Amazon S3 vs Backblaze B2
A comparison of Amazon S3 and Backblaze B2 built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Amazon S3 if
- Workloads already inside AWS, where keeping data in the same region as the compute avoids the transfer charges that dominate an object storage bill.
- Pick Backblaze B2 if
- Bulk capacity where egress is predictable — free up to three times what you store each month, which covers most backup and archive patterns comfortably at $6.95 per terabyte.
5 sourced criteria separate them:
- Egress over allowance
- Amazon S3: $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all.
- Backblaze B2: Free up to three times your stored capacity each month on the $6.95/TB tier; unlimited free egress on the $15/TB tier. Egress beyond the 3x allowance is chargeable.
- Storage (entry plan)
- Amazon S3: None. S3 has no plans and no included storage — AWS states there is no minimum charge and you pay only for what you use, billed per GB-month from the first byte. New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits ($100 immediately, up to $200 over six months) which are spendable credit rather than a standing storage allowance.
- Backblaze B2: 10 GB free, permanently — 'First 10GB storage is always free.' The statement is a row-level note on Backblaze's pricing-model table, so it applies to B2 storage rather than to one plan, and it is an ongoing allowance rather than the 'Start Free' trial the page advertises separately.
- Storage price
- Amazon S3: $0.023 per GB-month for S3 Standard, first 50 TB, in us-east-1. S3 prices vary by region; this and every other S3 figure on the site is that region.
- Backblaze B2: $6.95 per TB per month on B2 Overdrive; $15 per TB per month on the unlimited-egress tier
- Operations price
- Amazon S3: $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST requests, and $0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests, in us-east-1. DELETE and CANCEL are free.
- Backblaze B2: Transactions are not charged on the $6.95/TB tier. Backblaze notes that its published chart uses U.S. West rates and that competitor rates vary by region and volume.
- Minimum storage duration
- Amazon S3: None on S3 Standard. 30 days on Standard-IA and One Zone-IA, 90 days on Glacier Instant and Flexible Retrieval, 180 days on Glacier Deep Archive, each with a pro-rated charge for early deletion.
- Backblaze B2: None. Backblaze states no minimum file size or storage duration fee on B2 Cloud Storage, so an object deleted an hour after upload is billed only for that hour.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Amazon S3 0
Backblaze B2 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Amazon S3 | Backblaze B2 |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Egress over allowance | $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all. | Free up to three times your stored capacity each month on the $6.95/TB tier; unlimited free egress on the $15/TB tier. Egress beyond the 3x allowance is chargeable. |
| Limits | ||
| Storage (entry plan) | None. S3 has no plans and no included storage — AWS states there is no minimum charge and you pay only for what you use, billed per GB-month from the first byte. New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits ($100 immediately, up to $200 over six months) which are spendable credit rather than a standing storage allowance. | 10 GB free, permanently — 'First 10GB storage is always free.' The statement is a row-level note on Backblaze's pricing-model table, so it applies to B2 storage rather than to one plan, and it is an ongoing allowance rather than the 'Start Free' trial the page advertises separately. |
| Storage | ||
| Storage price | $0.023 per GB-month for S3 Standard, first 50 TB, in us-east-1. S3 prices vary by region; this and every other S3 figure on the site is that region. | $6.95 per TB per month on B2 Overdrive; $15 per TB per month on the unlimited-egress tier |
| Operations price | $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST requests, and $0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests, in us-east-1. DELETE and CANCEL are free. | Transactions are not charged on the $6.95/TB tier. Backblaze notes that its published chart uses U.S. West rates and that competitor rates vary by region and volume. |
| Minimum storage duration | None on S3 Standard. 30 days on Standard-IA and One Zone-IA, 90 days on Glacier Instant and Flexible Retrieval, 180 days on Glacier Deep Archive, each with a pro-rated charge for early deletion. | None. Backblaze states no minimum file size or storage duration fee on B2 Cloud Storage, so an object deleted an hour after upload is billed only for that hour. |
| S3-compatible API | Supported | Supported |
Where they differ.
Egress over allowance
- Amazon S3
- $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all.
- Backblaze B2
- Free up to three times your stored capacity each month on the $6.95/TB tier; unlimited free egress on the $15/TB tier. Egress beyond the 3x allowance is chargeable.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List API — AWSDataTransfer, us-east-1 ↗
“"$0 for 100GB of data transfer out to the internet, aggregated globally" [...] "$0.090 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out beyond the global free tier" [...] "$0.085 per GB - next 40 TB / month" [...] "$0.070 per GB - next 100 TB / month" [...] "$0.050 per GB - greater than 150 TB / month"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Cloud Storage Pricing — Backblaze ↗
“Free egress up to 3x storage [...] Free transactions [...] Unlimited free egress [...] B2 includes 750 TB of monthly egress in this scenario.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Storage (entry plan)
None. S3 has no plans and no included storage — AWS states there is no minimum charge and you pay only for what you use, billed per GB-month from the first byte. New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits ($100 immediately, up to $200 over six months) which are spendable credit rather than a standing storage allowance.
10 GB free, permanently — 'First 10GB storage is always free.' The statement is a row-level note on Backblaze's pricing-model table, so it applies to B2 storage rather than to one plan, and it is an ongoing allowance rather than the 'Start Free' trial the page advertises separately.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon S3 Pricing ↗
“Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum charge. Amazon S3 cost components are storage pricing, request and data retrieval pricing, data transfer and transfer acceleration pricing”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing
- B2 Cloud Storage Pricing | Backblaze ↗
“First 10GB storage is always free.”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing
Storage price
- Amazon S3
- $0.023 per GB-month for S3 Standard, first 50 TB, in us-east-1. S3 prices vary by region; this and every other S3 figure on the site is that region.
- Backblaze B2
- $6.95 per TB per month on B2 Overdrive; $15 per TB per month on the unlimited-egress tier
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List API — AmazonS3, us-east-1 ↗
“"description": "$0.023 per GB - first 50 TB / month of storage used", "pricePerUnit": {"USD": "0.0230000000"}, "unit": "GB-Mo", "beginRange": "0", "endRange": "51200"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Cloud Storage Pricing — Backblaze ↗
“$6.95 / TB / mo [...] Free egress up to 3x storage [...] $15 / TB / mo [...] Unlimited free egress”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Operations price
- Amazon S3
- $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST requests, and $0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests, in us-east-1. DELETE and CANCEL are free.
- Backblaze B2
- Transactions are not charged on the $6.95/TB tier. Backblaze notes that its published chart uses U.S. West rates and that competitor rates vary by region and volume.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List API — AmazonS3, us-east-1 ↗
“"description": "$0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST requests" [...] "description": "$0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests" [...] DELETE and CANCEL requests are free.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Cloud Storage Pricing — Backblaze ↗
“Free transactions [...] This chart features published rates for the U.S. West region. Backblaze competitors' rates can vary by region, amount stored, and other factors.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Minimum storage duration
- Amazon S3
- None on S3 Standard. 30 days on Standard-IA and One Zone-IA, 90 days on Glacier Instant and Flexible Retrieval, 180 days on Glacier Deep Archive, each with a pro-rated charge for early deletion.
- Backblaze B2
- None. Backblaze states no minimum file size or storage duration fee on B2 Cloud Storage, so an object deleted an hour after upload is billed only for that hour.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- S3 Pricing — AWS ↗
“S3 Standard-IA, and S3 One Zone-IA storage are charged for a minimum storage duration of 30 days [...] Objects that are archived to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval are charged for a minimum storage duration of 90 days, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive has a minimum storage duration of 180 days.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- Pricing — Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage ↗
“$6.95 / TB / mo [...] No minimum file size or storage duration fees Free egress up to 3x storage Free transactions”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose Amazon S3 if…
Workloads already inside AWS, where keeping data in the same region as the compute avoids the transfer charges that dominate an object storage bill.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Backblaze B2 if…
Bulk capacity where egress is predictable — free up to three times what you store each month, which covers most backup and archive patterns comfortably at $6.95 per terabyte.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Amazon S3: Egress is the cost that decides this category and S3 charges for it, where R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not. Prices also vary by region, so a figure quoted anywhere is only true for the region it was read in.
- Backblaze B2: Egress is only free to that 3x ceiling. A bucket read far more often than its size, like a public media library, is the shape this pricing is not built for.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Egress over allowance: Amazon S3 or Backblaze B2?
Amazon S3: $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all.
Backblaze B2: Free up to three times your stored capacity each month on the $6.95/TB tier; unlimited free egress on the $15/TB tier. Egress beyond the 3x allowance is chargeable.
Storage (entry plan): Amazon S3 or Backblaze B2?
Amazon S3: None. S3 has no plans and no included storage — AWS states there is no minimum charge and you pay only for what you use, billed per GB-month from the first byte. New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits ($100 immediately, up to $200 over six months) which are spendable credit rather than a standing storage allowance.
Backblaze B2: 10 GB free, permanently — 'First 10GB storage is always free.' The statement is a row-level note on Backblaze's pricing-model table, so it applies to B2 storage rather than to one plan, and it is an ongoing allowance rather than the 'Start Free' trial the page advertises separately.
Should I choose Amazon S3 or Backblaze B2?
Pick Amazon S3 if Workloads already inside AWS, where keeping data in the same region as the compute avoids the transfer charges that dominate an object storage bill.
Pick Backblaze B2 if Bulk capacity where egress is predictable — free up to three times what you store each month, which covers most backup and archive patterns comfortably at $6.95 per terabyte.