Amazon Glacier Pricing: Understanding your S3 Glacier Costs

Importance of understanding S3 Glacier costs

For companies looking to fine-tune their operations and secure a strategic advantage, understanding Amazon Glacier pricing is indispensable. Knowing what you’re likely to spend on data storage helps tremendously with budgeting and making sure resources are used wisely. This kind of clarity can save you from unexpected costs and ensures you’ve got the essentials covered for your business to run smoothly.

With this financial insight, companies can adjust their economic strategies, effectively minimizing risks such as resource shortages that could significantly disrupt operations. Plus, a deep dive into the pricing details of S3 Glacier allows companies to make smart choices about how long to store data and how to manage it. This leads to setting up effective data retention policies and putting in place automated lifecycle strategies that are tailored to manage data based on how old it is, how often it’s accessed, and the costs involved. This not only boosts how well your operations run but also strengthens your approach to managing risks.

---

What is Amazon S3 Glacier?

Amazon S3 Glacier is a highly secure and incredibly low-cost cloud storage service from Amazon Web Services, designed especially for data archiving and long-term backup. It’s perfect for situations where you don’t need to access your data often but still need to keep it stored safely over long periods. This makes it a great choice for businesses, government entities, and educational institutions that have to comply with regulatory standards by keeping historical data.

S3 Glacier is not only budget-friendly but also offers flexible retrieval options that help you balance how quickly you can access your data with how much you want to spend. It also works seamlessly with other AWS services like AWS IAM, AWS Lambda, AWS Direct Connect, etc, which simplifies managing your data across the cloud.

---

How does Amazon Glacier Pricing work?

Amazon Glacier pricing is designed to offer cost-effective storage solutions, particularly for data that doesn’t require frequent access. The model is built on three key pillars: storage volume, geographical location, and data operations. Much like any sophisticated storage facility, Amazon Glacier pricing is based on the amount of data you’re storing, where you choose to keep it, and how you interact with it. This approach allows businesses to archive substantial amounts of information without incurring prohibitive costs.

The Location-based pricing acknowledges the varying costs of infrastructure across different regions, while the operation-based charges ensure you only pay for the services you actually use. This flexible and transparent pricing model makes AWS Glacier an attractive option for organizations looking to optimize their long-term data storage costs while maintaining reliable access to their archived information.

---

A Detailed Breakdown of the Amazon Glacier Pricing

Amazon Glacier pricing offers a cost-effective storage solution for long-term data archiving, designed to balance affordability with flexibility. Let’s understand how the Amazon Glacier pricing model is designed and helps you understand the costs associated with storing, retrieving, and managing your data.

AWS Free Tier Offering

As part of the AWS Free Usage Tier, Amazon Glacier allows you to retrieve up to 10 GB of data per month for free. This allowance applies to Standard retrievals and can be used at any time during the month. It’s important to note that this free tier benefit is calculated across all regions except the AWS GovCloud Region and is automatically applied to your bill.

Storage Pricing for AWS S3 Glacier

The core feature of Amazon Glacier pricing is its incredibly low-cost storage, priced at just $0.0036 per GB per month. This makes it an attractive option for businesses looking to archive large amounts of data without incurring high costs. Amazon Glacier also provides additional benefits like flexible retrieval options and various data transfer capabilities, all designed to ensure cost-efficiency and ease of access. 

Amazon Glacier Pricing for Data Retrieval

Amazon Glacier pricing options for data retrieval involve three distinct options, each with different speeds and associated costs: Expedited, Standard, and Bulk. The Expedited option provides rapid access to data, typically within 1-5 minutes, at a higher cost. The Standard option balances cost and speed, retrieving data within 3-5 hours. The Bulk option is the most economical, suitable for large-scale data retrievals, with access times ranging from 5-12 hours. These options ensure that users can choose the most appropriate and cost-effective retrieval method based on their specific requirements.

Retrieval Time	Amazon Glacier Pricing for Data Retrieval Cost
Expedited	$0.03 per GB
Standard	$0.01 per GB
Bulk	$0.00 per GB

Amazon Glacier Pricing for Data Retrieval Request

In addition to the data retrieval costs, Amazon Glacier pricing includes charges for retrieval requests, which vary depending on the speed of retrieval. These request charges are designed to offer flexibility and control over data retrieval expenses.

Retrieval Time	Amazon Glacier Pricing for Retrieval Request Cost
Expedited	$10.00 per 1,000 requests
Standard	$0.03 per 1,000 requests
Bulk	$0.00

Amazon Glacier Pricing for Provisioned Expedited Retrieval

For users who need guaranteed retrieval capacity, Glacier offers Provisioned Expedited Retrieval at $100.00 per Provisioned Capacity Unit. Each unit ensures at least 3 Expedited retrievals every 5 minutes and provides up to 150 MB/s of retrieval throughput.

Amazon Glacier Request Pricing

Upload requests to Glacier are charged at $0.03 per 1,000 requests. It’s crucial to note that Glacier archives have a minimum 90-day storage commitment. Archives deleted before 90 days incur a pro-rated charge equal to the storage charge for the remaining days.

Amazon Glacier Pricing for Data Transfer

Data transfer pricing for Amazon Glacier varies based on the direction and destination of the transfer. Data transferred into Amazon Glacier is free, while data transferred out to the internet is tiered, with rates decreasing as the volume increases. For instance, the first 9.999 TB per month costs $0.09 per GB, with subsequent tiers reducing the cost. Transfers to other AWS services such as Amazon CloudFront are free, while transfers to specific regions, like AWS GovCloud and various international regions, incur a charge of $0.02 per GB.

1. Data Transfer into Amazon S3 Glacier: Free
2. Data Transfer OUT from Amazon S3 Glacier to the Internet:

Volume	Price per GB
Next 9.999 TB / Month	$0.09
Next 40 TB / Month	$0.085
Next 100 TB / Month	$0.07
Greater than 150 TB / Month	$0.05

3. Data Transfer OUT from Amazon S3 Glacier to other AWS services:

• To Amazon CloudFront: Free
• To most AWS regions (including GovCloud, various Asia Pacific, European, Middle Eastern, African, and South American regions): $0.02 per GB
• To US East (N. Virginia): $0.01 per GB
• To Amazon EC2 instances in the same region: Free

It’s worth noting that rate tiers for Data Transfer Out to the Internet take into account your aggregate usage across various AWS services.

Amazon S3 Glacier Select Pricing

Amazon Glacier Select allows users to run queries directly on data stored within Glacier without the need to retrieve entire archives. This feature enhances data accessibility and efficiency, enabling users to extract only the necessary information. Pricing for this feature is based on three key metrics: the total amount of data scanned, the amount of data returned by Amazon S3 Glacier Select, and the number of queries initiated.

The cost for each of these metrics is influenced by the speed at which data is requested. There are three options for data retrieval speeds: “Expedited” queries for data under 250 MB are typically returned within 1-5 minutes, “Standard” queries are usually returned within 3-5 hours, and “Bulk” queries generally take 5-12 hours to be returned.

Select Data Scanned

Speed Tier	Price per GB
Expedited	$0.02
Standard	$0.008
Bulk	$0.001

Select Data Returned

Speed Tier	Price per GB
Expedited	$0.03
Standard	$0.01
Bulk	$0.0025

---

Effective strategies to control your S3 Glacier Cost

Amazon S3 Glacier is an excellent service for cost-effective long-term data archiving and backup. However, managing costs effectively requires strategic planning and careful monitoring. Here are some effective strategies to control your S3 Glacier costs.

Optimize Your Data Lifecycle Management

Optimizing your data lifecycle management is crucial for cost control. Use S3 lifecycle policies to automate the transition of data to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive based on its age and access patterns. This helps ensure that infrequently accessed data moves to lower-cost storage tiers, while more frequently accessed data remains in higher-cost, faster-access tiers. Regularly review and adjust these policies to align with your data usage patterns and business needs.

Be Strategic with Retrievals

Retrieving data from Glacier can be costly, especially if done frequently or urgently. Plan your retrievals carefully:

• Expedited Retrievals: Use for urgent needs, as they return data within 1-5 minutes but are the most expensive.
• Standard Retrievals: Suitable for non-urgent needs, typically returning data within 3-5 hours at a lower cost.
• Bulk Retrievals: Best for large data sets that are not time-sensitive, as they return data within 5-12 hours and are the most cost-effective.

Combine retrieval types based on your urgency and budget to minimize costs.

Monitor and Analyze Your Usage

Regularly monitor your S3 Glacier usage and costs using AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets. These tools provide insights into your spending patterns and help identify areas where you can reduce costs. Set up alerts for unusual spending patterns to avoid unexpected charges. Detailed usage analysis can reveal opportunities to optimize your storage and retrieval strategies further.

Use Glacier Select Judiciously

Amazon S3 Glacier Select allows you to run queries directly on data stored in Glacier without retrieving the entire archive. While this feature is powerful, it can also be expensive if not used judiciously. Optimize your queries to scan only the necessary data, and limit the amount of data returned. Plan your queries during off-peak hours when possible to take advantage of lower costs.

Understand Your Data Patterns

Understanding your data access patterns is key to effective cost management. Analyze how often and how quickly you need access to different data sets. This knowledge helps you choose the most appropriate S3 storage class and retrieval method. For example, frequently accessed data should remain in S3 Standard or S3 Standard-IA, while infrequently accessed data can be moved to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive.

---

Conclusion

Amazon Glacier pricing model is designed to offer cost-effective storage for infrequently accessed data. Effectively managing your S3 Glacier costs requires a proactive and strategic approach. By understanding the various components of the pricing structure – storage, retrieval, data transfer, and Glacier Select – you can optimize your usage and costs. Remember to consider the minimum storage duration, retrieval speeds, and data transfer destinations when planning your Glacier usage to ensure it aligns with your data archiving needs and budget constraints. These strategies not only help in controlling costs but also ensure that your data storage aligns with your business needs, providing both efficiency and financial savings.

---

How can we help

Are your cloud bills reaching sky-high levels? Don’t let cloud costs weigh you down anymore. With Economize, you can slash your cloud expenditures by up to 30% effortlessly. Book a free demo with us today and discover how we can help you start saving in as little as 10 minutes.