Curated Guide · August 2026 Verified
Curated Buying Guide
Avoid the API Request Fee Trap on High-Frequency Object Ingestion
When uploading 10 million files per day (300M PUTs/mo for telemetry, IoT, AI logs, or scraping), AWS charges $1,500/month just in API request fees. These zero-op-fee and low-request providers protect your unit economics.
🏆 Top Editorial Recommendations
🏆 Best for Zero API Request Fees
$7.99/TB flat rate with $0.00 API request fees. 300 Million PUT requests cost exactly $0.00 vs $1,500.00 on AWS S3.
🥈 Best for High-Volume European Telemetry
€6.49 base includes 1 TB with $0 API request fees. Fixed, predictable monthly billing without per-request meters.
🥉 Best S3-Compatible Low-Op Pricing
$6.00/TB storage with modest Class A request fees and 3x free egress multiplier.
Ranked Monthly Cost for Typical HIGH-FREQUENCY-FILES Workload
Simulated workload: 10 TB Stored · 2 TB Egress/mo · Region: EU
| Rank | Provider | Storage $/TB | Egress Policy | Simulated Monthly Bill | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | MEGA S4 Object Storage MEGA | $2.63 | Free egress up to 5x stored amount per month | $26.30 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #2 | iDrive e2 iDrive | $6.00 | First 3x stored amount in egress free per month | $60.00 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #3 | Hetzner Object Storage Hetzner | $6.50 | 1 TB free | €66.20 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #4 | Bunny Storage Bunny.net | $5.00 | $10.00/TB | $70.00 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #5 | Wasabi Hot Storage Wasabi | $7.99 | Zero Egress | $79.90 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #6 | Storj Storj Labs | $7.00 | $7.00/TB | $83.83 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #7 | Contabo Object Storage Contabo | $10.96 | Zero Egress | $109.60 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #8 | Rabata S3 Hot Storage Rabata.io | $10.00 | $10.00/TB | $120.00 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #9 | OVHcloud Object Storage OVHcloud | $12.40 | Zero Egress | $124.00 /mo | Visit ↗ |
| #10 | Vultr Object Storage Vultr | $18.00 | 1 TB free | $190.00 /mo | Visit ↗ |
💡 Key Strategic Takeaways
- • At 10 million uploads/day (300M writes/month), AWS S3 charges $1,500/mo and Cloudflare R2 charges $1,350/mo just for PUT operations.
- • Wasabi and Hetzner do not charge for Class A or Class B API requests, saving over 90% on high-frequency small-object workloads.
- • Batching small files into archive containers (TAR, Zip, Parquet, WebDataset) before uploading reduces request volume by 99%.
⚠️ Critical Gotchas & Hidden Costs
- ! Writing millions of tiny sub-kilobyte files creates metadata overhead; some providers enforce minimum storage increments.
- ! Check rate limits on PUT/POST requests per bucket to avoid 503 SlowDown errors.
Fine-Tune for Your Exact Workload
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