Storage Cost Calculator

A storage cost calculator helps you turn raw data volume and per-GB pricing into concrete dollar figures before you commit to a storage tier or architecture decision. Whether you're sizing an AWS S3 bucket, Azure Blob container, Google Cloud Storage bucket, or on-premises SAN, the underlying arithmetic is always the same: gigabytes × price per GB per month × duration. Engineers and architects use this calculator when evaluating storage tiers, negotiating cloud contracts, or building a cost model for a new data pipeline. Knowing that 10 TB at the standard S3 rate costs roughly $230/month — and $2,760/year — makes the decision to adopt Intelligent-Tiering or move cold data to Glacier concrete rather than theoretical. Storage costs compound silently. A dataset that seems cheap at launch can become a significant line item once it grows and once egress, retrieval, and replication fees are added. Use this calculator alongside actual pricing pages to build a full picture before signing off on a design. The formula works for any storage product priced per GB per month: AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, and on-premises estimates based on amortised hardware cost.

How to Calculate Storage Cost

1. Determine your data volume in gigabytes (GB). Convert TB → GB by multiplying by 1,024. 2. Find the storage price per GB per month for your chosen tier on the provider's pricing page. 3. Decide your retention period in months (e.g. 12 months = 1 year). 4. Multiply storage (GB) by price per GB to get monthly cost. 5. Multiply monthly cost by duration in months to get total cost. 6. Add egress, retrieval, and replication fees separately — they are not included in the per-GB storage rate.

Formula

Monthly Cost = Storage (GB) × Price per GB per Month
Total Cost   = Monthly Cost × Duration (months)

Storage (GB)           — size of your dataset in gigabytes (1 TB = 1,024 GB)
Price per GB per Month — the storage rate charged by your provider per GB
Duration (months)      — how many months the data will be retained

Note: egress, PUT/GET request fees, and replication are billed separately.

Example Storage Cost Calculations

Storage:  100 GB  ×  $0.023 / GB / month  =  $2.30 / month
Duration: 12 months
                                               ─────────────
Total: $2.30 × 12  =  $27.60 / year

At 1 TB (1,024 GB): $23.55 / month  →  $282.62 / year

Storage:  5,120 GB  ×  $0.006 / GB / month  =  $30.72 / month
Duration: 24 months
                                                  ─────────────
Total: $30.72 × 24  =  $737.28 over 2 years

Vs. AWS S3 Standard at same volume: $117.76/month  →  $2,826.24 over 2 years
Savings with B2: ~$2,089 over 2 years (74% cheaper)

Hardware cost: $300 for 500 GB SSD
Amortised price per GB per month: $300 ÷ 500 GB ÷ 36 months  =  $0.0167 / GB / month

Monthly cost equivalent: 500 GB × $0.0167  =  $8.33 / month
Total over 3 years: $300 (hardware cost, no ongoing fee)

Cloud equivalent (AWS S3 Standard): $11.52 / month  →  $414.72 over 36 months
On-prem saves: ~$115 over 3 years before power and maintenance

Tips to Reduce Storage Costs

• › Use lifecycle policies to automatically move data to cheaper tiers. On AWS, S3 Intelligent-Tiering moves infrequently accessed objects to lower-cost storage with no retrieval fee — it pays for itself above ~128 KB object sizes.
• › Compress before storing. Gzip or Zstandard compression typically achieves 3–10× size reduction on text, JSON, and log data, cutting your storage bill by the same factor.
• › Delete what you don't need. Orphaned snapshots, old build artefacts, and superseded backups are common sources of silent storage bloat. Audit monthly with cost explorer or storage lens.
• › Watch egress fees — they are often larger than storage fees. Storing 1 TB on S3 costs ~$23/month; retrieving it all costs ~$92 in outbound data transfer. Design for read locality.
• › Consider Cloudflare R2 or Backblaze B2 for large static assets. Both offer zero egress fees and per-GB rates 3–4× cheaper than AWS S3 Standard for most workloads.
• › For backups, compare S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval ($0.004/GB/mo) vs Glacier Deep Archive ($0.00099/GB/mo) — Deep Archive costs 23× less than Standard but has 12-hour retrieval time.

Notes

• › Results are estimates and may vary based on actual usage.
• › Always validate against your production environment.

Frequently Asked Questions