Plan long-term archiving with flexible cost inputs quickly. Include growth, minimum duration, and transfers too. Download results and decisions stay audit ready always here.
| Scenario | Inputs | What it helps you estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance archive | 10 TB, 2% growth, 12 months, low retrieval | Long-term storage dominated monthly spend |
| Investigation readiness | 5 TB, 1% growth, 24 months, moderate retrieval | Retrieval and request costs during frequent restores |
| Disaster recovery copy | 50 TB, 0% growth, 6 months, higher transfer | Egress and restore costs under recovery testing |
Archive tiers are priced by stored capacity over time, usually billed per gigabyte month. This calculator converts your starting volume into GB, applies monthly growth, then multiplies each month’s stored amount by your storage rate. It also adds recurring retrieval, request, and transfer charges. Using provider unit prices keeps the model portable, so you can compare regions, vendors, or contract terms with the same assumptions. It supports scenario planning for audits and budgets.
Retention defines how long data remains in cold storage and therefore how many monthly billing cycles accrue. Growth matters because archive footprints rarely stay flat; logs, images, and backups expand. The stored GB for month m is calculated as InitialGB × (1 + GrowthRate)^(m−1). Even modest growth compounds, so a 2% monthly increase becomes about 27% over twelve months, affecting both monthly totals and multi‑year budgets.
Restores are often the surprise line item in archive projects. If you retrieve 200 GB per month at $0.02 per GB, retrieval alone adds $4 monthly before requests. Request pricing is modeled per 10,000 operations, covering read and write activity such as listings, metadata reads, or lifecycle transitions. Enter realistic GET and PUT volumes based on your automation and audit processes to avoid underestimating operational costs.
Outbound transfer can dominate when data leaves the provider, such as investigations, migrations, or DR drills. If egress is 200 GB monthly at $0.09 per GB, that adds $18 monthly. Minimum duration policies are also common; some tiers require 90 or 180 days. When your retention is shorter than the minimum, the calculator adds an early deletion fee using extra months of storage to keep estimates conservative and transparent.
The monthly table helps you spot when storage growth overtakes other charges. Use the total and average monthly figures to plan cash flow, then validate sensitivity by adjusting growth, retrieval volume, and transfer assumptions. For reporting, export CSV for spreadsheets or PDF for stakeholders. If your organization tracks chargeback, record pricing sources and regions in notes so the estimate remains reproducible during procurement and compliance reviews.
A GB-month represents one gigabyte stored for one month. If you store 1,000 GB for a month at $0.004 per GB-month, storage cost is $4 for that month.
Growth increases stored capacity each month using compounding. Higher growth raises later-month storage charges and can change which cost component dominates, especially for multi-year retention.
Archive pricing often charges to restore data and to run operations like reads, listings, or writes. These costs can exceed storage when retrieval is frequent or request volumes are high.
Some archive tiers enforce a minimum storage period. If you delete earlier, providers may charge for the remaining time. The calculator estimates this as an extra-month storage fee for transparency.
Use your expected outbound volume during restores, migrations, or tests and multiply by your egress rate. If transfers are rare, set monthly transfer to an average based on planned events.
Yes. Enter each provider’s unit rates and run the same workload assumptions. Export CSV or PDF to document the comparison, including region, currency, and any notes about pricing sources.
Important Note: All the Calculators listed in this site are for educational purpose only and we do not guarentee the accuracy of results. Please do consult with other sources as well.