This is the fifth in a series of blog posts based on excerpts from our new cloud cost optimization eBook. It explores the issue of data tiers and how organizations get their cloud storage costs under control.

Distributing data between different cloud storage tiers is almost second nature to an experienced IT manager, and it’s commonplace to leverage these storage tiers as a cost-saving measure. Your most frequently accessed data goes into a high-performing “hot” tier, while archival data that you only need to access once in a great while goes into the low-cost, lower-performance “cold” storage tiers. Simple, right?

The inexpensive "cold” tier might look like an amazing deal at first, but your savings may be much less than you expect. Despite the seemingly low cost, cold storage tiers for archive data can quickly turn expensive due to the comparatively high costs of access and retrieval fees associated with these tiers.

Bait and switch: fee trouble

Cold storage tiers like AWS S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and S3 Glacier Deep Archive boast rock-bottom storage prices. Glacier Deep Archive, for example, is priced at just $1 per Terabyte per month. This is significantly lower than S3’s “warmer” tiers, which can go as high as $23/TB. This is a bit of a bait and switch, however, since these cold storage tiers are the most expensive when it comes to data access and retrieval fees.

Example of storage tier pricing from AWS

How the costs add up

While the costs of storing data on low-cost storage tiers appear small, the additional cost of data retrieval requests and data access requests enforced by AWS Glacier tiers can range from 50% to 90% of your total cost of ownership.

To illustrate the false economy, consider the cost of storing 1 PB of data for a year on S3 Glacier Deep Archive versus warmer S3 tiers. Factoring in the cost of storage and retrieval of 20% of your data, the Deep Archive tier will cost $142,000, while the Glacier Instant Retrieval tier, which has a higher monthly storage rate, will cost just $110,000.

Comparison of costs on 5 popular S3 storage tiers. Cost to recovery based on 200TB

Your data is warmer than you think

Cold storage may not be the right choice because that data you think is cold is actually fairly active. According to the 2025 Global Cloud Storage Index, only 19% of data stored in cloud object storage is considered cold, which the survey defined as “secondary storage for archive data accessed annually or less frequently, with expected performance limitations in terms of access.”

While 98% of IT decision-makers reported accessing data from archive tiers at least yearly, an astonishing 83% said they needed to access archived data—with all the accompanying access fees and performance degradation—at least monthly! Whether to meet compliance requirements, monetize old content, perform analytics, or train large language models (LLMs), ready and consistent access to archived data (i.e., active archiving) is clearly becoming a growing requirement. The added burden of cold storage access fees only creates unnecessary resistance.

Frequency of data access at the archive tier, according to the Cloud Storage Index Report 2025.

A variety of factors explain the unexpected “warmth” of that cold data. Backups, which have long been treated as passive insurance, are now subject to more frequent testing due to ransomware threats, compliance audits, disaster recovery readiness, and data analytics. As modern backup workflows shift from reactive recovery to more active cyber protection and prevention, businesses need storage solutions that allow seamless, cost-effective access—without hidden retrieval or egress fees.

The takeaway is that you should not ignore the reality of data retrieval when choosing cloud storage destinations for long-term retention. The odds are you’ll need it back sooner than you think. In the meantime, you’ll be spending more on that cheap cold storage than you anticipated.

The Wasabi difference

Wasabi offers a solution to the cold storage fee problem. Wasabi provides cloud object storage at a consistent flat rate, with no fees for API requests or egress. Wasabi’s unique price-performance makes it ideal for archival data; in the likely event that you will need to access your data for verification or restore it after an outage, data can be retrieved quickly and at no additional cost. This not only lowers your total cost of ownership but keeps costs predictable month-to-month, regardless of how your access patterns change.

Get the ultimate guide to the hidden fees that can break your budget in our latest eBook, Demystifying Cloud Object Storage Costs.