Expose Hidden Cloud Costs to Reclaim Your Budget

Traditional cloud storage bills often conceal significant operational expenses beyond the per-gigabyte rate. Egress fees, the cost to move data out of the cloud, can run from $2 to $9 per terabyte, creating a major barrier to data mobility. Many providers also charge for API calls, with costs like $0.004 per 1,000 calls for certain operations, which accumulate rapidly in active applications.

These variable costs make accurate budget forecasting nearly impossible for the 95% of IT workloads expected to be on the cloud. A lack of transparency in billing directly hinders financial planning and operational agility. Minimum storage duration fees and complex retrieval charges for tiered data add another layer of expense, surprising over 50% of finance departments. For a typical SaaS company, these costs can consume up to 12% of total revenue.

This pricing complexity creates vendor lock-in, a situation where switching providers is prohibitively expensive. Enterprises need a transparent pricing model that offers control. Understanding these hidden charges is the first step toward building a more resilient and cost-effective cloud strategy.

Achieve Digital Sovereignty with EU-Centric Storage

For European businesses, data sovereignty is a primary concern, with EU data residency being a key selection criterion. The GDPR regulates how personal data is transferred outside the EEA, requiring strict legal safeguards for any cross-border movement. Storing data exclusively in European data centers under EU governance eliminates exposure to foreign laws like the CLOUD Act.

A sovereign-by-design approach ensures compliance by keeping 100% of data within predefined European regions. This is achieved through country-level geofencing, which restricts data access and processing to certified EU facilities. This architecture provides the legal certainty required for regulated industries like finance and healthcare.

Here is how a sovereign cloud foundation benefits your organization:

• It guarantees GDPR compliance for data at rest and in transit.
• It uses multi-layer encryption with EU-controlled key management.
• It supports immutable storage with Object Lock for audit-ready retention.
• It provides a clear path to avoiding non-EU governmental data access requests.

This focus on cost-efficient European object storage directly addresses the market demand for more control over critical data assets.

Leverage S3-Compatible Architecture for Seamless Migration

Full S3 API compatibility is essential for protecting technology investments and minimizing migration risk. It allows existing applications, scripts, and backup tools to work without any code rewrites, saving hundreds of development hours. This compatibility ensures that your team can continue using familiar tools like the AWS CLI or various SDKs by simply changing the endpoint.

An “Always-Hot” storage model further simplifies operations by making 100% of data immediately accessible. This eliminates the delays and retrieval fees associated with tiered storage, where moving data from archive to active tiers can take hours. This model ensures predictable performance, which is critical for disaster recovery and analytics workloads.

The architecture is built for consistency and scale, offering strong read/write integrity for millions of objects. It avoids the fragility of complex lifecycle policies that often lead to API timeouts or unexpected restore failures. By choosing a service with deep S3 compatibility, you gain a more flexible and resilient infrastructure.

Prepare for 2025 EU Regulations Like the Data Act and NIS-2

The EU's regulatory landscape is evolving, with two key directives impacting cloud storage in 2025. The EU Data Act, fully applicable from September 12, 2025, mandates data portability to reduce vendor lock-in. It requires providers to facilitate switching by making all data, including metadata and configurations, easily transferable within a 30-day window.

The NIS-2 Directive strengthens cybersecurity requirements for essential services across the EU. It emphasizes supply-chain security, meaning organizations must ensure their cloud providers meet stringent risk management and incident reporting standards. Compliance requires a provider whose operations are built on continuous security processes, not just features added as an afterthought.

An enterprise-ready EU cloud provider addresses these regulations by design:

1. It offers open standards and exportable formats to comply with the Data Act.
2. It provides robust IAM with MFA/RBAC and supports external IdPs via SAML/OIDC.
3. It implements continuous vulnerability management and supply-chain assurance for NIS-2.
4. It operates exclusively in certified EU data centers to align with all residency rules.

This regulatory readiness provides a competitive advantage and de-risks your cloud adoption journey.

Enable Predictable Margins for MSPs and Channel Partners

For Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and resellers, predictable costs are the foundation of healthy margins. A pricing model with zero egress fees, no API charges, and no minimum storage duration is predictable by design. This allows partners to build profitable Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and archiving solutions without risking unforeseen expenses that erode their margins by 15% or more.

A partner-ready platform provides the tools needed for efficient management and growth. This includes a multi-tenant console with role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for secure client management. Automation via a full-featured API and CLI allows for seamless integration into existing workflows, reducing onboarding time by over 50%.

Recent distribution agreements with partners like api in Germany and Northamber plc in the UK expand local access for hundreds of resellers. These partnerships demonstrate a growing ecosystem focused on delivering sovereign and cost-effective cloud solutions. This momentum provides MSPs with a reliable foundation for building their service offerings and ensuring predictable margins.

Implement a 7-Point Checklist for an Enterprise-Ready Cloud

Choosing the right cloud storage provider requires looking beyond headline price figures. A truly enterprise-ready solution delivers on seven key promises that ensure performance, security, and long-term value. This checklist helps you conduct a more effective cloud storage pricing comparison and select a partner that aligns with your strategic goals.

Use these criteria to evaluate potential providers:

• 1. Advanced S3 Compatibility: Ensure support for versioning, lifecycle management, and event notifications, not just basic operations.
• 2. Resilient Architecture: Look for an “Always-Hot” model with multi-AZ replication to guarantee high availability and no restore delays.
• 3. Granular IAM and Governance: Verify support for role-driven policies, external IdPs, and a full-featured console UX for non-experts.
• 4. EU-Controlled Security: Confirm that encryption, key management, and immutable storage are all governed under EU law.
• 5. Regulatory Readiness: Check for built-in compliance with the EU Data Act and NIS-2 to future-proof your operations.
• 6. Transparent Economics: Select a model with zero egress or API fees and clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• 7. Proven Exit Strategy: Demand open standards and proven data portability to preserve your freedom of action.

By following this checklist, you can secure a cloud solution that offers more than just storage—it provides a strategic advantage. Talk to an expert to see how these principles apply to your use case.