# IDrive e2 vs Amazon S3

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/idrive-e2-vs-amazon-s3/

Every value below is read from IDrive e2's and Amazon S3's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | IDrive e2 | Amazon S3 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Egress over allowance | Free up to three times your active storage volume each month — the same shape as Backblaze B2's allowance rather than the unconditional free egress R2 and Wasabi advertise. | $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. |
| Storage (entry plan) | None on a paid account. IDrive e2 bills a minimum of $6 per TB charged per whole terabyte, so storing under 1 TB still costs a full terabyte — a floor on the bill rather than storage you are given. A 10 GB free trial is offered separately. | 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. |
| Storage price | $0.006 per GB per month, or $6 per TB, tierless — the cheapest published rate here. SSD storage is $0.01 per GB per month. | $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. |
| Operations price | None. IDrive e2 states no additional charges for API transactions across class A, B and C. | $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. |
| Minimum storage duration | None. IDrive e2 states no minimum data retention restriction, unlike Wasabi's 90 days and the S3 infrequent-access classes' 30 to 180. | 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. |
| S3-compatible API | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### Egress over allowance

- IDrive e2: Free up to three times your active storage volume each month — the same shape as Backblaze B2's allowance rather than the unconditional free egress R2 and Wasabi advertise. ([source](https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing))
- 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))

### Storage (entry plan)

- IDrive e2: None on a paid account. IDrive e2 bills a minimum of $6 per TB charged per whole terabyte, so storing under 1 TB still costs a full terabyte — a floor on the bill rather than storage you are given. A 10 GB free trial is offered separately. ([source](https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing))
- 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/))

### Storage price

- IDrive e2: $0.006 per GB per month, or $6 per TB, tierless — the cheapest published rate here. SSD storage is $0.01 per GB per month. ([source](https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing))
- 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))

### Operations price

- IDrive e2: None. IDrive e2 states no additional charges for API transactions across class A, B and C. ([source](https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing))
- 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))

### Minimum storage duration

- IDrive e2: None. IDrive e2 states no minimum data retention restriction, unlike Wasabi's 90 days and the S3 infrequent-access classes' 30 to 180. ([source](https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing))
- 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/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick IDrive e2 if Bulk storage where the per-GB rate dominates — $6 per TB is roughly a quarter of S3's and well under Wasabi's, with no API fees and no minimum retention period.

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.

Consider something else: IDrive e2 — The minimum charge is billed per whole terabyte, so a 100 GB workload pays for 1 TB, and egress is only free up to three times what you store.

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.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: Amazon S3: Yes
- 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Egress over allowance: IDrive e2 or Amazon S3?**

IDrive e2: Free up to three times your active storage volume each month — the same shape as Backblaze B2's allowance rather than the unconditional free egress R2 and Wasabi advertise.
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.

**Storage (entry plan): IDrive e2 or Amazon S3?**

IDrive e2: None on a paid account. IDrive e2 bills a minimum of $6 per TB charged per whole terabyte, so storing under 1 TB still costs a full terabyte — a floor on the bill rather than storage you are given. A 10 GB free trial is offered separately.
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.

**Should I choose IDrive e2 or Amazon S3?**

Pick IDrive e2 if Bulk storage where the per-GB rate dominates — $6 per TB is roughly a quarter of S3's and well under Wasabi's, with no API fees and no minimum retention period.
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.