Ateeb khatri
521 posts
Aug 08, 2026
9:44 PM
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Cloud storage pricing can look deceptively simple when providers advertise a price per gigabyte or terabyte, but the real monthly cost often depends on much more than the amount of data sitting in a bucket. Storage rates, data retrieval, internet egress, SSD prices, minimum-retention rules, replication, and migration costs can all change the final bill. For that reason, comparing cloud storage providers only by their advertised storage price can produce a misleading result.
This comparison looks at 14 major cloud and object-storage providers and normalizes their published pricing into a per-terabyte perspective. The focus is on general-purpose or standard storage rather than specialized enterprise contracts, and egress or exit-related charges are included wherever the provider publishes them. Prices and policies were checked against official pricing information available around July 2026. Because cloud providers frequently use different billing units, regions, storage classes, and allowances, the figures should be treated as practical reference points rather than universal quotes.
Amazon S3 remains one of the best-known benchmarks for cloud object storage. Standard S3 storage in common U.S. regions is approximately $0.023 per GB-month, which works out to about $23 per TB per month before request and transfer charges. The important issue is egress. Amazon generally charges $0.09 per GB for data transferred from S3 to the public internet in the first major pricing tier, although the first 100 GB of internet data transfer out per month is free when aggregated across eligible AWS services. Transfers between S3 and certain AWS services in the same region can also avoid normal internet-transfer charges. This means a 1 TB dataset that mostly sits untouched can cost around $23 monthly, while a workload that regularly downloads hundreds of gigabytes can become considerably more expensive. AWS's official pricing documentation confirms that S3 billing includes storage, requests, retrieval where applicable, and data-transfer charges.
Google Cloud Storage is similarly flexible but uses storage classes and location-based pricing. Standard regional storage commonly starts around $0.020 per GB-month, equivalent to roughly $20 per TB-month before other charges. Google does not simply treat every download as free. Network usage and, for Nearline, Coldline, and Archive storage, retrieval charges can apply when data is read or moved. Google currently lists retrieval charges of $0.01 per GiB for Nearline, $0.02 per GiB for Coldline, and $0.05 per GiB for Archive. Standard storage has no retrieval fee, but internet and inter-region network charges can still affect the final bill.
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage is another major contender, particularly for organizations already using Microsoft services. Azure pricing depends on the storage tier, redundancy configuration, region, and access pattern. Its Hot tier is designed for frequently accessed data, while Cool and Archive tiers reduce storage costs in exchange for additional access considerations. Azure's official pricing documentation emphasizes that total cost depends on stored capacity, operations, data transfer, and redundancy. Data retrieval and data writing for standard block blobs can be free in the listed pricing model, but outbound internet traffic is a separate consideration. Consequently, a simple per-TB comparison for Azure should never be interpreted as a complete bill without specifying region and redundancy.
Backblaze B2 has built its reputation around simpler object-storage economics. Its current published pay-as-you-go storage price is $6.95 per TB per month, following the pricing change introduced in May 2026. One of its most attractive features is free egress up to three times the average amount of data stored. After that allowance, additional egress is charged at $0.01 per GB. Backblaze also states that API calls are free under the current B2 model. For example, a customer storing 1 TB could normally download up to roughly 3 TB within the applicable free-egress allowance before the additional egress rate becomes relevant.
Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage is another provider where the storage price and egress policy make the comparison particularly interesting. Wasabi announced that its pay-as-you-go price would rise from $6.99 to $7.99 per TB per month beginning July 1, 2026. Its model does not charge conventional egress or API-request fees, although its free-egress policy remains subject to fair-use conditions. This makes Wasabi's effective price much easier to estimate for workloads that frequently download their stored data. The major qualification is that users should still examine retention requirements and the service terms for their specific workload instead of assuming that every possible data movement is cost-free.
Cloudflare R2 takes an especially aggressive approach to egress pricing. Standard R2 storage is $0.015 per GB-month, which is approximately $15 per TB-month before request charges. Cloudflare does not charge for internet egress from R2. Standard storage also has no data-retrieval fee, while its Infrequent Access tier costs $0.01 per GB-month and introduces a $0.01 per GB retrieval charge. This structure can make R2 highly attractive for applications that store large quantities of content and deliver that content frequently to users or other platforms. The trade-off is that request charges still matter for workloads producing very large numbers of operations.
DigitalOcean Spaces uses a subscription-style model rather than presenting storage as a completely open-ended per-GB service. The standard Spaces subscription costs $5 per month and includes 250 GiB of storage plus 1 TiB of outbound transfer. Additional storage is $0.02 per GiB-month, while additional outbound transfer is $0.01 per GiB. On a pure 1-TB storage basis, the additional-capacity rate translates to roughly $20.48 per TiB-month, although the $5 base subscription and included bandwidth change how an actual bill should be calculated. DigitalOcean also provides free transfers in certain same-region connections to Droplets. Its pricing documentation was verified in July 2026.
IBM Cloud Object Storage deserves attention because its 2026 One-Rate model takes a different approach from traditional metered object storage. IBM describes One-Rate as an all-inclusive monthly price covering storage, API operations, retrieval, and egress. For new workloads, IBM currently advertises rates as low as $10 per TB per month at the high-capacity end of the pricing structure, with the exact rate depending on the amount of storage and applicable plan. IBM announced a $10-per-TB rate for environments reaching 2 PB or more, with the entire footprint receiving that price under the stated One-Rate structure. This means IBM can be particularly interesting for very large organizations where predictable egress-inclusive billing matters more than the lowest small-account storage price.
OVHcloud is another provider that emphasizes straightforward object-storage pricing and free outbound traffic in many regions. Its Standard Object Storage rate is listed at approximately $0.00001111 per GiB-hour in its U.S. pricing information. Using the provider's 730-hour monthly convention, that is roughly $8.29 per TiB-month. Public inbound and outbound traffic are included under the standard offering in the listed regions. OVHcloud does note regional exceptions, particularly for some Asia-Pacific entities and certain temporary pricing arrangements. Its Infrequent Access option is cheaper for storage but adds retrieval charges and a 30-day minimum storage period. Therefore, OVHcloud can be extremely competitive for workloads where free outbound traffic is important.
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