S3 Lifecycle → Cost Estimator
Compare 4 lifecycle strategies across S3 Standard, Intelligent-Tiering, Standard-IA, and all three Glacier classes. Model transition costs, minimum-duration penalties, 128KB object floor, retrieval fees, and 3-year TCO with 2026 pricing.
📐 Storage Workload Profile
Configure your bucket: total data, object count, average object size, and the data age distribution that determines how much data transitions through lifecycle tiers.
🎯 Lifecycle Strategy Comparison
Click a strategy to see its cost breakdown. All strategies assume data starts in Standard and transitions based on access age.
| Cost Component | Monthly | Annual | 3-Year |
|---|
■ Storage ■ Lifecycle Transitions ■ Retrieval ■ Min-Duration Penalty ■ Monitoring
📊 All Strategies — 3-Year TCO Comparison
| Strategy | Monthly Storage | Transition Cost | Retrieval/Yr | Penalty/Yr | Monthly Total | 3-Year TCO | vs Standard |
|---|
How S3 Lifecycle Pricing Actually Works
S3 charges for storage at the per-GB-month rate of whatever class the object currently occupies. A lifecycle rule moves objects between classes at specified age thresholds — the transition itself costs a small per-request fee ($0.01-0.05 per 1,000 objects). The hidden costs: minimum storage duration charges (Standard-IA = 30 days, Glacier classes = 90-180 days — delete or transition an object before the minimum and you pay for the full minimum period), 128 KB minimum billable size (IA/Glacier classes bill every object as at least 128 KB regardless of actual size — storing 10 KB objects in IA costs 12.8× what the per-GB math suggests), and retrieval fees (Glacier classes charge per-GB to retrieve data, from $0.0025/GB bulk up to $0.03/GB expedited). S3 Intelligent-Tiering automates the Standard↔IA transition for $0.0025 per 1,000 objects/month, eliminating lifecycle management but not changing the underlying storage costs.