Object storage looks cheap per gigabyte, until downloads, retrieval fees and minimum durations arrive on the bill. Here’s what each class and provider is good at, what it costs, and the catches.
Prices checked October 2026, in USD, for one US region where they vary. Always confirm on the provider’s own page before committing.
If you know what you're storing and how often it's read, start here.
Serving downloads, images or video to the public
Cloudflare R2
No download fees, however popular the files get.
Cheap backups you restore now and then
Backblaze B2
$6.95/TB, instant access, downloads free up to 3× storage.
Archives you hope never to read
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
About $1 per TB a month; restores take 12–48 hours.
Archives you might need back today
GCS Archive
Archive pricing, but files open instantly.
A flat bill for a big, quiet library
Wasabi
One price, no egress or API fees — if you download less than you store.
Lots of downloads from a big cloud
Oracle Cloud
10 TB of downloads free every month.
Your app already runs on AWS, Azure or Google
That cloud's storage
Transfers inside the same cloud are free or cheap, and identity just works.
No bill, your own hardware
My storage
Self-hosted Garage: $0 in fees, but one disk — keep a backup.
Most clouds sell the same four temperatures. Colder is cheaper to keep and dearer to read — pick by how often you'll open the files, not how important they are.
$0.015 – $0.026 per GB a month
Use when: Anything read weekly or more: app data, websites, media you serve, work in progress.
$0.0085 – $0.015 per GB a month
Use when: Read about once a month or less: recent backups, older projects, finished media.
$0.0036 – $0.004 per GB a month
Use when: Read a few times a year: quarterly reports, older backups, raw footage you might re-edit.
$0.00099 – $0.0036 per GB a month
Use when: Kept for compliance or disaster recovery, and you hope never to read it.
Storage price is only half the story. The same terabyte costs very different amounts once people start downloading it.
1 TB stored, 50 GB restored a month · standard class, storage + downloads
$7.05 storage + $0 downloads
$8.18 storage + $0 downloads
$15.21 storage + $0 downloads
$20.48 storage + $0 downloads
$21.30 storage + $0 downloads
$23.55 storage + $0 downloads
$26.11 storage + $0 downloads
$20.48 storage + $6.00 downloads
1 TB stored, 5 TB downloaded a month · standard class, storage + downloads
$15.21 storage + $0 downloads
$26.11 storage + $0 downloads
$7.05 storage + $20.48 downloads
$20.48 storage + $40.96 downloads
$21.30 storage + $437 downloads
$23.55 storage + $452 downloads
$20.48 storage + $614 downloads
$8.18 storage
storage downloadsList prices, single bucket, request fees left out. Big-cloud prices are for one US region; Wasabi downloads above what you store fall outside its free-egress policy.
Each provider in detail: its classes, what reading and downloading cost, and where it shines.
The reference object store: every tool speaks it, and it has a class for every access pattern.
Best for: Apps already on AWS, data processed in AWS, and deep archives (Glacier Deep Archive).
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $0.0230 | $23.00 | None | Free | Instant |
| Intelligent-TieringMoves objects to cheaper tiers by itself; small monitoring fee per object | $0.0230 | $23.00 | None | Free | Instant |
| Standard-IA | $0.0125 | $12.50 | 30 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
| One Zone-IAOne data centre: lost if it is | $0.0100 | $10.00 | 30 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
| Glacier Instant Retrieval | $0.00400 | $4.00 | 90 days | $0.03/GB | Instant |
| Glacier Flexible Retrieval | $0.00360 | $3.60 | 90 days | Free (bulk) – $0.01/GB | Minutes to 12 hours |
| Glacier Deep Archive | $0.00099 | $0.99 | 180 days | $0.02/GB | 12 – 48 hours |
Microsoft's object store, with four access tiers you can set per blob.
Best for: Teams on Microsoft 365 / Entra ID or running workloads in Azure.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | $0.0208 | $20.80 | None | Free | Instant |
| Cool | $0.0152 | $15.20 | 30 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
| Cold | $0.00360 | $3.60 | 90 days | $0.03/GB | Instant |
| Archive | $0.00099 | $0.99 | 180 days | $0.02/GB | Up to 15 hours (rehydrate first) |
Google's object store: four classes, and even the archive class reads instantly.
Best for: Workloads on Google Cloud, analytics (BigQuery), and archives you may need back in a hurry.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standardus-central1; multi-region $0.026 | $0.0200 | $20.00 | None | Free | Instant |
| Nearline | $0.0100 | $10.00 | 30 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
| Coldline | $0.00400 | $4.00 | 90 days | $0.02/GB | Instant |
| Archive | $0.00120 | $1.20 | 365 days | $0.05/GB | Instant |
Oracle's object store, with by far the most generous free downloads of the big clouds.
Best for: Download-heavy workloads and Oracle customers.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $0.0255 | $25.50 | None | Free | Instant |
| Infrequent Access | $0.00850 | $8.50 | 31 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
| Archive | $0.00260 | $2.60 | 90 days | $0.01/GB | About an hour (restore first) |
S3-compatible storage with no download fees at all, sitting on Cloudflare's network.
Best for: Serving files to the public: downloads, images, video, web assets.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $0.0150 | $15.00 | None | Free | Instant |
| Infrequent Access | $0.0100 | $10.00 | 30 days | $0.01/GB | Instant |
One flat price per TB, with no egress or API fees — within a fair-use ratio.
Best for: Backups and large libraries that are stored much more than they're downloaded.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Cloud Storage$7.99 per TB since July 2026; 1 TB minimum | $0.00799 | $7.99 | 90 days | Free | Instant |
The lowest headline price per TB, S3-compatible, with generous free downloads.
Best for: Cost-sensitive backups, media libraries and archives that still need instant access.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B2 Cloud Storage | $0.00695 | $6.95 | None | Free | Instant |
A $5 bundle with storage, downloads and a CDN — simple for small projects.
Best for: Small apps and sites already on DigitalOcean.
| Class | Per GB / month | Per TB / month | Minimum | Reading | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StandardAfter the 250 GiB in the $5 bundle | $0.0200 | $20.00 | None | Free | Instant |
Two options that aren't billed per gigabyte.
$0 a month in fees
Garage on your own machine, set up by jvinu with docker compose --profile storage.
Best for: Home labs, local backups, privacy, and anything you don't want on someone else's computer.
Plan-based subscription
A file-sync service for people, with an API jvinu can browse.
Best for: Documents and folders people share and sync to their computers.
Open any bucket and press Analytics to see its size, what’s taking the space, which storage classes it uses and an estimated monthly cost from the same prices as this page. Paying a different rate — a discount, another region, a Dropbox plan? Set your own rate there and the estimate follows it.
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