Cloud Storage Cost Calculator

Cloud storage has three cost levers: storage, egress, and operations. Storing 1TB at 0.02/GB is 20/month. Downloading that 1TB out at 0.08/GB is 80 — one egress event. For backup workloads egress rarely hits; for active workloads it can dominate the bill. Modelling both sides prevents surprises.

Run it with sensible defaults

Using storage of 1,000, storage rate per gb of 0.02, monthly egress of 100, egress rate per gb of 0.08, the calculation works out to 28.00. The defaults are meant as a starting point, not a recommendation.

The levers in this calculation

The inputs — Storage (GB), Storage Rate per GB, Monthly Egress (GB), and Egress Rate per GB — do not pull with equal force.

How the math works

Storage × rate + egress × rate. Ignores operations charges (API calls) which are small for most workloads but can matter at scale.

Why run the calculation

Utility bills creep. Small annual increases stack into meaningful differences over a decade. Running this once a year and switching providers when the gap widens is one of the easiest ways to keep household costs in check.

What this doesn't capture

Usage varies month-to-month; tariffs change; discounts come and go. The figure here is a clean baseline — your actual annual bill will fluctuate around it. Use the calculation to benchmark providers, not as a prediction of a specific bill.

Worked example

A media production company stores 5,000 GB of raw footage and project files at a rate of 0.015 per GB per month. Each month they transfer 800 GB of finished media to clients at 0.10 per GB.

• Storage cost: 5,000 × 0.015 = 75 per month
• Egress cost: 800 × 0.10 = 80 per month
• Monthly total: 155
• Annual total: 1,860

If the company reduces monthly egress to 200 GB by archiving completed projects, the monthly bill drops to 105 and the annual bill to 1,260. The same storage volume paired with lower egress activity produces markedly different costs.

When this metric matters

The calculator applies across several common situations:

• Comparing cost between storage providers before migrating data
• Forecasting annual spend when onboarding a new workload
• Understanding why bills spike in months with higher data retrieval activity
• Modelling the impact of changing storage volume or download frequency

For educational illustration only

This calculation estimates recurring storage and egress charges based on stated rates and volumes. The output is illustrative and does not account for volume discounts, rate changes, free tier allowances, or one-time setup fees. Use it to compare relative costs between scenarios, not as a binding forecast of actual charges.