Egress costs, a deep dive: S3 vs Telnyx Storage

You may have learned by now that Telnyx Cloud Storage doesn’t charge anything for egress fees, but what does this really mean for your business? In this article, we’ll discuss what egress costs are, how they’re calculated and the exact cost benefits of swapping to Telnyx Cloud Storage from Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). If you missed it, we also shared an introduction to Telnyx Storage.

What are egress costs?

Egress costs, in the context of cloud storage services, refer to the fees incurred when data is transferred out of the storage service to another location, service, or end-user. These costs are an important aspect of using cloud storage solutions, as they can significantly impact the overall expense of managing and accessing stored data.

How are egress costs calculated by S3?

Amazon S3 calculates egress costs based on several factors:

• Amount of data transferred: Egress fees depend on the total volume of data being transferred out of Amazon S3. Larger data transfers typically result in higher costs.
• Destination of the transferred data: Amazon S3 charges different rates for data transfers depending on the destination. Transfers within the same region or to Amazon Web Services (AWS) services usually have lower fees compared to transfers across regions or to non-AWS services. Egress costs can vary depending on the specific region where the data is being transferred from and the destination of the data.
• Data transfer speed: Faster data transfer rates often come with higher costs. Businesses that require high-speed data access or transfers may face higher egress costs.

Egress costs can get expensive quickly, but S3 alternative, Telnyx Cloud Storage, removes that hurdle

Storing data in the cloud is half the battle—modern, rich experiences and applications are built around serving files and content to users across the internet.

Unfortunately, Amazon S3 charges a premium for this critical functionality, which severely limits the scaling ability of applications and experiences built on S3. A comparison of egress fees between Amazon S3 and Telnyx Storage is shown in the table below:

A Comparison of Cloud Object Storage Providers

It’s clear that egress costs can significantly impact a business's overall cloud storage expenses. By understanding and optimizing egress costs, you can better manage your cloud storage budget and avoid unexpected expenses. By swapping to Telnyx Storage, you can even bypass these costs entirely.

Get started with Telnyx Cloud Storage today

Enjoy our scale-friendly free tier by signing up for a Telnyx account and logging into the Mission Control Portal. Telnyx offers 24/7/365 support, and our developers have created straightforward API documentation that includes a quickstart guide and step-by-step tutorials so you can create your storage application.

Talk to a cloud storage expert today to learn more.

Amazon S3 pricing retrieved from aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing on 11/18/2022. All Amazon S3 prices assume data is stored in US-East-1 (Ohio) using S3 Standard storage class. Telnyx Storage pricing retrieved on 12/15/2022.

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You may have learned by now that Telnyx Cloud Storage doesn't charge anything for egress fees, but what does this really mean for your business? In this article, we'll discuss what S3 egress costs are, how they're calculated, and the exact cost benefits of swapping to Telnyx Cloud Storage from Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). If you missed it, we also shared an introduction to Telnyx Storage.

According to Cloudwards research, cloud infrastructure services generated over $330 billion in revenue in 2024, with data transfer fees representing a significant portion of unexpected cloud costs for many organizations.

Egress fees are one of the most misunderstood and frustrating aspects of cloud pricing. Organizations often don't realize the true cost of moving data out of the cloud until they receive an unexpectedly large bill. Corey Quinn, Cloud Economist, The Duckbill Group

What are egress costs?

Egress costs, in the context of cloud storage services, refer to the fees incurred when data is transferred out of the storage service to another location, service, or end-user. These costs are an important aspect of using cloud storage solutions, as they can significantly impact the overall expense of managing and accessing stored data.

According to The Information, AWS customers have reported unexpectedly high bills due to egress fees, with some organizations seeing data transfer costs exceed their actual storage costs.

How are S3 egress costs calculated?

Amazon S3 calculates egress costs based on several factors:

• Amount of data transferred: Egress fees depend on the total volume of data being transferred out of Amazon S3. Larger data transfers typically result in higher costs.
• Destination of the transferred data: Amazon S3 charges different rates for data transfers depending on the destination. Transfers within the same region or to Amazon Web Services (AWS) services usually have lower fees compared to transfers across regions or to non-AWS services.
• Data transfer speed: Faster data transfer rates often come with higher costs. Businesses that require high-speed data access or transfers may face higher S3 egress costs.

For detailed pricing, see the official AWS S3 pricing page.

S3 egress cost comparison: How providers stack up

Storing data in the cloud is half the battle. Modern, rich experiences and applications are built around serving files and content to users across the internet.

Unfortunately, Amazon S3 charges a premium for this critical functionality, which severely limits the scaling ability of applications and experiences built on S3.

The real cost of S3 egress fees

To put S3 egress costs in perspective, consider this example:

If your application transfers 10TB of data per month from S3:

• S3 egress cost: 10,000 GB × $0.09 = $900/month
• Telnyx egress cost: 10,000 GB × $0 = $0/month

That's $10,800 per year in savings on egress alone, not including the lower storage costs.

Why zero-egress providers are gaining traction

The frustration with S3 egress costs has driven demand for alternatives. Providers like Telnyx, Cloudflare R2, and Wasabi have built their business models around eliminating or minimizing egress fees.

For organizations using tools like rclone or MinIO Client for data migration, switching to a zero-egress provider can be straightforward thanks to S3-compatible APIs.

It's clear that egress costs can significantly impact a business's overall cloud storage expenses. By understanding and optimizing egress costs, you can better manage your cloud storage budget and avoid unexpected expenses. By swapping to Telnyx Storage, you can bypass these costs entirely.

Get started with Telnyx Cloud Storage today

Enjoy our scale-friendly free tier by signing up for a Telnyx account and logging into the Mission Control Portal. Telnyx offers 24/7/365 support, and our developers have created straightforward API documentation that includes a quickstart guide and step-by-step tutorials so you can create your storage application.

Talk to a cloud storage expert today to learn more.

Pricing data sourced from provider websites. Amazon S3 prices assume US-East-1 region and S3 Standard storage class.