S3 Glacier Cost Calculator
Cost a Glacier archive with per-object metadata overhead, retrieval fees and the early-deletion minimum duration.
About S3 Glacier Cost Calculator
Glacier classes add about 40 KB of index and metadata per object, so ten million small files carry roughly 380 GB of overhead you pay for on top of the data itself. Retrieval is billed twice, per GB restored and per restore request, and deleting before the 90-day (Flexible and Instant) or 180-day (Deep Archive) minimum still bills the remaining days. Prices here are user-supplied list prices — confirm them on the AWS S3 pricing page for your region. Archive tiers only pay off for large objects kept for a long time; the overhead and minimum-duration terms are what turn an apparently 10x cheaper tier into a more expensive one for small, short-lived files.
Formula
S3 Glacier Cost
billable GB = data + objects x 40 KB; cost = billable GB x rate + retrieved GB x retrieval price + retrieval requests ÷ 1000 x request price.
- 40 KB
- 32 KB of Glacier index plus 8 KB of S3 name-index metadata per object
- shortfall days
- Minimum duration minus the days actually stored
Worked example
With the default values below, S3 Glacier Cost Calculator returns Monthly Archive Cost of $382.29. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Data archivedminimum 0 GB
- 100,000 GB
- Objects archivedminimum 0 objects
- 2,000,000 objects
- Archive storage priceminimum 0 USD per GB-month
- 0.0036 USD per GB-month
- Share of the archive retrieved each monthaccepts 0–100 %
- 2 %
- Retrieval priceminimum 0 USD per GB
- 0.01 USD per GB
- Retrieval request priceminimum 0 USD per 1,000 requests
- 0.05 USD per 1,000 requests
- Minimum billable storage durationaccepts 0–365 days
- 90 days
- How long objects actually stayaccepts 0–240 months
- 24 months
Results
- Monthly Archive Cost
- $382.29
- Billable Capacity
- 100,076.29 GB
- Per-object Metadata Overhead
- 76.29 GB
- Retrieval Cost
- $22.02
- Early-deletion Exposure
- $0.00
- Effective Rate on Real Data
- 0.0038 USD per GB-month
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2S3 Glacier Cost
- 3Monthly Archive Cost= 382.29
- 4Billable Capacity= 100,076.29 GB
- 5Per-object Metadata Overhead= 76.29 GB
- 6Retrieval Cost= 22.02
- 7Early-deletion Exposure= 0.00
- 8Effective Rate on Real Data= 0.0038 USD per GB-month
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 8 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is S3 Glacier Cost calculated?
billable GB = data + objects x 40 KB; cost = billable GB x rate + retrieved GB x retrieval price + retrieval requests ÷ 1000 x request price. Glacier classes add about 40 KB of index and metadata per object, so ten million small files carry roughly 380 GB of overhead you pay for on top of the data itself. Retrieval is billed twice, per GB restored and per restore request, and deleting before the 90-day (Flexible and Instant) or 180-day (Deep Archive) minimum still bills the remaining days. Prices here are user-supplied list prices — confirm them on the AWS S3 pricing page for your region.
Why does S3 Glacier Cost matter?
Archive tiers only pay off for large objects kept for a long time; the overhead and minimum-duration terms are what turn an apparently 10x cheaper tier into a more expensive one for small, short-lived files.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 8 inputs: Data archived, Objects archived, Archive storage price, Share of the archive retrieved each month, Retrieval price, Retrieval request price, Minimum billable storage duration, How long objects actually stay. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Should I aggregate small files before archiving?
Almost always. Packing many small files into a single archive object amortises the 40 KB per-object overhead and cuts retrieval request charges, at the cost of having to restore the whole container to read one member.