Block storage pricing starts with the capacity you provision, but the monthly bill can also include additional performance, snapshots or backups, and chargeable data transfers. The amount depends on the provider, the volume type, and how the storage is used. Data growth and how long you retain recovery copies affect month-to-month costs.
Block storage gives applications an addressable storage volume that can host a file system or database. Companies use it for operating systems, relational databases, virtual machines, and applications with frequent reads and writes.
Some services include a published performance allowance in the capacity price. Others charge separately for additional input/output operations per second (IOPS) and throughput. Snapshot and backup support also varies by service. These differences make the volume rate only one part of the total cost.
This article reviews the main block storage charges, compares Atlantic.Net SBS—available in Orlando and Dallas—with AWS gp3 pricing, and provides an itemized monthly worksheet. Two worked scenarios show how steady storage, capacity growth, and longer snapshot retention affect the bill.
What Makes Up A Block Storage Bill?
Provisioned Capacity
Capacity charges depend on the service’s billing model. With a provisioned-capacity service, you pay for the volume size you allocate throughout its billable lifetime. A partially filled volume can therefore cost the same as a full volume of the same size and type.
Keep three figures in your estimate: provisioned capacity, written data, and expected growth. Provisioned capacity determines the volume charge. Written data helps estimate the initial backup or snapshot footprint. Growth determines when you will need additional capacity and how much recovery data you may retain.
Record the units carefully. A gibibyte (GiB) is 1,073,741,824 bytes, while a decimal gigabyte (GB) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Providers do not always use those labels consistently. Preserve each service’s published units until you have confirmed its billing definition.
Separately Billed IOPS and Throughput
IOPS measures the number of storage operations completed per second. Throughput measures the amount of data transferred per second. Applications with small, frequent operations and applications reading large sequential files can place different demands on the same volume.
Check how much performance the capacity price includes and whether additional provisioned performance has a separate charge. Provisioned IOPS billing covers the performance you reserve; it does not mean every completed operation incurs a transaction fee.
For example, AWS gp3 includes 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s of throughput in its capacity price. Additional provisioned IOPS and throughput have separate rates. The AWS gp3 specifications also describe single-digit millisecond latency and sustained provisioned performance without burst credits. Labels such as Standard or Premium do not establish common performance tiers across providers.
Snapshots And Backups
Check whether the selected service supports snapshots, what its backup package covers, and how each feature is priced. Possible charges include retained data, backup software or management, additional copies, and restoration features.
Incremental snapshots can retain multiple versions of changed blocks. Their storage footprint depends on the data written between snapshots and the recovery points you keep. The number of snapshots alone is insufficient to calculate the bill.
A backup service can have its own pricing and operational scope. Confirm the protected volumes, destination, schedule, retention period, and restore procedure before adding its cost to the worksheet.
Transfers, Optional Features, And Discounts
Transfer and operation charges depend on the provider, service, and data path. Cross-region copying, internet transfers, specialized snapshot APIs, and accelerated recovery features deserve separate checks. Include a fee only when the selected configuration uses a chargeable service.
Apply discounts to the items they actually cover. A capacity discount does not apply to transfers, backups, or support. Record the commitment period and any minimum spend alongside the saving.
A Monthly Block Storage Cost Formula
Use this structure for the estimate:
Monthly cost = capacity charge + separately billed IOPS + separately billed throughput + snapshots/backups + chargeable transfers + other stated fees − applicable discounts.
Where the service prorates charges, multiply the billable quantity by its unit rate and the fraction of the month it exists. Apply the provider’s billing increments and minimum charges. If the quantity changes, calculate the periods separately and add them together. For snapshots, use the retained billable data over time.
The calculator should retain the following information besides its rates:
| Input | What to Record |
| Service and location | Provider, volume type, region, and number of volumes |
| Price reference | Published pricing source, currency, measurement date, and billing units |
| Billing duration | Month length, resource lifetime, minimum charge, and prorating rules |
| Capacity and growth | Initial volume size, written data, expansion size, and expansion date |
| Performance | Provisioned IOPS and throughput, included allowances, and additional rates |
| Recovery | Backup coverage, snapshot schedule, changed-block volume, retention, and destination |
| Other charges | Chargeable transfers, optional operations, support, and applicable discounts |
| Exclusions | Every material cost omitted from the estimate |
Mark unavailable services and excluded costs explicitly. An omitted backup cost is visible as an exclusion so a volume subtotal isn’t mistaken for the full storage bill.
Comparing Atlantic.Net SBS and AWS Gp3 Pricing
Atlantic.Net Secure Block Storage (SBS) includes performance within its published volume limits in the capacity price. AWS gp3 includes a baseline allowance and charges separately for additional provisioned IOPS and throughput. The following configurations show how those pricing models affect a monthly volume bill.
Rate reference: Published prices checked October 18, 2026; USD; one full illustrative 30-day, 720-hour month. The SBS comparison uses Orlando, Florida (USA-EAST-1); SBS v2 is also available in Dallas, Texas (USA-CENTRAL-1). AWS uses US East (N. Virginia), us-east-1. No discounts or credits are applied.
Our SBS service page provides the Atlantic.Net rate and service limits. The September 22, 2026 Dallas launch announcement also confirms the $0.10 per GB-month rate in USA-CENTRAL-1. The AWS rates come from its regional gp3 price comparison, which explicitly identifies N. Virginia.
| Item | Atlantic.Net SBS | AWS EBS gp3 |
| Capacity in this example | 500 GB | 500 GiB |
| Capacity charge | 500 × $0.10 per GB-month = $50.00 | 500 × $0.08 per GiB-month = $40.00 |
| IOPS assumption | Published maximum of 7,500 IOPS per volume | 6,000 provisioned IOPS; 3,000 included |
| Additional IOPS charge | Included within the published SBS limits | (6,000 − 3,000) × $0.005 per IOPS-month = $15.00 |
| Throughput assumption | Published maximum of 300 MB/s per volume | 300 MiB/s provisioned; 125 MiB/s included |
| Additional throughput charge | Included within the published SBS limits | (300 − 125) × $0.04 per MiB/s-month = $7.00 |
| Volume and Performance Subtotal | $50.00 | $62.00 |
| Backup or snapshot coverage | Separate backup method required; cost excluded from this comparison | Snapshot storage is additional; calculated in the scenarios below |
SBS Availability And Backup Coverage
Atlantic.Net SBS v2 is available in USA-EAST-1 (Orlando, Florida) and USA-CENTRAL-1 (Dallas, Texas), following the Dallas rollout announced on September 22, 2026. SBS volumes can be moved between Cloud Servers within the same region, but cannot currently be moved directly between regions.
Atlantic.Net SBS does not currently support on-demand snapshots, and standard Cloud Server backups do not cover attached SBS volumes. Customers can still protect their SBS data using a separate backup solution, available through Atlantic.Net’s sales team. Backup costs are additional to the SBS volume price.
The snapshot pricing examples below apply to AWS EBS only, as SBS does not currently offer an equivalent snapshot feature.
How Snapshot Retention Changes The Bill
AWS EBS takes an initial snapshot of the volume’s written data blocks. Later snapshots retain changed and newly written blocks. A 500 GiB volume with 200 GiB of written blocks can therefore start with a 200 GiB snapshot footprint in this simplified model.
Keeping more recovery points can preserve older versions of those blocks. Deleting an EBS snapshot removes only data that no remaining snapshot needs. Shared blocks remain stored and billable, so deleting one recovery point does not guarantee a proportional reduction in cost.
How Performance Affects Storage Costs
Use a representative workload to determine which limit needs attention. Small random operations can expose an IOPS or latency constraint; large sequential reads can expose a throughput constraint. The attached instance and workload configuration can also limit results.
Record I/O size, read/write mix, concurrency, test duration, and caching behavior. Where a service uses burst credits, test sustained demand beyond the burst period. Don’t apply that assumption to a service like gp3, which doesn’t use burst credits.
Interpret latency percentiles correctly:
- P50 is the latency at or below which 50% of requests complete.
- P95 is the latency at or below which 95% complete; the remaining 5% are slower.
- P99 is the latency at or below which 99% complete; the remaining 1% are slower.
Compare these measurements with the application’s response-time requirements before increasing provisioned performance. Raising an IOPS setting will not resolve every storage-related delay.
Control Growth, Retention, And Migration Costs
Regularly review provisioned capacity and performance against demand. Allow enough headroom for predictable growth, then reassess after expansions, temporary jobs, and application changes. For server plans that bundle storage with compute, compare the full configuration price if obtaining more storage also requires different compute resources.
Give retained volumes and recovery points an owner and an expiry policy. Check the provider’s deletion behavior when you stop or remove a server. With EBS, deleting a volume does not delete its snapshots, so you need to review retention for those copies separately.
A storage migration budget should cover four items:
- Overlapping resources: Source and target volumes during testing, cutover, and the required rollback period.
- Data movement: Applicable transfer, copying, and temporary-service charges.
- Recovery protection: A supported backup or snapshot method, verified coverage, and a restore check.
- Cleanup: Removal of obsolete resources after validation and the applicable retention period.
The source and destination services determine which migration and recovery methods are available. For SBS, recovery planning requires a separate backup method because native SBS snapshots are unavailable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does A Low Capacity Rate Mean A Low Monthly Bill?
The final amount depends on the complete configuration. Compare capacity, purchased performance, recovery copies, and any applicable transfer or optional-feature charges using the same workload assumptions and billing period.
Does Every Block Storage Service Charge For Each Read Or Write?
No. Check the specific service. A provisioned-performance charge and a per-operation fee are different billing models. Specialized snapshot APIs or other optional services can have their own operation charges.
Will Shorter Snapshot Retention Reduce Costs Immediately?
Savings depend on which blocks remain referenced by retained snapshots and when expired copies are removed. Additional retention rules can delay deletion. Check the resulting billed footprint after changing a policy, and preserve the recovery history the application requires.
Are Archive Snapshots Automatically The Cheapest Option?
Compare the full retention and restore cost. For example, EBS Snapshot Archive converts an incremental snapshot to a full snapshot, charges for retrieval, and requires a 90-day minimum retention period. Its lower storage rate must be weighed against those conditions and the required recovery time.
What The Pricing Comparison Shows
Capacity, performance, and recovery copies each affect block storage costs. The worked examples show how capacity expansion raises the volume charge and how longer snapshot retention adds to the recovery-storage footprint. Clear units, regional rates, and billing periods make those calculations reproducible.
Atlantic.Net SBS includes performance within its published volume limits, while AWS gp3 charges separately for provisioned IOPS and throughput above its included allowances. The $50 and $62 volume subtotals use different capacity units and performance assumptions, so they do not establish equivalent application performance. SBS availability and its separate backup requirements also matter when assessing the cost.
Atlantic.Net Secure Block Storage for current pricing and service details, including the Dallas expansion.
Written by
Robert is a regular contributor and blogger for Atlantic.Net living in Northeastern Pennsylvania who specializes in various information technology topics. He brings over 30 years of IT experience to the table with a focus on backup, disaster recovery, security, compliance, and the cloud.
