Meter
What every vendor charges to move data out
A provider-complete comparison of fixed, proportional, bundled, unlimited, and directly metered egress, with explicit unknowns and restore-cost caveats.
Put your own numbers through the calculator to see what this meter does to a normal month and to the day you restore.
Storage price alone does not predict a restore bill
Storage price alone can rank the wrong provider for backups. Internet egress may be billed per GB, included up to a fixed amount, linked to average storage, bundled with a base plan, or unmetered while retrieval and request charges remain. The comparison therefore keeps transfer, retrieval, requests, capacity minimums, duration minimums, and policy constraints separate.
Unknown is never zero. When an official page did not publish a class-specific allowance, overage rate, or restore rate, the table reports not published instead of treating the missing field as free.
Every provider uses one of several incompatible egress shapes
Eighteen provider entries are present because omitting the difficult rows would make the comparison look cleaner and make it less useful. Each claim cell carries a source reference that resolves to the vendor's own page and retrieval timestamp below.
Class-specific exceptions stay visible. Google Rapid, DigitalOcean Cold, Scaleway Glacier, and OVHcloud archive classes cannot safely inherit every rule from the vendor's standard or hot class.
Every provider uses one of several incompatible egress shapes18 rows
| Provider | Internet egress allowance | Charge or state beyond allowance | Restore-related or adjacent meter | Source ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 [1] | Fixed monthly: first 100 GB shared across AWS services and Regions except China and GovCloud [1] | Graduated internet tiers start at $0.09 per GB for the next 10 TB [1] | Retrieval and restore requests vary by class; a Glacier restore also creates temporary S3 Standard storage [1] | [1] |
| Azure Blob Storage [2] | Fixed monthly: first 100 GB of internet egress [2] | Region and route dependent; North America and Europe Premium routing starts at $0.087 per GB for the next 10 TB [2] | Cool, Cold, and Archive can add retrieval; duration rules depend on tier [3] | [2] [3] |
| Google Cloud Storage [4] | Fixed monthly: 100 GB from eligible North American Standard buckets to each eligible destination; Rapid has no Always Free allowance [4] | Standard worldwide transfer excluding Asia and Australia starts at $0.12 per GiB; Rapid read transfer is $0.0006 per GiB [4] | Nearline, Coldline, and Archive retrieval is $0.01, $0.02, and $0.05 per GiB respectively; operations also vary by class [4] | [4] |
| Cloudflare R2 [5] | Unlimited direct internet egress for Standard and Infrequent Access [5] | does not apply; no paid internet-egress tier [5] | Infrequent Access retrieval is $0.01 per GB; Class A and B operations remain billable and use class-specific rates [5] | [5] |
| Backblaze B2 [6] | Proportional: free up to 3x monthly average storage [6] | $0.01 per GB beyond the allowance; eligible partner paths are conditional and can be free [6] [7] | Retrieval is not charged and current Class A and B transactions are not charged [6] [7] | [6] [7] |
| Wasabi [8] | Policy-shaped: monthly egress at or below active storage is within the free-egress guideline [8] | not published; no per-GB overage rate, and repeated excess can lead to service limitation or suspension [8] | Requests and retrieval are not charged, but Pay as You Go has a 1 TB monthly minimum and 90-day minimum duration [8] | [8] |
| IDrive e2 [9] | Proportional: free up to 3x active storage [9] | $0.01 per GB beyond the free limit [9] | Requests and retrieval are not charged; Pay as You Go has a 1 TB minimum storage fee [9] | [9] |
| DigitalOcean Spaces [10] | The Spaces subscription shares a 1,024 GiB outbound allowance across Standard and Cold [10] | $0.01 per GiB beyond the shared allowance for either class [10] | Cold retrieval is $0.01/GiB after the 1x average-daily-storage allowance; request prices remain not published [10] | [10] |
| Scaleway Object Storage [11] | Fixed monthly: first 75 GB [11] | EUR 0.01 per GB beyond the allowance; USD rate is not published [11] | Glacier restore is EUR 0.009 per GB; USD restore rate is not published [11] | [11] |
| OVHcloud Object Storage [12] | Unlimited included public outgoing traffic across the listed object-storage classes [12] | does not apply; no paid public internet-egress tier on the checked worldwide price list [12] | Infrequent Access retrieval is $0.0044 per GB and Active Archive is $0.0212 per GB; Cold Archive retrieval rate is not published [12] [13] | [12] [13] |
| Hetzner Object Storage [14] | Bundled: outgoing quota accrues hourly and reaches about 1 TB for a full month [14] | $0.0012 per GB beyond the captured US-price allowance [15] | S3 operations are not charged; the base account price still applies while a bucket is active [14] | [14] [15] |
| Akamai Cloud Object Storage [16] | Bundled: 1 TB added to the monthly global network-transfer pool, prorated for active time [16] | $0.005 per GB in most data centers, with published regional exceptions [16] | Request charges are conditional because Akamai says they will appear no earlier than October 1, 2026 [16] | [16] |
| Vultr Object Storage [17] | Bundled: 1,000 GB outbound transfer with each listed tier [17] | $0.01 per GB beyond the included amount [17] | Archive objects require restoration and restored-copy storage, but the per-GB retrieval rate is not published [18] | [17] [18] |
| Storj [19] | No free internet-egress allowance on the paid Standard row [19] | $7 per TB, recorded as $0.007 per GB [19] | API fees are not charged, but a $5 monthly invoice floor applies [19] | [19] |
| Oracle OCI Object Storage [20] | Fixed monthly: first 10 TB of public internet egress [20] | $0.0085 per GB beyond the allowance in the captured global price data [21] | Infrequent Access retrieval is $0.01 per GB; class retention and restore rules remain separate [21] [22] | [20] [21] [22] |
| Tigris [23] | Unlimited regional, cross-region, and internet egress [23] | does not apply; no paid egress tier [23] | Infrequent Access retrieval is $0.01 per GB and Archive Instant Retrieval is $0.03 per GB; Archive restore temporarily uses Standard storage [23] | [23] |
| Filebase [24] | Unlimited internet egress [24] | does not apply; no paid internet-egress tier [24] | Retrieval is not charged; Class A and B operations can exceed monthly allowances, and the paid plan has a fixed monthly fee [24] [25] | [24] [25] |
| Telnyx Cloud Storage [26] | Unlimited internet egress in the checked US and EU storage offering [26] | does not apply; no paid internet-egress tier [26] | Retrieval is not charged; operation rates and free operation allowances differ between US and EU [27] | [26] [27] |
A common transfer volume produces different line items
For a nominal 2,000-unit public-internet download with 5,000 units stored, the transfer-only arithmetic below uses each vendor's published GB or GiB unit. It assumes the named allowance is unused, the listed region and destination are eligible, and every byte stays in the first paid band. Storage, requests, retrieval, fixed fees, taxes, credits, and negotiated terms are excluded.
The zero-dollar rows are not equivalent promises. Backblaze's result depends on average storage, Wasabi's result is inside a policy boundary, and R2's result removes the egress meter while leaving operations and class-specific retrieval intact. [6] [8] [5]
| Provider and assumption | Visible arithmetic | Internet-egress line | Source ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3, public internet, full 100 GB allowance [1] | (2,000 GB - 100 GB) x $0.09 per GB [1] | $171.00 [1] | [1] |
| Azure, North America or Europe Premium routing, full 100 GB allowance [2] | (2,000 GB - 100 GB) x $0.087 per GB [2] | $165.30 [2] | [2] |
| Google Standard, 2,000 GiB, in an eligible US region to an eligible worldwide destination [4] | (2,000 GB - 100 GB) x $0.12 per GiB [4] | $228.00 when the input is treated as 2,000 GiB [4] | [4] |
| Backblaze B2 with 5,000 GB monthly average storage [6] | Allowance = 3 x 5,000 GB = 15,000 GB; max(0, 2,000 - 15,000) = 0 GB [6] | $0.00 [6] | [6] |
| Wasabi with 5,000 GB active storage [8] | Policy guideline = 1 x 5,000 GB = 5,000 GB; 2,000 GB is within the guideline [8] | $0.00 metered egress; policy remains applicable [8] | [8] |
| Cloudflare R2 direct internet egress [5] | 2,000 GB x $0 per GB [5] | $0.00; operations and possible Infrequent Access retrieval excluded [5] | [5] |
Restoring backup data is a read operation, not a deletion
Restoring backup data can trigger request, retrieval, egress, and temporary-copy storage meters. It does not trigger an early-deletion charge by itself. Minimum-duration charges apply only when the scenario also deletes, overwrites, moves, or transitions an object before the applicable duration. [1] [3] [4] [5]
Free internet egress therefore cannot be read as a free restore. R2 Infrequent Access, Tigris Infrequent Access and Archive Instant Retrieval, OVHcloud Infrequent Access and Active Archive, and Scaleway Glacier all pair free or included internet transfer with a separate retrieval or restore meter. [5] [23] [12] [11]
| Restore action | Possible meter | Early-deletion effect |
|---|---|---|
| GET or read a hot object | Request plus internet egress, depending on provider and allowance [1] | does not apply unless a separate mutation occurs [1] |
| Read an infrequent-access object | Request, retrieval, and egress can all apply [4] [5] | does not apply for the read itself [4] [5] |
| Restore an offline archive | Restore request, retrieval, temporary readable copy, then egress [1] [23] | does not apply for the restore itself [1] |
| Delete, overwrite, move, or transition a young object | Minimum-duration remainder can apply [1] [3] [4] [5] | conditional on class and object age [1] [3] [4] [5] |
Compare the receipt rather than the marketing label
Before choosing a backup target, model a normal month and a recovery month. Use the provider's unit system, region, destination, average or active storage definition, included plan quota, object count, storage class, and restored-copy duration. Then keep unpublished rates visible as not published.
A valid comparison can decline to name a winner. Regional eligibility, currency, policy enforcement, fixed subscriptions, and unknown cold-tier rates can make two rows not comparable even when their storage prices appear close.
| Input | Failure prevented |
|---|---|
| Destination and Region | Prevents same-Region, cross-Region, CDN, and internet paths from being priced alike |
| Average or active storage | Calculates proportional allowances instead of assuming a fixed free amount |
| Base-plan active time | Calculates prorated bundled transfer for Hetzner and Akamai [14] [16] |
| Storage class | Keeps retrieval and class-specific unknowns attached to the correct tier |
| Object count and requests | Adds operation costs that a per-GB comparison hides |
| Mutation after restore | Adds minimum-duration charges only when deletion, overwrite, movement, or transition actually occurs |
Sources
Every figure above comes from one of these pages, on the date shown. Each numbered reference in the text links to its entry here. Vendors change prices; if a date looks old, check the source. Three vendors publish a machine-readable feed and the rest are re-checked by hand, which is why the dates are not uniform.
The source ledger27 sources
- 1Amazon Web Services: S3 pricingaws.amazon.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 2Microsoft Azure: Bandwidthazure.microsoft.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 3Microsoft Learn: Access tiers overviewlearn.microsoft.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 4Google Cloud: Storage pricingcloud.google.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 5Cloudflare developer docs: R2 pricingdevelopers.cloudflare.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 6Backblaze: Transaction pricingwww.backblaze.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 7Backblaze: Cloud storage pricingwww.backblaze.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 8Wasabi: Faqwasabi.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 9IDrive: S3 storage e2 pricingwww.idrive.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 10DigitalOcean: Spaces object storagewww.digitalocean.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 11Scaleway: Storagewww.scaleway.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 12OVHcloud: Public cloud priceswww.ovhcloud.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 13OVHcloud: Cold archivewww.ovhcloud.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 14Hetzner documentation: Object storage overviewdocs.hetzner.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 15Hetzner: Object storagewww.hetzner.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 16Akamai techdocs: Object storage pricingtechdocs.akamai.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 17Vultr documentation: How is object storage billeddocs.vultr.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 18Vultr documentation: Limitsdocs.vultr.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 19Storj: Pricingwww.storj.io · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 20Oracle: Virtual cloud network pricingwww.oracle.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 21Oraclewww.oracle.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 22Oracle documentation: Understandingstoragetiersdocs.oracle.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 23Tigris: Pricingwww.tigrisdata.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 24Filebase: Account pricingfilebase.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 25Filebase: Pricingfilebase.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 26Telnyx supportsupport.telnyx.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00
- 27Telnyx developer docs: Billingdevelopers.telnyx.com · checked 2026-07-25 15:34:44+00:00