Guide
S3 storage pricing,
one line at a time.
The per-GB price on a pricing page is rarely the number you end up paying. Here is every line that can appear on an object storage bill, what drives it, and a short worksheet to estimate your own.
The line items
Seven things you might be charged for.
Not every provider charges for every item. Always check the provider's own, current pricing page.
| Line item | What it is | What makes it grow |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | Data kept, per GB or TB per month | Total data, number of versions, how long you keep it |
| Write requests | PUT, COPY, POST and LIST calls | Lots of small files. A million 10 KB files cost more in requests than ten 1 GB files |
| Read requests | GET calls | How often apps and users open files |
| Retrieval | A fee to read from archive or infrequent-access classes | Restores, audits, ad-hoc lookups |
| Egress | Data leaving the service | Restores, downloads, content delivery, migrations |
| Minimum duration | A charge for deleting before a minimum period | Short-lived data parked in an archive class |
| Currency and tax | Billing currency, exchange rate, GST | Who invoices you and in what currency |
Worksheet
Six numbers to pull from last month's bill.
Write these down once and you can price any provider in ten minutes.
- 01
TB stored
The monthly average, including old versions.
- 02
TB written
New backups and new files uploaded during the month.
- 03
Requests
Write and read requests. Your console usually shows these in millions.
- 04
TB retrieved and sent out
Data restored, downloaded or served to users.
- 05
Retention rules
How long data stays and whether any class has a minimum period.
- 06
Currency and GST
Billing currency, the exchange rate you budget at, and tax.
Keeping it down
Where storage bills usually leak.
Versions nobody deletes
Versioning is useful, but without a lifecycle rule every overwrite is stored forever.
Many tiny files
Backup tools that pack small files into larger objects cut request counts sharply.
Keeping data "just in case"
Agree a retention period with the business, write it down, and enforce it.
Surprise restores
Know how much you restore in a normal month and budget for it.
Nobody reads the bill
Compare the invoice to your estimate every month and ask about anything new.
Too many line items
A per-TB rate with a few listed extras is easier to forecast. See Stornox pricing.
For a step-by-step version of this exercise across all your cloud spend, read how to run a cloud cost audit in one day.
FAQ
Questions we get asked.
How is S3 storage priced?
Most object storage is billed on the amount of data stored each month, plus some mix of request charges, retrieval charges and data transfer (egress) charges. Some archive classes also have a minimum storage period or a minimum object size.
What are egress charges?
Fees for data that leaves the storage service, for example when you restore a backup, serve files to users or move to another provider. The rate and any free allowance depend on the provider and region.
Why is my storage bill higher than I expected?
The usual causes are millions of small requests from an application, retrieval fees on archive tiers, data transferred out, early-deletion fees on minimum-duration classes, and old object versions nobody cleaned up.
How do I compare providers fairly?
Use the same six inputs for each one: TB stored, TB written, write and read requests, TB retrieved and TB transferred out. Take rates from each provider's current pricing page and include currency conversion and GST.
How does Stornox charge?
Per TB stored per month in rupees, on a tiered rate card, plus listed charges for write requests and data written. See pricing or try the calculator.
General information only. Provider pricing changes and varies by region and agreement. Use each provider's official, current pricing page and your own usage numbers.
Related
Read next.
Get in touch
Talk to someone who knows storage.
Book a 30-minute call. Bring your current numbers and we will tell you what Stornox would cost, what it would take to move, and whether it is the right fit.
Prefer to call? +91 91751 11820 · hello@stornox.com
