Cloud Cost Sheet
Storage is the cheap part. Egress and retrieval decide the bill.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/cloud-storage-cost-calculator
The arithmetic
- STANDARD, ALL IN
- TB x rate + downloads x egress
- ARCHIVE, ALL IN
- TB x rate + downloads x (retrieval + egress)
- BREAK-EVEN DOWNLOAD
- TB x (hot − cold) ÷ retrieval rate
- Below break-even
- archive wins
- Above break-even
- standard wins
- ⚠ Egress applies to BOTH tiers
- it is not an archive-only charge
- ⚠ Moving 1 TB out
- ≈ 4 months of storing it
- ⚠ Minimum durations
- 30-180 days, billed even if deleted
- ⚠ Prices here are EXAMPLES
- replace with your provider's current rates
Tiers compared
| Data | Stored TB | Download TB | Standard | Archive | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This workload
- Workload
- Date
- Provider and region
- Stored TB
- Monthly download TB
- Standard rate
- Archive rate
- Retrieval rate
- Egress rate
- STANDARD ALL IN
- ARCHIVE ALL IN
- BREAK-EVEN TB
- Minimum duration
- Restore time needed
- Decision
Before choosing a tier
- Egress counted — it applies to BOTH tiers and is usually the surprise
- Retrieval fee counted for the archive tier
- Break-even download volume worked out, not guessed
- Minimum storage duration checked against how fast data turns over
- Restore TIME confirmed, not just retrieval price
- Cross-region and cross-provider traffic counted as egress
- Per-request charges checked if the data is many small objects
- Rates taken from the provider's CURRENT page, not from this sheet
The ratio worth remembering
On these illustrative rates, moving one terabyte out costs about what storing that terabyte for four months costs. If your data leaves regularly, the bill is driven by movement rather than volume — and the per-terabyte storage rate you compared providers on barely matters. Work out your monthly egress before choosing anything.
Cheap storage has a crossover
Archive tiers trade storage cost for retrieval cost, and the break-even is your stored volume times the storage-rate difference, over the retrieval rate. On the defaults that is 4.75 TB of downloads a month against 5 TB stored. Excellent for a backup nobody touches; poor for anything actively used.