Cloud Backup Storage Tier Cost Planner
Estimate your cloud backup storage cost: compare the monthly cost of keeping backups in AWS S3, Azure Blob, Wasabi and Backblaze B2 storage tiers, including the costs the price list doesn’t show up front: minimum storage duration (early deletion), per-object overhead and 128 KB minimum object size, PUT requests and restores.
1. Your backup workload
Tiers to compare
Advanced: prices (US East, checked 28 Sep 2026)
List prices for US East (AWS US East (N. Virginia), Azure East US, LRS), checked 28 Sep 2026. The first volume-tier price is used for every tier (for example S3 Standard first 50 TB at 0.023, Azure Hot first tier at 0.0208), so very large volumes may be slightly cheaper. Taxes, discounts, reserved capacity, private pricing and other regions are not included. Every value is editable; edit them to match your region or contract. Azure prices operations per 10,000; they are shown here per 1,000 (divided by 10). The S3 Glacier Deep Archive Standard restore request price (0.10 per 1,000) was confirmed in the AWS Pricing Calculator price data on 5 Oct 2026. Provider pricing changes over time: verify current provider pricing before using this estimate for budgeting or architecture decisions.
| Tier | Storage | Min days | PUT $/1000 | GET/read $/1000 | Retrieval $/GB | Restore request $/1000 |
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Sources: Amazon S3 pricing and the AWS price data file for S3 (published 26 Sep 2026); Azure Blob Storage pricing and the Azure Retail Prices API (prices.azure.com, East US, General Block Blob v2, LRS); Wasabi pricing; Backblaze B2 pricing. Checked 28 Sep 2026. Prices change; verify before you decide.
2. Cloud backup storage cost comparison (monthly, steady state)
Result
| Tier | Sticker $/TB-mo | Effective $/TB-month | Storage | PUT | Restores (avg / month) | Cost per restore | Total / month | Flags |
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Sorted by estimated total monthly cost, lowest first (highlighted). “Sticker” is the list storage price per TB-month. “Effective $/TB-month” is the estimated total monthly cost divided by average retained data: a workload-level estimate that excludes taxes, discounts, lifecycle transition charges and other provider charges unless they are listed as included under Cost model. “Restores (avg / month)” spreads the annual restores over 12 months (restores per year ÷ 12); it does not mean a restore every month. “Cost per restore” is the retrieval and request cost of one restore. Egress is not included: restores to on-premises also pay internet egress – see the Cloud Restore calculator.
Recovery consideration
This calculator estimates storage and workload cost. Recovery time and internet egress are not included.
Need to estimate actual restore time and egress? Use the HNOrigin Cloud Restore Time and Cost Calculator.
3. What drives the difference
4. How it is calculated
Month = 365 ÷ 12 = 30.4167 days. Calculator unit convention (binary): TB = 2^40 bytes, GB = 2^30 bytes, MB = 2^20 bytes, KB = 1024 bytes. Provider billing conventions can differ.
objects per month = ingest bytes ÷ object size (not rounded)
billed days = max(retention, minimum days of the tier)
storage = objects × billed bytes per object ÷ 2^30 × $/GB-month × billed days ÷ 30.4167
billed bytes per object: Standard-IA, One Zone-IA, Glacier Instant Retrieval = max(object, 128 KB); Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Deep Archive = object + 32 KB at the tier price, plus 8 KB at the S3 Standard price for the retention days; Wasabi = max(object, 4 KB); others = object size
PUT = objects × PUT price ÷ 1000
restores (monthly) = restores per year ÷ 12 × (GB × retrieval $/GB + objects read × request price ÷ 1000); request price = restore request + GET for Glacier Flexible / Deep Archive, GET/read for the others
Wasabi: storage billed for at least 1 TB per month. B2: no minimums, request or retrieval fees.
effective $/TB-month = total monthly cost ÷ average retained data (ingest × retention ÷ 30.4167). This is an estimated workload-level cost metric and does not represent complete provider billing.
cost per restore = restore GB × retrieval $/GB + objects read × request price ÷ 1000 (no egress)
estimated billable data = data kept × (object size + extra bytes per object) ÷ object size; extra bytes: 128 KB tiers = 128 KB minus object size when the object is smaller; Wasabi = 4 KB minimum; Glacier Flexible / Deep Archive = 40 KB
Assumptions. Steady state: the same amount of new data is written every month and each object is deleted when its retention ends. Objects are written directly into this tier, not moved by a lifecycle rule (lifecycle transitions have their own request price). First volume-tier price used. Restore time, internet egress, and the temporary S3 Standard copy made by Glacier restores are not included here.
Early deletion. AWS, Azure and Wasabi charge for the rest of the minimum storage duration when an object is deleted early; this tool models that as billing each object for max(retention, minimum days).
Wasabi. Pay-as-you-go: 90-day minimum storage duration, 4 KB minimum object size, 1 TB monthly minimum (Wasabi’s 1 TB minimum applies per account, not per workload), no request or retrieval fees. Wasabi bills in base 2 (1 TB = 1024 GB).
Backblaze B2. The pricing page does not state whether a TB is 1000 or 1024 GB; this tool treats 1 TB = 1024 GB (the difference is about 2.4%).
Estimates are a starting point. Review and test before relying on them for budgeting or production decisions. Provider pricing changes over time. Verify current provider pricing before using this estimate for budgeting or architecture decisions. Prices: US East list prices checked 28 Sep 2026. Taxes, discounts, private pricing and other regions are not included.
HNOrigin is not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Wasabi or Backblaze. Product names are trademarks of their owners.