# Amazon S3 vs Wasabi

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-s3-vs-wasabi/

Every value below is read from Amazon S3's and Wasabi's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Amazon S3 | Wasabi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| 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. | None. Wasabi charges for capacity only, with no egress or API request fees. |
| 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. | None. Wasabi includes no free storage at any price. Pay-as-you-go carries a minimum monthly charge equal to 1 TB of active storage, so an account storing less than 1 TB is billed for 1 TB — a floor on the bill, not an allowance. Wasabi Cloud NAS has a 10 TB monthly minimum. |
| 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. | $7.99 per TB per month, flat, with no separate charge for egress or API requests |
| 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. | None. API requests are not charged separately. |
| 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. | 90 days on pay-as-you-go. Deleting an object sooner incurs a Timed Deleted Storage charge equal to the storage charge for the remaining days. Objects under 4 KB are billed as 4 KB. |
| S3-compatible API | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Amazon S3: Yes ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/))
- Wasabi: No ([source](https://wasabi.com/try-free))

### 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. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSDataTransfer/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- Wasabi: None. Wasabi charges for capacity only, with no egress or API request fees. ([source](https://wasabi.com/pricing))

### 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. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/))
- Wasabi: None. Wasabi includes no free storage at any price. Pay-as-you-go carries a minimum monthly charge equal to 1 TB of active storage, so an account storing less than 1 TB is billed for 1 TB — a floor on the bill, not an allowance. Wasabi Cloud NAS has a 10 TB monthly minimum. ([source](https://wasabi.com/pricing/faq))

### 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. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonS3/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- Wasabi: $7.99 per TB per month, flat, with no separate charge for egress or API requests ([source](https://wasabi.com/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. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonS3/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- Wasabi: None. API requests are not charged separately. ([source](https://wasabi.com/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. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/))
- Wasabi: 90 days on pay-as-you-go. Deleting an object sooner incurs a Timed Deleted Storage charge equal to the storage charge for the remaining days. Objects under 4 KB are billed as 4 KB. ([source](https://wasabi.com/pricing/faq))

## Which should you choose?

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 Wasabi if Anyone who wants one number. Capacity is the only charge — no egress fees, no API request fees — which makes the bill predictable in a way nothing else in this category manages.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: Wasabi — The flat rate is $7.99 per terabyte whether you store a gigabyte or a terabyte of it, so small buckets pay for capacity they are not using. Check Wasabi's own terms for minimum storage duration before storing anything short-lived.

## Documented by only one

- Pricing model: Amazon S3: Per region and per storage class, with storage, requests, retrievals, data transfer and management features each metered separately. AWS states there is no minimum charge, and bills storage in binary gigabytes — 1 GB is 2^30 bytes, not 10^9.
- Regions: Wasabi: 22 storage regions across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, addressed as S3 service URLs

## Questions this comparison answers

**Free tier: Amazon S3 or Wasabi?**

Amazon S3: Yes
Wasabi: No

**Egress over allowance: Amazon S3 or Wasabi?**

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.
Wasabi: None. Wasabi charges for capacity only, with no egress or API request fees.

**Storage (entry plan): Amazon S3 or Wasabi?**

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.
Wasabi: None. Wasabi includes no free storage at any price. Pay-as-you-go carries a minimum monthly charge equal to 1 TB of active storage, so an account storing less than 1 TB is billed for 1 TB — a floor on the bill, not an allowance. Wasabi Cloud NAS has a 10 TB monthly minimum.

**Should I choose Amazon S3 or Wasabi?**

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 Wasabi if Anyone who wants one number. Capacity is the only charge — no egress fees, no API request fees — which makes the bill predictable in a way nothing else in this category manages.