![\"Understand](\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/bb-bh-Cloud-Storage-Pricing-What-You-Need-to-Know-to-Manage-Your-Costs.png\" "\\"Cloud")
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Between tech layoffs<\/a> and recession fears<\/a>, economic uncertainty is at a high. If you\u2019re battening down the hatches for whatever comes next, you might be taking a closer look at your cloud spend. Even before the bear market, 59% of cloud decision makers named \u201coptimizing existing use of cloud (cost savings)\u201d as their top cloud initiative of 2022 according to the Flexera State of the Cloud<\/a> report.<\/p>\n Cloud storage is one piece of your cloud infrastructure puzzle, but it\u2019s one where some simple considerations can save you anywhere from 25% up to 80%. As such, understanding cloud storage pricing is critical when you are comparing different solutions. When you understand pricing, you can better decide which provider is right for your organization.<\/p>\n In this post, we won\u2019t look at 1:1 comparisons of cloud storage pricing, but you can check out a cloud storage pricing calculator here<\/a>. Instead, you will learn tips to help you make a good cloud storage decision for your organization.<\/p>\n Looking at the pricing options of different cloud providers only makes sense when you know your needs. Use the following considerations to clarify your storage needs to approach a cloud decision thoughtfully:<\/p>\n Some popular use cases for cloud storage include:<\/p>\n Maintaining data backups helps make your company more resilient. You can more easily recover from a disaster and keep serving customers. The cloud provides a reliable, off-site place to keep backups of your company workstations, servers, NAS devices, and Kubernetes environments.<\/p>\n Photographer Steve McCurry<\/a>, renowned for his 1984 photo of the \u201cAfghan Girl\u201d which has been on the cover of National Geographic several times, backed up his life\u2019s work in the cloud when his team didn\u2019t want to take chances with his irreplaceable archives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you run a website, video streaming service, or online gaming community, you can use the cloud to serve as your origin store where you keep content to be served out to your users.<\/p>\n Big Cartel<\/a> hosts more than one million e-commerce websites. To increase resilience, the company recently started using a second cloud provider. By adopting a multi-cloud infrastructure, the business now has lower costs and less risk of failure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Managing a tape library can be time-consuming and comes with high CapEx spending. With inflation, replacing tapes costs more, shipping tapes off-site costs more, and physical storage space costs more. The cloud provides an affordable alternative to storing data on tape<\/a> where you pass the decreased margins off to a cloud provider\u2014they have to worry about provisioning enough physical storage devices and space while you pay as you go.<\/p>\n Your department or organization may need to work with large media files to create movies or digital videos. Cloud storage provides an alternative to provisioning huge on-premises servers to handle large files.<\/p>\n Hagerty Insurance<\/a> stored a huge library of video assets on an aging server that couldn\u2019t keep up. They implemented a hybrid cloud solution for cloud backup and sync, saving the team over 200 hours per year searching for files and waiting for their slow server to respond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cloud storage costs are calculated in a variety of different ways. Before considering any specific vendors, knowing the most common options, variables, and fees is helpful, including:<\/p>\n A flat or single-tier pricing approach charges the user based on the storage volume, and cost is typically expressed per gigabyte stored. There is only one tier, making budgeting and planning for cloud expenses simple.<\/p>\n On the other hand, some cloud storage services use a tiered storage pricing model. For example, a provider may have a small business pricing tier and an enterprise tier. Note that different pricing tiers may include different services and features. Today, your business might use an entry-level pricing tier but need to move to a higher-priced tier as you produce more data.<\/p>\n Hot storage is helpful for data that needs to be accessible immediately (e.g., last month\u2019s customer records). By contrast, cold storage is helpful for data that does not need to be accessed quickly (e.g., tax records from five years ago). For more insight on hot vs. cold storage, check out our post: \u201cWhat\u2019s the Diff: Hot and Cold Data Storage.\u201d<\/a> Generally speaking, cold storage is the cheapest, but that low price comes at the cost of speed. For data that needs to be accessed frequently or even for data where you\u2019re not sure how often you need access, hot storage is better.<\/p>\n Some organizations need their cloud storage to be located in the same country or region due to regulations or just preference. But some storage vendors charge different prices to store data in different regions. Keeping data in a specific location may impact cloud storage prices.<\/p>\n Most folks think of \u201cretention\u201d as a good thing, but some storage vendors enforce minimum retention periods that essentially impose penalties for deleting your data<\/a>. Some vendors enforce minimum retention periods of 30, 60, or even 90 days. Deleting your data could cost you a lot, especially if you have a backup approach where you retire older backups before the retention period ends.<\/p>\n Cloud companies charge egress fees<\/a> when customers want to move their data out of the provider\u2019s platform. These fees can be egregiously high, making it expensive for customers to use multi-cloud infrastructures and therefore locking customers into their services.<\/p>\n While price is likely one of your biggest considerations, choosing a cloud storage provider solely based on price can lead to disappointment. There are specific cloud storage features that can make a big difference in your productivity, security, and convenience. Keep these features and capabilities in mind when comparing different cloud storage solutions.<\/p>\n You may be placing highly sensitive data like financial records and customer service data in the cloud, so features like server-side encryption<\/a> could be important. In addition, you might look for a provider that offers Object Lock<\/a> so you can protect data using a Write Once, Read Many (WORM) model.<\/p>\n Find out how quickly the cloud storage provider can provide data regarding upload and download speed. Keep in mind that the speed of your internet connection also impacts how fast you can access data. Data speed is critically important in several industries, including media and live streaming.<\/p>\n If your company has a data storage problem outside of regular business hours, customer support becomes critically important. What level of support can you expect from the provider? Do they offer expanded support tiers?<\/p>\n Partner integrations make it easier to manage your data. Check if the cloud storage provider has integrations with services you already use.<\/p>\n Understanding cloud storage pricing requires a holistic view. First, you need to understand your organization\u2019s data needs. Second, it is wise to understand the typical cloud storage pricing models commonly used in the industry. Finally, cloud storage pricing needs to be understood in the context of features like security, integrations, and customer service. Once you consider these steps, you can approach a decision to switch cloud providers or optimize your cloud spend more rigorously and methodically.<\/p>\n There are several things\u00a0 to consider when it comes to determining cloud storage cost.<\/p>\n It all depends on what you\u2019re storing, how much you\u2019re storing, how you\u2019re using your cloud storage, and what other considerations you have for your storage needs. Your first step should be to figure out how much data you need to store, what the purpose of that storage is (i.e. archive, asset management, immutable backups, etc.), and additional features you\u2019ll be looking for. That will let you make a direct comparison between pricing for different services. Don\u2019t forget to consider migration fees, egress fees, and so on when comparing.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Egress charges are charges that a cloud service levies when you retrieve data from the cloud. Usually, cloud storage providers won\u2019t charge you when you upload your data to the cloud. They\u2019re often considered a type of vendor lock-in charge, because if you ever want to transfer your data out of the cloud, you\u2019ll likely spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to do so.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Egress fees are generally tiered. That means if you\u2019re moving a smaller amount of data, you\u2019ll pay more per gigabyte, and if you\u2019re moving a larger amount of data, you\u2019ll pay less per gigabyte. Many large companies also have specialty pricing that they can offer if you\u2019re moving hundreds of terabytes of data.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Amazon Web Services\u2019 egress is tiered. It costs 9 cents per GB to move 1GB\u201310TB, 8.5 cents per GB to move 10\u201350TB, 7 cents per GB to move 50-150TB, and 5 cents per GB to move 150\u2013500TB, with an option to contact Amazon for specialty pricing above 500TB. This can add up quickly: to move 50TB of data, you\u2019ll be looking at $4,250.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learn what to look for in cloud storage pricing, so you can better decide which provider is right for your organization. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":106083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,482],"tags":[468],"class_list":["post-106080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-storage","category-hybrid-cloud","tag-b2cloud","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEvaluating Cloud Storage Providers? Gather These Facts<\/h2>\n
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1. How Do You Plan to Use Cloud Storage?<\/h3>\n
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Backup and Archive<\/h4>\n
\n![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Steve-McCurry.png\")
<\/p>\nCase Study: Famed Photographer Stores a Lifetime of Work<\/h4>\n
Origin Storage<\/h4>\n
\n![\"images](\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Big-Cartel-1024x546.png\")
<\/p>\nCase Study: Serving 1M+ Websites From Cloud Storage<\/h4>\n
Migrating Away From LTO\/Tape<\/h4>\n
Managing Media Workflow<\/h4>\n
\n![\"gullwing](\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Hagerty-Insurance-1024x601.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCase Study: Using the Cloud to Store Media<\/h4>\n
2. How Much Does Cloud Storage Cost?<\/h2>\n
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Flat or Single-tier Pricing vs. Tiered Pricing<\/h3>\n
Hot vs. Cold Storage<\/h3>\n
Storage Location<\/h3>\n
Minimum Retention Periods<\/h3>\n
Egress Fees<\/h3>\n
3. What Additional Features Are Offered?<\/h2>\n
Security Features<\/h4>\n
Data Speed<\/h4>\n
Customer Support<\/h4>\n
Partner Integrations<\/h4>\n
The Next Step in Choosing Cloud Storage<\/h2>\n
FAQs About Cloud Storage Pricing<\/h2>\n
\nWhat are the factors that determine my cloud storage cost?<\/strong><\/summary>\n
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\nWhat is the cost of cloud storage?<\/strong><\/summary>\n
\nWhat are egress fees in cloud storage?<\/strong><\/summary>\n
\nHow are egress fees calculated?<\/strong><\/summary>\n
\nHow much are AWS egress fees?<\/strong><\/summary>\n