AWS S3 Pricing: Storage Costs by Region, Class & Data Transfer

Currently, the most popular infrastructure as a service (IaaS) vendor is Amazon Web Services (AWS), which makes its flagship cloud storage service — S3 — one of the most widely used cloud storage services in the world.

Enterprises are increasingly using public cloud storage, like the AWS S3 platform, in part because of the cost benefits offered by cloud storage. However, figuring out the exact price for S3 cloud storage can be difficult.

Cloud storage pricing is affected by a wide range of factors, and different vendors use different methodologies to calculate costs.

AWS S3 offers massively scalable object storage that promises 99.999999999 percent durability. It offers advanced storage management capabilities, and it integrates with other Amazon cloud services, including its machine learning and big data analytics services.

The AWS website provides a pricing calculator for figuring out S3 costs, but the calculator format can make it difficult to compare S3 storage fees across different services and data centers. The sections below detail Amazon S3 pricing with charts to make comparisons easier.

Factors that Influence Amazon S3 Storage Costs

Before delving into the specifics of Amazon S3 pricing, you need to understand the characteristics that affect AWS S3 storage costs. They include the following.

First, Storage Classes – S3 includes four different categories of storage:

• S3 Standard is designed for use with “hot” or frequently accessed data.

• S3 Standard-IA is for cool data that is accessed less frequently. It has a lower price per GB stored but requires a fee for data access.

• S3 One Zone-IA is for cool data that doesn’t require high availability, for example, backup data this is also stored at another location. While other categories of AWS S3 storage replicate data across three different zones to ensure availability, S3 One Zone-IA data is stored in only one location and thus is significantly less expensive.

• .Amazon Glacier offers the lowest prices of all but should only be used for “cold” archive data that will need very infrequent access.

Additional Concerns:

• Region: AWS has data centers all over the world. It groups data centers together geographically into availability zones, which in turn are grouped into regions. It charges different prices for data stored in each of its 17 different regions (see below).

• Storage Volume: The more data you store, the more it is going to cost. However, the price to volume ratio isn’t a straight line. Prices are tiered so that customers who store more data get volume discounts that result in a lower cost per gigabyte.

• Requests: AWS tacks on fees for manipulating data with PUT, COPY, POST, LIST, GET, SELECT and other types of requests. In general, these fees are just fractions of a cent for thousands of requests, but they can add up over time.

• Storage Management:AWS offers some advanced cloud storage management capabilities, and organizations that choose to use these features will pay additional fees. Again, the costs are low but could add up over time.

• Data Transfer: AWS (and most of the other cloud storage vendors) makes it easy to transfer data into S3 but a little more difficult to get it back out again. Data transfers in are free, but transferring data out to another cloud service or even another AWS region will incur additional costs.

It’s also worth noting that S3 storage costs change frequently. In general, prices go down as Amazon achieves greater economies of scale and seeks to remain competitive with other cloud storage providers.

AWS S3 Pricing by Region

When you visit the AWS S3 pricing page on Amazon’s website, it will automatically show you the price for your nearest region. You can see the prices for other regions by using the drop-down selection tool, but the site doesn’t offer an easy way to see how the regions compare. The chart below details AWS S3 pricing by region at the time of writing; however, note that prices can change at any time.

*Prices taken from Amazon website 5/22/2018

Amazon S3 Storage Request Pricing

Data requests incur different charges depending on both the storage class and region. The chart below shows how the prices vary by storage class for the US East (Ohio) region.

*Prices above based on US East (Ohio) region and taken from Amazon website 5/22/2018

Amazon S3 Data Transfer Pricing

Vendor lock-in is a serious concern for some enterprises — and for good reason. Transferring data from one cloud service to in-house data centers or to another cloud provider incurs additional S3 fees. The table below details how the fees vary by region for Internet transfers.

* Prices taken from Amazon website 5/22/2018

AWS S3 storage also charges some fees for transferring data from one AWS region to another. The chart below lists fees for migrating data from the US East (Ohio) region to various other regions/services.

* Prices taken from Amazon website 5/21/2018

Organizations can also choose to pay a fee to speed up their data transfers. Acceleration fees for transferring in to the United States, Europe or Japan run $0.04 per GB, while transfers in to all other regions run $0.08 per GB. Acceleration for transfers out to the Internet or other AWS regions runs $0.04 per GB.

AWS S3 Free Tier

New users or users with very minimal cloud storage needs might find that they can use AWS S3 storage for free. When you sign up, you get 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage in the Standard Storage class, 20,000 Get Requests, 2,000 Put Requests, and 15 GB of data transfer out each month for one year. The offer expires one year after initial sign up.

More Information About Amazon S3 Pricing

For more information on Amazon S3 costs, check out the following links:

• Amazon S3 pricing page
• ESF Cloud Storage Pricing: Compare Top Vendors’ Prices
• ESF Public Cloud Storage Buying Guide