Storage for nightly database backups kept 30 days: the year's bill, minimum storage periods included
Prices checked
For a 100 GB database backup every night, each kept 30 days, OVHcloud Object Storage Infrequent Access costs least over a year with one restore, minimum storage periods included: $148.49, that is $12.34 a normal month and $12.75 the month you restore last night's backup. 13 of the 18 vendors we price are ranked below on the same bill.
Deleting a backup early still pays for its minimum stay. Many storage classes bill each object for a minimum number of days. Delete every backup at 30 days and a longer minimum is paid on each one: at Wasabi, 90 days per backup add $43.60 to a $21.80 month, making it $65.40. At 4 more vendors a colder class costs less per TB but more here, so each row is the class that costs least once its minimum is paid, and names the one it ruled out.
Does a night's backup fit the night? Uploading 100 GB takes about 13 min at a full 1 Gbit/s and 2.2 h at 100 Mbit/s, and restoring last night's backup takes as long to download. A dump that grows past what the line moves in a night needs a faster line or a backup that sends only what changed.
Keeping them 90 days instead? The same nightly backups make 9 TB, and the classes with a 90-day minimum stop costing extra: Azure Blob Storage Cold LRS then costs least, $371.52 a year with one restore.
Keeping 7 daily, 4 weekly and 12 monthly backups instead? That is 2.3 TB stored, with each daily deleted at 7 days, each weekly at 4 weeks and each monthly at a year: IDrive e2 then costs least, $165.60 a year with one restore. OVHcloud Object Storage drops to 3rd: its 730-hour minimum, paid on each backup deleted sooner, adds $9.51 a month.
Storage for backups kept 30 days, cheapest year first
One row per vendor: its cheapest class you can read at once, without restoring each file first, once its minimum storage period is paid. Ranked on 11 normal months and one month you restore last night's 100 GB backup.
| # | Offer | Where | Year with one restore | Normal month | Month you restore | Downloads | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OVHcloud Object Storage Infrequent Access Bills each backup for at least 730 hours, 10 more than 30 days: deleting it at 30 days adds $0.17 a month. | France (Gravelines) | $148.49 | $12.34 | $12.75 | No download fees | |
| 2 | IDrive e2 | United States (Virginia) | $216.00 | $18.00 | $18.00 | Downloads free up to 3× what you store | |
| 3 |  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage | United States (US West) | $249.36 | $20.78 | $20.78 | Downloads free up to 3× what you store | |
| 4 |  Storj Standard | Distributed worldwide | $252.70 | $21.00 | $21.70 | Every GB downloaded is billed | |
| 5 | DigitalOcean Spaces Cold Storage | United States (New York 3) | $294.72 | $24.56 | $24.56 | First 1 TB downloaded free each month | |
| 6 | Tigris Infrequent Access Archive Instant Retrieval costs less per TB but bills each backup for at least 90 days, which makes it $33.63 a month here. | Automatic location | $337.41 | $28.04 | $28.97 | No download fees | |
| 7 | Google Cloud Storage Nearline Archive costs less per TB but bills each backup for at least 365 days, which makes it $42.04 a month here. | United States (South Carolina) | $339.21 | $28.19 | $29.12 | First 100 GB downloaded free each month | |
| 8 | Amazon S3 One Zone-IA S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval costs less per TB but bills each backup for at least 90 days, which makes it $34.13 a month here. | United States (Northern Virginia) | $339.81 | $28.24 | $29.17 | First 100 GB downloaded free each month | |
| 9 | Azure Blob Storage Cool LRS Cold LRS costs less per TB but bills each backup for at least 90 days, which makes it $38.26 a month here. | Netherlands (West Europe) | $339.88 | $28.24 | $29.24 | First 100 GB downloaded free each month | |
| 10 | Oracle OCI Object Storage Infrequent Access Bills each backup for at least 31 days: deleting it at 30 days adds $0.93 a month. | United States (Ashburn) | $346.07 | $28.77 | $29.60 | First 10.2 TB downloaded free each month | |
| 11 |  Cloudflare R2 Infrequent Access | Automatic location | $469.90 | $39.00 | $40.90 | No download fees | |
| 12 | Filebase Object Storage | Distributed worldwide | $502.92 | $41.91 | $41.91 | No download fees | |
| 13 |  Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage Bills each backup for at least 90 days: deleting it at 30 days adds $43.60 a month. | United States (US East 1) | $784.80 | $65.40 | $65.40 | Downloads free up to what you store |
Price your own backups Open it on the restore bill
The calculator opens on this workload, ranked as here on a year with one restore. It prices months in which you keep everything, so it leaves out the minimum-stay charge named under a row here, and its order can differ.
Vendors not on the list, and why
- Akamai Cloud Object Storage: it costs $720.00 a year before any minimum-stay charge, but its pricing names no minimum storage period, so what deleting a 30-day-old backup costs is not confirmed. If it has none, it would rank 13th here. The page we read: Akamai Object Storage docs, Pricing.
- Hetzner Object Storage: it costs $311.40 a year before any minimum-stay charge, but its pricing names no minimum storage period, so what deleting a 30-day-old backup costs is not confirmed. If it has none, it would rank 6th here. The page we read: Hetzner Object Storage docs, Overview.
- Scaleway Object Storage: Standard One Zone costs $323.80 a year before any minimum-stay charge, but its pricing names no minimum storage period, so what deleting a 30-day-old backup costs is not confirmed. If it has none, it would rank 6th here. The page we read: Scaleway docs, Object Storage FAQ.
- Telnyx Cloud Storage: Regular Storage costs $200.40 a year before any minimum-stay charge, but its pricing names no minimum storage period, so what deleting a 30-day-old backup costs is not confirmed. If it has none, it would rank 2nd here. The page we read: Telnyx Cloud Storage docs, Billing.
- Vultr Object Storage: Standard costs $648.00 a year before any minimum-stay charge, but its pricing names no minimum storage period, so what deleting a 30-day-old backup costs is not confirmed. If it has none, it would rank 13th here. The page we read: Vultr docs, How is Object Storage billed?
How the bills are worked out
A 100 GB database backup every night, each kept 30 days and then deleted: 3 TB stored at any time, 3 TB written and 3 TB deleted each month. Each backup is one file uploaded in 1,000 parts of 100 MB, so 30,000 upload requests a month. Nothing is downloaded in a normal month; the month you restore, last night's 100 GB backup is downloaded over the internet.
Each bill comes from the vendor's own published rates through the same engine as the calculator, checked on the date beside it. Every month, the 3 TB deleted at 30 days old is billed for the days left of its class's minimum storage period, at that class's storage rate, as the vendor's own early-deletion rule says; a class whose minimum is 30 days or less adds nothing. OVHcloud Object Storage counts its minimum in hours, 730 of them, so a backup deleted at 30 days (720 hours) still pays for the last 10. The month you restore adds reading last night's backup and downloading its 100 GB.
Related: the cheapest storage at 1, 10 and 50 TB · minimum storage periods explained · what a full restore costs · how long a restore takes · download fees by vendor