Cloud Storage & Egress Cost Calculator

Compare monthly object storage, API operations, and bandwidth egress costs across AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, and Wasabi.

Active Storage (GB)5.0 TB
Monthly Internet Egress / Bandwidth (GB)2.0 TB

Potential Savings of $3,077.52 / Year

By switching from AWS S3 to Backblaze B2, you save on monthly egress and storage fees.

Monthly Savings+$256.46/mo

Side-by-Side Provider Pricing Breakdown

Cloud ProviderStorage FeeEgress BandwidthAPI OperationsMonthly TotalAnnual Bill
Amazon S3 Standard
$115.00$171.00$0.45$286.45$3437.40
Cloudflare R2Zero Egress
$74.85$0.00$0.40$75.25$903.06
Google Cloud Storage (Standard)
$99.90$240.00$0.45$340.35$4084.20
Backblaze B2CheapestZero Egress
$29.94$0.00$0.04$29.99$359.82
Wasabi Hot Cloud StorageZero Egress
$34.50$0.00$0.00$34.50$414.00

Quick Answer: How Cloud Storage Costs Are Billed

Total monthly cloud object storage cost is the sum of three independent billing dimensions:
Total Bill = (Storage GB × $/GB) + (Egress GB × $/GB) + (API Requests × $/Request)

Example on 5 TB Storage ($0.023/GB) and 2 TB Egress ($0.09/GB):
AWS S3 Bill: (5,000 × $0.023 = $115) + ((2,000 - 100) × $0.09 = $171) = $286.00 / mo
Cloudflare R2 Bill: (5,000 × $0.015 = $75) + (2,000 × $0.00 = $0) = $75.00 / mo (74% cheaper)

The Cloud Egress Tax: Why AWS S3 Bills Escalate Quickly

When deploying web applications, user-generated content platforms, and AI inference pipelines, cloud storage costs appear deceptively cheap at ~$0.02/GB per month. However, the moment applications deliver media, PDFs, or dataset downloads to end users, egress bandwidth penalties (at $0.09/GB on AWS S3 and $0.12/GB on Google Cloud) frequently dwarf actual storage costs.

Modern alternatives like Cloudflare R2 and Wasabi have disrupted this model by offering 100% free data egress, providing identical S3-compatible APIs at a fraction of the total cost.

2026 Cloud Object Storage Comparison Matrix

ProviderStorage Rate (/GB)Egress Rate (/GB)Free TierBest Used For
Cloudflare R2$0.015$0.00 (Zero Egress)10 GB / moWeb assets, video/image delivery, high download workloads.
Backblaze B2$0.006$0.01010 GB / moLarge backups, archive storage, enterprise cold data.
Wasabi Hot Cloud$0.0069$0.00 (Zero Egress)—Media production, video surveillance, non-AWS native apps.
Amazon S3 Standard$0.023$0.090100 GB EgressNative AWS infrastructure (Lambda, Athena, SageMaker).

Sources and Official Pricing Specs

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS): Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Pricing Schedule.
  • Cloudflare: R2 Object Storage Pricing & Zero-Egress Architecture.
  • Google Cloud: Cloud Storage Pricing & Network Egress SKUs.
  • Backblaze: B2 Cloud Storage Pricing Benchmarks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are cloud egress fees and why are they so expensive?
Cloud egress fees are the bandwidth charges incurred whenever data is downloaded or transferred out of a cloud provider's data center to the public internet or another cloud. Major hyperscalers (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) charge between $0.08 and $0.12 per gigabyte of egress, which often accounts for 50% to 70% of an organization's total cloud storage bill.
How does Cloudflare R2 offer zero egress fees?
Cloudflare operates its own global Anycast edge network with extensive private peering agreements with global ISPs. Because Cloudflare does not pay transit fees on the vast majority of its network traffic, it eliminates data transfer egress fees entirely for R2 object storage, charging only $0.015/GB for stored data.
Are alternative object storage providers (R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi) S3-compatible?
Yes. Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, and Wasabi all implement full Amazon S3-compatible REST API endpoints. You can use standard AWS SDKs (boto3, aws-sdk-js, aws-cli, rclone, Cyberduck) simply by updating the endpoint URL and access/secret credentials without modifying application code.
What is the difference between Class A (PUT) and Class B (GET) operations?
Class A operations (PUT, POST, LIST, COPY) create or modify objects and are priced at roughly $0.005 per 1,000 requests. Class B operations (GET, HEAD) retrieve or inspect objects and are priced much lower at roughly $0.0004 per 1,000 requests. High-traffic web apps with millions of image loads should evaluate GET request costs or front storage with a caching CDN.
When should an enterprise choose AWS S3 over cheaper alternatives?
AWS S3 remains standard when workloads require deep ecosystem integration with native AWS services (AWS Lambda, Athena, SageMaker, Redshift, EMR), fine-grained IAM roles, multi-region replication, or advanced compliance features (Object Lock, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval).
How can developers minimize object storage expenses?
Key optimization strategies include: 1. Routing public media downloads through Cloudflare R2 or Wasabi to eliminate egress fees; 2. Placing an edge caching CDN in front of S3 to absorb repeated GET requests; 3. Implementing S3 Lifecycle rules to automatically transition stale files to Cold Archive; 4. Enabling gzip or Brotli compression before uploading textual payloads.

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