Object storage · Comparison
Amazon S3 vs Cloudflare R2 vs Backblaze B2: B2 leads at 8.6; 1 TB a month costs $6.95 to $122
We read the pricing, docs, security and legal pages of three object storage services on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What each one charges for egress and requests, what 1 TB a month costs, and who should pick which.
On this page9 sections
On six indicators read from each vendor's public pages, Backblaze B2 scores 8.6, Cloudflare R2 8.1 and Amazon S3 6.4 out of 10. For our reference scenario, storing 1 TB in a US region, downloading 1 TB of it, with 1 million writes and 10 million reads a month, they cost $6.95, $23.10 and $122.00 a month at list price (computed). Most of the gap is egress: R2 charges none, B2 includes downloads up to 3x what you store, and S3 bills $0.09 per GB from US East, $90 of its $122. B2 leads on price, R2 on egress and billing rules (B2 ties it on the free tier, both 10), and S3 on data protection and compliance, where it scores 10 on both.
The scores measure what the public pages commit to, not how well each service runs, and we did not sign up for any of them.
At a glance
| Amazon S3 | Cloudflare R2 | Backblaze B2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard storage | $0.023/GB-month (US East) | $0.015/GB-month | $6.95/TB per 30 days |
| Egress to the internet | $0.09/GB; 100 GB a month free across AWS | No egress fee | Free up to 3x stored, then $0.01/GB |
| Request fees | $0.005 per 1,000 writes; $0.0004 per 1,000 reads | $4.50 per million Class A; $0.36 per million Class B | Class A, B and C free |
| Free option | Up to $200 in credits | 10 GB-month plus operations, permanent | First 10 GB always free |
| Reference scenario (1 TB/mo) | $122.00, computed | $23.10, computed | $6.95, computed |
| Versioning and object lock | Both; compliance mode | No versioning; removable bucket locks | Both; compliance mode |
| HIPAA BAA | Self-serve | Enterprise customers | On request |
| Regions | 36 | 6 location hints, 3 jurisdictions | 4, one per account |
| Score (public pages) | 6.4 Good | 8.1 Excellent | 8.6 Excellent |
What the public pages show
Amazon S3 is the AWS object store and the API the other two copy. There is no plan or minimum charge: you pay per GB-month by class and region, per 1,000 requests and per GB of egress. Eight storage classes run from Express One Zone at $0.11 to Glacier Deep Archive at $0.00099 per GB-month (US East). New accounts get up to $200 in credits but no permanent free storage.
Cloudflare R2 offers an S3-compatible API, a native Workers API and the Cloudflare REST API. The pricing page states there is no egress charge for any storage class. Its S3 API page lists versioning, the S3 Object Lock API and replication as not implemented; R2 has its own bucket lock rules instead.
Backblaze B2 is S3-compatible hot storage with one class, billed per byte-hour at $6.95 per TB per 30 days in all 4 regions. Class A, B and C calls are free, egress is free up to 3x your average stored data and to listed partner CDNs, and sign-up needs no credit card.
Strengths and things to know
Amazon S3. Strengths: the reference S3 API with versioning, compliance-mode Object Lock that no user can shorten, lifecycle transitions, cross-region replication and KMS keys; the HIPAA BAA and SOC 2 report in the AWS Artifact console; no minimums on S3 Standard; 36 regions. Things to know: egress and every request are billed, colder classes add 30 to 180-day minimums, and the S3 FAQ still describes an older 5 GB free tier, while the free-tier pages differ on credit expiry and on whether sign-up needs a payment method.
Cloudflare R2. Strengths: no egress fee, a permanent free tier that includes requests, no minimums on Standard, a SOC 2 Type II report naming R2, ISO 27001:2022, dashboard SSO on all plans, and free tools to copy data in from S3 and Google Cloud Storage. Things to know: no versioning or built-in replication, bucket locks the account can remove, and a HIPAA BAA for Enterprise customers. The product page says "no credit card required", while the docs add R2 through a checkout that needs a payment method.
Backblaze B2. Strengths: the lowest scenario price here, no fees for reads, writes or lists, no billing floors, versioning on by default, compliance-mode Object Lock, replication with no service or egress fee, and its own SOC 2 Type 2 report. Things to know: each account sits in one region chosen at sign-up, one storage class means lifecycle rules can only expire versions, ISO 27001 is held by its data centres, and the BAA is on request. The buckets docs still describe 1 GB of free downloads a day, and the pricing table shows support as an add-on for B2 Reserve while its screen-reader labels say it is included.
Pricing reality
Reference scenario: storing 1 TB in the standard (hot) class in a US region, downloading 1 TB of it to the internet, 1 million writes and 10 million reads a month, at list price without free allowances, trial credits or commitments.
| Service | Region and class | Monthly cost | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backblaze B2 | Any region | $6.95 | Computed: 1 TB × $6.95; 1 TB of egress is within 3x storage; calls free |
| Cloudflare R2 | Standard | $23.10 | Computed: 1,000 GB × $0.015 = $15 + 1M Class A = $4.50 + 10M Class B = $3.60; no egress fee |
| Amazon S3 | US East, S3 Standard | $122.00 | Computed: 1,000 GB × $0.023 = $23 + 1,000 GB egress × $0.09 = $90 + 1M PUT = $5 + 10M GET = $4 |
We take 1 TB as 1,000 billed GB for S3 and R2 (AWS counts binary GB) and a 30-day month for B2. With free allowances, S3 drops to $113 (900 GB × $0.09 of egress) and R2 to $14.85 (its free tier covers all the operations), our arithmetic.
The gap widens as downloads grow. At 5 TB downloaded on 1 TB stored, B2 bills the 2 TB above 3x at $0.01/GB, $26.95 in all; R2 stays at $23.10; S3 comes to $482 (computed). R2's bill grows with reads instead: its pricing page's asset-hosting example of 300 million reads a month comes to $104.40 after the 10 million free reads.
How we scored them
Every product in this category is scored on the same six indicators, read from the vendor's own pricing, docs, security and legal pages, with fixed formulas. The overall score is the plain mean. Our methodology page explains how these scores work.
| Indicator | Amazon S3 | Cloudflare R2 | Backblaze B2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing clarity | 6 | 8 | 7 |
| Free tier | 3 | 10 | 10 |
| Price for 1 TB a month | 3.1 | 6.7 | 9.3 |
| Egress and billing rules | 6 | 10 | 9 |
| S3 API and data protection | 10 | 5.5 | 9.5 |
| Compliance, regions and access | 10 | 8.5 | 7 |
| Overall | 6.4 | 8.1 | 8.6 |
S3 loses 4 points on pricing clarity, B2 3 and R2 2, for prices left out or pages that disagree. S3 also loses on the free tier, because credits are not permanent free storage, and on price and billing rules, because egress is metered. R2 loses on data protection, without versioning, replication or a lock no one can remove. B2 loses on compliance (ISO 27001 through its data centres, a BAA on request, 4 regions). The rubric does not score durability figures, availability SLAs or speed.
Also in this category
Google Cloud Storage scores 7.3: four storage classes, dual- and multi-region buckets, a self-serve HIPAA BAA, 43 regions and a permanent free tier, but $0.12 per GiB of egress puts our scenario at $149 in Iowa, and S3 tools use an interoperability mode. Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage scores 6.2: a flat $7.99 per TB in 16 regions with no egress or request fees while downloads stay within what you store, held back by a 1 TB minimum charge, a 90-day minimum duration and a 4 KB minimum object.
Who should choose which
- Choose Backblaze B2 if you want one flat per-TB rate, free API calls and versioning with a lock no one can remove, and your downloads stay within 3x what you store. Look elsewhere if you need several regions in one account or colder classes.
- Choose Cloudflare R2 if your data is downloaded often, you build on Cloudflare Workers, or you want a permanent free tier with no egress fee. Look elsewhere if you need versioning, replication or a lock the account cannot remove.
- Choose Amazon S3 if you need the full S3 feature set, SEC 17a-4 or FINRA retention, a self-serve BAA, or data other AWS services read. Look elsewhere if egress would be a large part of your bill.
Bottom line
From public pages alone, Backblaze B2 is the lowest-cost option for hot storage that is also downloaded, with data protection close to S3's. Cloudflare R2 removes the egress line and suits serving data, with fewer retention features. Amazon S3 costs the most in our scenario and is the most complete on protection, compliance and regions.
How we checked
We read the vendors' pricing, free-tier, docs, region, trust and compliance pages and terms on Oct 15, 2026. Amazon S3's US East prices come from the AWS price files its pricing page loads; Backblaze's help center returned an access challenge, so we used the B2 docs. All prices were shown in US dollars. We did not sign up, create a bucket or call an API. Facts the pages did not state are left out rather than guessed. Every figure is on the vendors' pages as of that date or, where marked, computed from them.
