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Backup as a Service

Backblaze B2 Hidden Fees Explained: A 2025 Guide to Predictable Cloud Storage Costs

03.10.2025

10

Minutes
Thomas Demoor
CTO Impossible Cloud
Uncover the unpredictable costs in typical cloud storage bills and learn how a transparent, egress-fee-free model can reduce expenses by up to 80%.

Cost unpredictability is the number one pain point for IT leaders managing cloud storage. While initial storage rates seem low, surprise egress fees, API call charges, and complex pricing tiers make accurate budgeting impossible. Vendor lock-in further complicates exit strategies, trapping organizations with punitive data transfer costs. This guide provides a clear explanation of where these hidden fees originate, illustrating how an S3-compatible alternative with a transparent, predictable cost model can eliminate 60-80% of these expenses, enhance ransomware protection, and give you back control over your data and your budget.

Key Takeaways

  • Unpredictable egress and API fees are the primary hidden costs in cloud storage, often exceeding storage expenses by 3-5x.
  • A transparent pricing model with no egress fees, API costs, or minimum durations can reduce total cloud storage expenses by 60-80%.
  • Full S3 compatibility combined with an 'Always-Hot' architecture ensures seamless migration, eliminates restore delays, and boosts backup performance by up to 20%.

Eliminate 60-80% of Cloud Costs by Targeting Hidden Fees

Most enterprises struggle with surprise egress fees and API charges from major cloud providers. These hidden costs can exceed planned storage expenses by 3-5x in data-intensive workloads. A transparent pricing model with no egress fees, no API call costs, and no minimum storage duration eliminates these variable expenses entirely. Organizations report 60-80% cost savings when they reduce cloud data transfer costs by switching to this model.

This approach makes budget planning predictable and reliable for the first time for many IT departments. For Managed Service Providers (MSPs), this stability allows them to quote BaaS/DRaaS offerings with confidence, knowing their margins are protected from unexpected charges. Understanding these fees is the first step toward significant savings.

Achieve Predictable Budgeting with a Transparent Cost Model

A predictable cost structure is foundational to effective financial planning and achieving a lower total cost of ownership. Unlike complex tiered models, a straightforward approach ensures you only pay for the storage you use. This model is cost-efficient by design, offering a clear path to predictable cloud storage billing without financial surprises.

Key features of this transparent economic model include:

  • Zero Egress Fees: Retrieve your data as often as needed without incurring punitive charges, breaking free from vendor lock-in.
  • Zero API Call Costs: Run applications, scripts, and third-party tools without worrying about per-request charges that inflate your monthly bill.
  • No Minimum Storage Durations: Store data for any length of time without penalties, providing flexibility for dynamic workloads.
  • Predictable Margins for Partners: MSPs can build profitable, branded cloud services knowing their cost basis is stable and defensible.

This predictability transforms cloud storage from a variable operational expense into a fixed, manageable cost. Such financial control is essential for scaling operations without scaling complexity.

Ensure Seamless Migration with Full S3 API Compatibility

S3 compatibility is now a baseline requirement for any modern cloud storage alternative. True compatibility goes beyond basic operations, supporting advanced capabilities like versioning, lifecycle management, and event notifications. This ensures that your existing applications, scripts, and backup tools continue to work without code rewrites, protecting your technology investments. A fully compatible solution acts as a drop-in replacement, requiring only an endpoint change to migrate workloads.

S3 compatibility enables migration without application rewrites, reducing risk and accelerating time-to-value by over 50%. This seamless transition minimizes disruption and allows IT teams to focus on value-added tasks instead of complex integration projects. For businesses seeking an S3-compatible storage solution, this level of interoperability is non-negotiable for maintaining operational continuity.

Boost Backup Performance by up to 20% with an Always-Hot Architecture

Traditional cloud storage often relies on complex tiering policies that can cause restore delays and surprise retrieval fees. An "Always-Hot" object storage model simplifies operations by ensuring all data is immediately accessible. This architecture eliminates tier-restore delays and avoids the hidden operational costs associated with fragile lifecycle policies. Organizations have measured up to 20% faster backup performance with this consistent, low-latency approach.

The primary benefits of an always-hot model include:

  1. Instant Data Access: All objects are available for immediate read/write operations, which is critical for urgent restores and analytics workloads.
  2. No Restore Fees: Eliminating retrieval fees for accessing archived data provides significant and predictable cost savings.
  3. Operational Simplicity: IT teams no longer need to manage brittle tiering policies that can clash with changing access patterns.
  4. Application Stability: Third-party tools and backup applications remain stable with predictable, low latencies and no API timeouts.

This model strengthens recovery and auditability by ensuring data is always available without waiting periods. It provides a more resilient and cost-effective foundation for business continuity.

Defend Against Ransomware with Immutable Storage and Object Lock

With backup infrastructure now a primary target for ransomware attacks, immutable storage has become a mission-critical defense. Immutable storage with Object Lock capabilities creates a Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) state, preventing data from being altered or deleted for a defined period. This ensures that even if attackers gain access, your backup data remains secure and recoverable. This feature is a key requirement for obtaining cyber insurance in 2025.

Implementing immutable storage is a non-negotiable control for business continuity and ransomware protection. Enterprise-grade solutions also provide robust compliance certifications, such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001, to meet the needs of regulated workloads in finance and healthcare. This combination of security and compliance provides a resilient posture against modern threats.

Empower MSPs to Build Branded BaaS with Predictable Margins

For MSPs, resellers, and system integrators, predictable margins are essential for building a profitable business. A storage backend with zero egress or API fees allows partners to create their own branded Backup as a Service (BaaS) offerings with confidence. This model shifts the narrative from simply reselling a vendor's product to owning the service, complete with custom branding and margin control. The ability to offer competitive BaaS/DRaaS pricing is a significant advantage.

This partner-centric approach enables MSPs to stop reselling and start owning their cloud service asset. Multi-tenant management, API-driven automation, and a dedicated partner console provide the necessary tools to launch and manage a branded cloud service efficiently, supporting growth for North American partners.

Implement a Built-In Exit Strategy to Break Free from Vendor Lock-In

Vendor lock-in is a top strategic risk for enterprise IT leaders, driven by proprietary APIs and punitive egress fees that make switching prohibitively expensive. An effective exit strategy must be built-in from the start. Using an S3-compatible storage solution with no data transfer fees provides the ultimate freedom and data portability. This combination preserves your negotiation power and ensures long-term control over your data assets.

A platform designed with open standards is the most practical alternative to vendor lock-in. It allows you to move data freely between providers or bring it back on-premises without financial penalties, ensuring your data strategy serves your business needs-not your vendor's. This data independence is the cornerstone of a modern, resilient IT infrastructure.

FAQ

How can I calculate my potential savings by eliminating egress fees?

To calculate savings, analyze your current cloud bills to identify all charges labeled as 'data transfer out,' 'egress,' or similar. Sum these costs over a 6-12 month period to find your average. A provider with no egress fees would reduce this part of your bill to zero, representing your direct savings.

Is it difficult to migrate from a major cloud provider to an S3-compatible alternative?

Migration to a fully S3-compatible platform is straightforward. Since the API is the same, you typically only need to change the service endpoint in your application or backup software configuration. The primary challenge is the initial data transfer, which a provider with no ingress fees can simplify.

Does a 'no egress fee' model have any performance trade-offs?

No, a transparent pricing model is not tied to performance. High-performance storage can be cost-efficient by design. Look for providers that offer an 'Always-Hot' architecture, which ensures consistent low latency and high throughput for all data, delivering up to 20% faster performance for backup and recovery operations.

What compliance certifications should I look for in an enterprise-ready storage solution?

For enterprise and regulated workloads, look for key certifications like SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. These attest to the provider's commitment to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy controls.

How does a predictable cost model benefit MSPs?

A predictable cost model with no hidden fees allows MSPs to set fixed prices for their Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offerings. This protects their margins from fluctuating cloud costs and allows them to provide competitive, transparent pricing to their clients.

What is an 'exit strategy' in the context of cloud storage?

An exit strategy refers to your ability to move your data away from your current cloud provider without incurring prohibitive costs or technical challenges. Key enablers of a strong exit strategy are S3 API compatibility for interoperability and a zero-egress-fee policy to eliminate financial penalties for data retrieval.

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