the carve out, and the renewal cap in writing.
- Draw caps have teeth. Exceeding the kVA cap on an order gives you 72 hours to cure, after which overage bills at up to twice the per kVA rate or the power is suspended. Size the cap to real peak draw, not average draw.
- Non renewal notice is 90 days. The order renews for 12 months at a time unless notice lands 90 days before the term ends, and the cross connect and Fabric port terms run with the cage.
- Leaving has a fee schedule. Cross connects must be de installed through a Smart Hands ticket before the term ends, the de install fee equals one month of the standard cross connect charge, and early de installs can draw an early termination fee. Fabric ports carry a 12 month minimum with early termination liability.
- Credits are defined narrowly. Redundant power is guaranteed at 99.999 percent, with a credit of one thirtieth of the cabinet's monthly fee per affected cabinet plus one thirtieth for each further full hour, capped at that service's monthly fee; outages must be reported within 7 days and claimed within 15 days of month end.
- Smart Hands is priced by the half hour. Work bills in 30 minute increments with a 30 minute minimum at a standard rate Equinix does not publish, higher after hours in buildings without 24 hour staff. Monthly plans discount the rate 15 to 40 percent by hours committed, hours cannot be reduced mid term, and overage bills at the standard rate.
- Bare metal is gone. Equinix Metal was sunset on June 30, 2026, so any older pricing you find for hourly servers no longer applies; the landing spots are colocation, managed services, and Network Edge.
The honest summary: Equinix sells adjacency, and its bill is built to charge for it twice, once in a cage priced at flagship metro rates and again in the cross connects and Fabric connections that are the reason to be there. For a deployment that genuinely needs to sit next to carriers, clouds, and exchanges, the premium is the product and the published network prices make the connectivity side easy to model. For a deployment that just needs reliable cabinets, the same order in a regional provider's building costs a fraction. Exact pricing is quote based. We pull real numbers across Equinix and every serious alternative at once, free, and you sign directly with whichever provider you choose.