Sep 23, 20237 min readUltimate S3 Pricing Guide
Dive into this CourseWizz guide to grasp the fundamentals of S3 pricing. By the end, you'll be equipped to make well informed decisions about why S3 stands out as the preferred storage solution for businesses.
Check out our S3 Cost Calculator!
Table of Contents
S3 Cost Components
S3 Pricing Breakdown
Additional Costs
Optimising Costs
S3 Cost Components
Understanding S3 costs isn't as straightforward as, "100GB stored, so I pay x amount." AWS determines your charges based on several factors:
Storage: Quantity of data you have stored on the platform.
Data Transfer: The amount of data you transfer out of S3.
Management & Analytics: The storage management and analytics tools you opt for.
Replication: Features like cross-regional replication, replication time control, and S3's same-region replication.
S3 Object Lambda: The amount of data processed by this service.
Server location or Data Transfer Destination: The AWS Region you select for data storage.
AWS extends free usage thresholds to those with Free Tier accounts to explore its features. They can be utilised across various S3 costs simultaneously:
Upon registration, the Amazon S3 Complimentary Tier grants users 5GB of storage space.
Within this complimentary tier, users are entitled to S3 Standard Storage buckets that accommodate up to 20,000 GET Requests monthly, complemented by an allowance of 2,000 LIST, POST, COPY, or PUT Requests.
Furthermore, AWS generously provides a 15GB monthly data egress allowance within this package.
S3 Pricing Breakdown
Storage
The main cost in S3 is storage. AWS billing for S3 revolves around the quantity of data the customer has stored.
S3 Storage expenses are calculated on a per GB monthly basis. However, these rates aren't consistent for all users. They fluctuate based on factors like geographical region, overall data quantity, duration of storage, and notably, the storage class.
Amazon categorises its S3 Storage into six distinct classes, each tailored for specific needs and prices differently.
These classes are:
S3 Standard Storage
The default choice for S3 users, S3 Standard Storage offers high speed access with minimal latency. Standard is ideal for applications with UGC like videos and photos or any type of data that is frequently accessed. This class is included in AWS free tier. Pricing is structured: $0.023 per GB per month for the initial 50 TB, followed by $0.022 per GB for the next 450 TB, and anything beyond 500 TB is priced at $0.021 per GB.
S3 Standard - Infrequent Access
While bearing similarities to the standard storage, S3 Standard-IA is tailored for data that is accessed sporadically but also data that requires quick retrieval. The cost starts at $0.0125 per GB per month, with additional charges for data access.
S3 One Zone - Infrequent Access
Designed for infrequently accessed data, this storage class offers a lower cost alternative for data that doesn't require the availability and durability of S3 Standard or S3 Standard Infrequent Access. Typically, AWS S3 data is spread across three availability zones in your chosen region. S3 One Zone, however, confines data to a single zone. This makes it suitable for data that's accessed less but needs quick retrieval. Due to its single zone limitation, it's priced 20% lower than standard infrequent access, starting at $0.01 per GB per month.
S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval
An archive storage class that offers the lowest cost for storing long term data. This data is rarely accessed but when needed can retrieved in milliseconds. It's up to 68% more affordable than Standard Infrequent Access but maintains the same speed. Direct uploads are possible, or you can transition data using S3 Lifecycle policies. Pricing begins at $0.004 per GB per month.
S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
Previously known as S3 Glacier Storage, this class provides 10% cheaper storage for archival data accessed once or twice a year (asynchronous retrievals) without the need for instant access. Retrievals can range from minutes to 12 hours. It's fit for long-term archiving, backups, and disaster recovery. Pricing is set at $0.0036 per GB per month.
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest cost S3 storage class and is ideal for long term data storage, such as 10 years, accessed just once or twice per year. It offers significant savings compared to other Glacier options. However, data retrieval can take up to 12 hours. The cost starts at a mere $0.00099 per GB per month.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
While not a standalone storage class, S3 Intelligent-Tiering optimises storage costs. It enables users to automatically move data accessed less often or rarely, to a cheaper storage tier every 30, 90, or 365 days using S3 Lifecycle policies. The pricing varies depending on the current storage class of the data, with an additional $0.0025 per 1,000 objects monthly for monitoring. Retrieving data is cost-free.
Additional Costs
Data Requests & Retrievals
There are various S3 Requests, such as Lifecycle Transitions, SELECT, GET, LIST, POST, COPY, and PUT. These are HTTP requests used to fetch and upload data to S3 from your applications. Each operation comes with its specific cost, which contributes to your overall S3 Storage expenses, influenced by your chosen tier, request variety, and request frequency.
For those beginning with the AWS Free Tier, there's an allowance of 2,000 operations for LIST, POST, COPY, or PUT and 20,000 GET operations at no charge.
However, as you transition to more advanced plans, these perks change. For example, Standard Storage costs $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST, LIST requests and $0.004 per 1,000 GET, SELECT requests.
In contrast, S3 Standard Infrequent Access charges $0.01 for the same number of operations, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive goes up to $0.05.
Notably, actions like DELETE and CANCEL are exempt from charges across all tiers. However, Data Retrievals incur costs only in the Infrequent Access S3 Storage tiers.
Data Transfers & Costs
Uploading data to S3 Storage buckets is entirely cost free, but extracting data incurs varying fees. The specific charges are determined by the volume of data moved, its origin and destination, and the transfer speed.
AWS waives the fees on transfers up to 1 GB of data monthly.
Should your transfers surpass this threshold, the rate stands at $0.09 per GB up to 9.999 TB monthly. The subsequent 40 TB sees a reduced rate of $0.085 per GB. Beyond that, the next 100 TB is priced at $0.07 per GB, and any data over the 150 TB mark is charged at $0.05 per GB.
For those needing speed, Amazon offers accelerated transfers at a premium, starting from $0.04 per GB.
Management & Analytics
Several features can contribute to increased S3 Storage expenses, such as S3 Object Tagging, S3 Storage Lens, S3 Storage Class Analytics, and Amazon S3 Inventory. Each of these tools has its specific cost per million items.
For instance, opting for S3 Storage Lens means you'll be billed $0.20 monthly for every million objects due to its advanced metrics. Choosing S3 Analytics Storage Class Analysis will set you back $0.10 monthly for every million items monitored. Meanwhile, using the S3 Inventory tool will add $0.0025 to your bill for each million objects catalogued.
Storage Replication
AWS S3 Replication involves creating precise duplicates of your S3 Storage content. Data is mirrored from the original AWS S3 location to a designated S3 Storage destination. Naturally, this process uses more resources, leading to increased cloud service expenses.
It's important to highlight that there aren't typically distinct pricing structures for these replications. Instead, Amazon generally charges for S3 replications as standard S3 usage activities, with minor variations depending on the chosen data transfer methods.
Replicating within the same region, known as Same Region Replication (SRR), is the most cost-effective. The charges for SRR are based on standard S3 Storage rates.
The destination of the replication incurs regular S3 Storage fees. These are then combined with the data transfer costs associated with the PUT requests made during the replication process. Additionally, for those using Infrequent Access tiers, AWS also includes data retrieval fees.
All these costs are then combined with the original S3 Storage expenses to determine the overall cloud service bill.
However, costs can escalate further with Cross Region Replication (CRR). Unlike SRR, CRR requires users to cover the costs of transferring data between S3 and the target regions.
S3 Object Lambda
AWS S3 Object Lambda is a powerful tool that integrates effortlessly with your existing software, enhancing the handling of your S3 data. When fetching data from S3 you can use AWS Lambda functions, to run custom code on the S3 resource you are fetching. A typical use case is refining S3 data to ensure it's compatible with applications that previously couldn't process it.
The process costs $0.005 for every GB of data processed, plus Lambda function costs which are added to your S3 expenses.
Here is a user friendly calculator to help you estimate your potential S3 costs!
Try our S3 Cost Calculator! - See Official AWS Cost Calculator here
Optimising Costs
Managing and optimising your Amazon S3 storage expenses is crucial for businesses aiming to operate efficiently while ensuring data accessibility and security. Here are some best practices and tips to help you minimise your S3 storage costs:
Lifecycle Policies: Implement lifecycle policies to automatically transition objects between storage classes or delete them after a specified period. For instance, move infrequently accessed data to S3 Infrequent Access or S3 Glacier to reduce storage costs.
Monitor with CloudWatch: Utilise AWS CloudWatch to monitor your S3 usage. Set up alerts for any unexpected spikes in usage or costs, allowing you to address potential issues promptly. One thing to remember is that Logging will incur additional costs as logs are stored in S3. These additional costs are minimal though.
Delete Unnecessary Data: Regularly audit and clean up outdated or redundant data. Consider using tools like S3 Inventory to get a detailed report of your stored objects and decide what can be deleted.
Use S3 Select: Instead of retrieving full objects, use S3 Select to retrieve only the subset of data you need. This can significantly reduce the amount of data transferred and processed.
Opt for S3 Storage Classes: Utilise one or more of the discussed Storage Classes choosing those that align with your data access patterns and retention requirements.
Data Transfer Acceleration: If you frequently transfer large amounts of data to and from S3, consider using S3 Transfer Acceleration. It can speed up the process, potentially reducing the time and costs associated with data transfer.
Versioning Control: While versioning is essential for data integrity, it can also lead to increased storage costs if old versions of objects are retained indefinitely. Periodically review and prune older object versions that are no longer needed.
Budgets and Forecasts: Use AWS Budgets to set custom cost and usage budgets. It allows you to forecast and track your AWS expenses, ensuring you stay within your budgetary limits.
Leverage AWS Savings Plans: If you have consistent S3 usage patterns, consider committing to a Savings Plan. This offers significant discounts over on-demand pricing.
Educate and Train: Ensure that your team understands the cost implications of S3 operations. Regular training sessions can help them make informed decisions about data storage, retrieval, and management.
By implementing these strategies, businesses can effectively control their S3 storage costs, ensuring they get the best value for their investment while maintaining the highest standards of data management.
We hope our Ultimate S3 Pricing Guide has shed light on the intricacies of S3 costs, empowering you to make informed decisions for your business. As you continue your journey with AWS, feel free to explore the resources and insights available on the CourseWizz website. Should you have further questions or need additional guidance, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. At CourseWizz, we're committed to supporting you every step of the way!
