S3 vs Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage: Object Storage Pricing (2026)
Comprehensive object storage pricing comparison across Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage — covering Standard/Hot, Cool/Infrequent Access, Cold/Archive tiers, read/write operation costs, and data retrieval fees.
Cost Comparison Matrix
Side-by-Side Cost Matrix Monthly & Annual TCO
Comparing line-item equivalents across AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia), Azure East US, GCP us-east1 (South Carolina).
Amazon Web Services
us-east-1 (N. Virginia)💡 Graviton3/4 arm64 processors offer up to 20% lower price/performance.
| Provider | Compute | Storage | Database | Network | Monthly TCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia) | $49/mo t4g.medium | $12/mo Amazon S3 (HOT) | $61/mo RDS/Aurora db.t4g.medium | $155/mo AWS Data Transfer & ELB | $277 $3,322/yr |
Azure East US | $126/mo Standard_D2as_v5 | $11/mo Azure Blob Storage (HOT) | $112/mo Azure Database Flexible Server D2ds_v5 | $152/mo Azure Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $399 $4,794/yr |
GCP us-east1 (South Carolina) | $98/mo e2-standard-2 | $10/mo Google Cloud Storage (HOT) | $93/mo Cloud SQL db-custom-2-7680 | $201/mo Google Cloud Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $402 $4,823/yr |
Cost Comparison Visualizer
Visual TCO breakdown across 3 selected providers.
Cloud Optimization Insights
Actionable techniques to decrease your infrastructure bill, per selected provider.
Migrate general-purpose workloads to AWS Graviton3/4 processors for up to 20% better price/performance compared to standard x86 instances.
If your organization owns on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, apply them to Azure VMs for up to 40% savings.
Avoid paying for predefined instance shapes. Google Cloud allows custom vCPU & memory ratios tailored specifically to your exact application footprint.
Infrastructure Spec Configurator
Customize workload specs to update the matrix dynamically.
Workload Growth & Traffic Scale Simulator
Project non-linear cost curves at 2x, 5x, or 10x production capacity.
FinOps Commitment & Cash-Flow Advisor
S3 vs Azure Blob vs Cloud Storage — Frequently Asked Questions
Which cloud provider has the cheapest object storage?
For standard/hot tier storage in primary US regions: Azure Blob Hot is cheapest at ~$0.018/GB-month, followed by GCP Standard at ~$0.020/GB-month, and AWS S3 Standard at ~$0.023/GB-month. However, total cost depends heavily on read/write operation volume and egress bandwidth — not just storage capacity.
How do archive storage prices compare?
Archive tier pricing converges across all three providers: AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive at ~$0.00099/GB-month, Azure Archive at ~$0.00099/GB-month, and Google Archive at ~$0.0012/GB-month. The main cost difference is in data retrieval fees — AWS Glacier Deep Archive charges the highest retrieval fees, while Azure Archive offers more predictable retrieval pricing.