S3 vs R2 vs Spaces vs Wasabi vs Backblaze B2: prices, egress and minimums compared (2026)

Short answer: Backblaze B2 is the cheapest place to keep data that mostly sits still, Cloudflare R2 is the cheapest when your files are downloaded a lot, Wasabi is a flat price for at least a terabyte that stays put, DigitalOcean Spaces is the most predictable small bill and AWS S3 is the most capable but the most expensive to download from. All five speak the S3 API, so the same tools and code work with any of them. What changes is how each one bills storage, downloads, requests and minimums.

Prices are pay-as-you-go list prices in US dollars from each provider’s official pricing page, as of October 2026, without taxes. AWS prices are for US East (N. Virginia).

Prices side by side

What 1 TB really costs

Three common workloads, using the list prices above, 1 TB counted as 1,000 GB (about 931 GiB) and leaving out request fees unless they matter:

How the numbers come out:

• AWS: $0.023 per GB stored plus $0.09 per GB downloaded after the first free 100 GB. In the archive column, the same 10 TB in Glacier Deep Archive would cost about $9.90 a month (see Amazon S3 pricing).
• R2: storage after the free 10 GB at $0.015 per GB. Egress is free, but each download is a Class B operation; 10 million a month are free, then $0.36 per million.
• Spaces: $5 plus $0.02 per GiB above 250 GiB, and $0.01 per GiB of transfer above 1,024 GiB.
• Wasabi: $7.99 per TB. Downloading five times what you store is outside the profile Wasabi’s free egress policy is designed for.
• B2: $6.95 per TB after the free 10 GB, free egress up to three times the stored amount, then $0.01 per GB.

Change the download volume and the ranking moves. With almost no downloads, B2 and Wasabi win. With downloads several times larger than what you store, R2 is the only one whose bill stays flat.

Cloudflare R2 vs S3

R2 costs $0.015 per GB-month against $0.023 for S3 Standard, and egress to the internet is free on R2 while S3 charges $0.09 per GB after 100 GB a month. R2 also has a permanent free allowance (10 GB-month, 1 million Class A and 10 million Class B operations every month), which S3 replaced with time-limited credits.

S3 wins on depth: many storage classes including Glacier Deep Archive at $0.00099 per GB-month, object lock, replication and every other AWS service next to your data. R2 has two classes, Standard and Infrequent Access.

Verdict: R2 for anything served to the public or shared widely; S3 when you need deep archive classes or your data is processed inside AWS. More detail in the Cloudflare R2 free tier.

DigitalOcean Spaces vs Cloudflare R2

Spaces is a bundle: $5 a month buys 250 GiB of storage and 1,024 GiB of transfer across all your buckets, with a CDN included. Above that you pay $0.02 per GiB stored and $0.01 per GiB transferred. R2 charges $0.015 per GB stored, with 10 GB free, and never charges egress.

On storage and downloads alone R2 is cheaper at almost any size: 250 GB cost about $3.60 a month on R2 against the $5 Spaces minimum, and the gap grows as traffic passes the 1 TiB bundle. Where Spaces can win is operations. It lists no request fees, while R2 charges $4.50 per million writes and listings past the free million, so a bucket with several million uploads or listings a month can cost less on Spaces.

Verdict: R2 for most buckets, and always for heavy downloads. Spaces when you write or list constantly, or when your servers already run on DigitalOcean and you want the bundled CDN in the same place. See DigitalOcean Spaces pricing.

DigitalOcean Spaces vs Backblaze B2

For large files that sit for a long time, B2 is far cheaper: 1 TB costs $6.88 on B2 against about $18.63 on Spaces, and B2’s free egress (three times what you store) beats the 1,024 GiB included in Spaces once you store more than about 370 GB. Spaces is simpler when you want a CDN in the same dashboard as your servers.

Verdict: B2 for large files, backups and media libraries; Spaces for small, busy buckets next to DigitalOcean servers.

DigitalOcean Spaces vs AWS S3

At 1 TB stored and 500 GB downloaded, Spaces costs about $18.63 a month and S3 Standard about $59. Spaces lists no request fees and bills one predictable bundle. S3 has many more storage classes and the rest of AWS next to your data.

Verdict: Spaces for predictable small and mid-sized workloads; S3 when you need AWS features or archive classes.

Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi

Both target data that stays put, and both price per TB. B2 costs $6.95 per TB with the first 10 GB free, no minimum storage duration and no minimum bill. Wasabi costs $7.99 per TB, bills at least 1 TB a month, keeps charging deleted data until it is 90 days old (on Pay as You Go) and bills objects smaller than 4 KB as 4 KB.

On egress, B2 is free up to three times your average stored data and then charges $0.01 per GB. Wasabi has no egress fee, but its policy fits when monthly downloads are at or below your stored volume, and it may limit or suspend service for regular overuse. On requests, B2 charges only for Class D calls and Wasabi charges none.

Verdict: B2 is cheaper and more flexible for most people, especially below a terabyte or with files that change. Wasabi suits teams that want a single per-TB line on the invoice for several terabytes kept for months. Full detail in Wasabi pricing and Backblaze B2 pricing.

Wasabi vs Cloudflare R2

Wasabi is cheaper to store ($7.99 per TB against about $15 per TB on R2) but has a 1 TB minimum, a 90-day minimum duration and a policy that expects downloads to stay at or below what you store. R2 has no minimums and egress is free with no ratio.

Verdict: Wasabi for a few terabytes of archive or backups read now and then; R2 for small buckets, short-lived files and anything downloaded heavily.

Wasabi vs AWS S3

For the same terabyte, Wasabi costs $7.99 a month with no egress or request fees within its policy, while S3 Standard costs about $23 plus $0.09 per GB downloaded and per-request fees. S3 is still cheaper for deep, rarely touched archives in Glacier Deep Archive, and it offers far more features.

Verdict: Wasabi for backups and media you keep and read in moderation; S3 for deep archives and AWS-native workloads.

How to choose

• AWS S3 when you need its feature depth, archive classes or the rest of AWS next to your data.
• Cloudflare R2 when your files are downloaded a lot and you want egress off the bill.
• DigitalOcean Spaces when you want one predictable monthly number, a bundled CDN or you already host on DigitalOcean.
• Wasabi when you store at least a terabyte that stays for months and is read in moderation.
• Backblaze B2 when you want the lowest per-TB price without minimum durations.

Using more than one provider

Because they share an API, nothing stops you from mixing them: archives in B2 or Wasabi, public files in R2, application data in S3. The cost is juggling several dashboards.

Nubbo connects all five, plus any S3-compatible endpoint, and shows them in one file browser. Each connection is one bucket: the Free plan includes 2, Personal 5 and Pro unlimited. You can copy or move files between buckets with the Transfer action. When one key can read both buckets, the provider copies the objects itself; between different providers the transfer is relayed through your browser, so the source provider’s egress pricing applies and nothing is stored on Nubbo. If you are choosing a tool to manage your buckets, see the best S3 file browsers.