The per-GB rate is a trap. The real bill is dominated by egress the fee to download your data, which AWS S3 charges at about $90 per TB and Cloudflare R2, Wasabi and iDrive e2 charge at zero. Set how much you store and download per month to rank S3-compatible providers by true cost.
Indicative published USD list prices for standard/hot tiers. Request fees not modelled; confirm on the provider before committing.
Object storage is sold on the per-GB rate, but the real bill is dominated by egress, the fee to download your data. Storing 1TB and serving 1TB a month, AWS S3 Standard costs about $113, while the cheapest S3-compatible option, IONOS Object, costs about $5. AWS, Google and Azure charge 8-12¢ per GB egress (roughly $80-120 per TB); Cloudflare R2, Wasabi and iDrive e2 charge zero.
Method: published storage rate × 1TB stored + egress rate × 1TB downloaded per month; per-request fees excluded. Cite this: "usefulHQ Object Storage Cost Study 2026", usefulhq.com/object-storage/. Figures update as prices are reviewed.
| Real $/mo ▲ | Provider | Storage $/GB | Egress $/GB | Free tier | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $4.87Cheapest | IONOS ObjectFree egress | $0.005 | Free | – | EU host quoting in USD; first 2TB of egress free every month, which covers the 1TB modelled here, then $0.036/GB | Visit |
| $6 | iDrive e2Free egress | $0.006 | Free | 10GB | Flat $6/TB, free egress up to 3x what you store, then $0.01/GB | Visit |
| $6 | Telnyx StorageFree egress | $0.006 | Free | 5GB | Zero egress, S3-compatible | Visit |
| $6.7 | UpCloud ObjectFree egress | $0.007 | Free | – | EU; flat, no egress fee | Visit |
| $6.95 | Backblaze B2Free egress | $0.007 | Free | 10GB | Free egress up to 3x what you store, then $0.01/GB | Visit |
| $7 | Hetzner Object | $0.006 | $0.001 | – | EU; very cheap, 1TB incl | Visit |
| $7 | Seagate LyveFree egress | $0.007 | Free | – | No egress or API fees, predictable | Visit |
| $7.5 | Contabo ObjectFree egress | $0.007 | Free | – | Very cheap flat rate, no egress | Visit |
| $7.95 | StoraderaFree egress | $0.008 | Free | – | EU, priced at 7.95 EUR per TB; no download charge while you pull less than you store | Visit |
| $7.99 | WasabiFree egress | $0.008 | Free | – | No egress, but billed for 1TB even if you store less, and a 90-day minimum retention | Visit |
| $9.3 | Impossible CloudFree egress | $0.009 | Free | – | EU; free egress and API calls, no minimums | Visit |
| $10 | Cloudflare R2 Infrequent AccessFree egress | $0.010 | Free | 10GB | Cheaper R2 tier, but reads add a per-GB retrieval fee | Visit |
| $11 | Civo Object StoreFree egress | $0.011 | Free | – | Egress and ingress free and unlimited | Visit |
| $11 | Storj | $0.004 | $0.007 | 25GB | Decentralized, low egress | Visit |
| $15 | Cloudflare R2Free egress | $0.015 | Free | 10GB | Zero egress fees, ever | Visit |
| $15 | FilebaseFree egress | $0.015 | Free | 5GB | S3 gateway to decentralized storage | Visit |
| $15 | Backblaze B2 OverdriveFree egress | $0.015 | Free | – | Dearer storage, but egress is never metered or capped | Visit |
| $17 | GleSYSFree egress | $0.017 | Free | – | EU, no egress fee | Visit |
| $20 | TigrisFree egress | $0.020 | Free | 5GB | Globally distributed, zero egress | Visit |
| $20 | Bunny Storage | $0.010 | $0.010 | – | Edge storage + cheap CDN egress | Visit |
| $20 | Fastly Object StorageFree egress | $0.020 | Free | 5GB | Zero egress fees, first 5GB free | Visit |
| $23 | OVH Object | $0.012 | $0.011 | – | EU; S3 + Swift | Visit |
| $25 | Linode Object | $0.020 | $0.005 | – | $5 base incl 250GB + 1TB | Visit |
| $26 | Oracle ObjectFree egress | $0.025 | Free | 20GB | 10 TB/mo egress free | Visit |
| $28 | Vultr Object | $0.018 | $0.010 | – | $6 base incl 1TB storage + transfer | Visit |
| $30 | DigitalOcean Spaces | $0.020 | $0.010 | – | $5 base incl 250GB + 1TB transfer | Visit |
| $35 | Scaleway Object | $0.015 | $0.020 | 75GB | EU; 75GB free | Visit |
| $40 | Exoscale SOS | $0.020 | $0.020 | – | Swiss/EU S3-compatible | Visit |
| $40 | Cloudian HyperStore | $0.020 | $0.020 | – | On-prem/hybrid S3 platform | Visit |
| $60 | Gcore Object Storage | $0.040 | $0.020 | – | Quoted in EUR before VAT: 0.04 per GiB stored and 0.02 per GiB of general outbound, though traffic to their own CDN is free | Visit |
| $73 | Vercel Blob | $0.023 | $0.050 | 5GB | Blob store for Vercel apps, transfer billed on top | Visit |
| $92 | Alibaba OSS | $0.018 | $0.074 | 5GB | Asia-Pacific; large network | Visit |
| $97 | Azure Blob (Cool) | $0.010 | $0.087 | 5GB | Cheaper storage, access fees | Visit |
| $103 | AWS S3 Infrequent Access | $0.013 | $0.090 | 5GB | Cheaper storage, retrieval fee | Visit |
| $105 | Azure Blob (Hot) | $0.018 | $0.087 | 5GB | Microsoft ecosystem | Visit |
| $111 | Supabase Storage | $0.021 | $0.090 | 1GB | S3 endpoint on the Postgres platform; Pro costs $25/mo with 100GB and 250GB egress included, and reads served from their cache are $0.03/GB | Visit |
| $113 | AWS S3 Standard | $0.023 | $0.090 | 5GB | Industry standard; steep egress | Visit |
| $113 | IBM Cloud Object | $0.023 | $0.090 | – | Enterprise; regional/cross-region | Visit |
| $124 | Google Cloud Storage Coldline | $0.004 | $0.120 | 5GB | One of the lowest storage rates here; reads cost $0.02/GB on top and the minimum billing period is 90 days | Visit |
| $130 | Google Cloud Storage Nearline | $0.010 | $0.120 | 5GB | Half the storage rate of Standard, but reads cost $0.01/GB on top and anything deleted inside 30 days is billed for 30 | Visit |
| $140 | Google Cloud Storage | $0.020 | $0.120 | 5GB | Highest egress of the big three | Visit |
Egress is the fee to download data out of the provider, the biggest hidden object-storage cost. AWS/Google/Azure charge ~8-12¢/GB (≈$80-120 per TB/month), while R2, Wasabi and iDrive e2 charge $0. Serving a lot of data makes zero-egress providers far cheaper. Set your monthly download above to see it.
For storage alone, Storj at 0.4 cents a GB, then a four-way tie at 0.6 between iDrive e2, Backblaze B2, Hetzner and Telnyx. But if you download a lot, zero-egress R2/Wasabi/iDrive e2 usually win overall. Rank by your real workload above, not the headline rate.
Mostly yes, same API, just change the endpoint and keys. R2, B2, Wasabi, DO Spaces and others are S3-compatible. A few niche S3 features vary, so check the provider's list, but standard operations just work.
Wasabi: 1TB and 90-day minimums. B2: free egress up to 3× stored/day. DO/Linode/Vultr bundle a base allowance into a flat fee. Per-request fees apply on all and aren't modelled here.