Which storage provider should I use?

All three work the same way once connected, and you can change your mind later. The differences that matter to a photographer are what you pay to store the work and what you pay when a client downloads it.

Prices below were checked in October 2026 and are for comparison, not a quote. Each name links to the provider's own pricing page.

Backblaze B2

Around $6.95 per TB a month, the cheapest of the three, with no minimum storage duration and the first 10GB free. Downloads are free up to three times what you store each month, then charged by the gigabyte.

The catch. That download allowance is generous but it is not unlimited. If you keep 200GB of finished work and a busy month has clients pulling 600GB of it, you start paying. Backblaze also needs one extra click the others do not: a bucket starts out refusing uploads sent straight from a browser, so you open CORS Rules on the bucket and pick the "share with this one origin" option. We show you the address to paste.

Wasabi

Around $7.99 per TB a month with no download fees and no request fees at all, however much your clients pull. Setup is the simplest of the three, and it allows browser uploads without the extra step the other two need.

The catch, and it is a real one for this work. Wasabi bills a minimum of 1TB a month whether you use it or not, so a photographer storing 80GB pays the same as one storing a terabyte. It also has a 90 day minimum storage duration: delete a gallery after three weeks and you are still billed for it as though it sat there for ninety days. If your habit is to deliver and then clear things out, that bites.

Amazon S3

Priced per GB with charges for downloads beyond the first 100GB a month, and for requests. It is the most expensive of the three for this kind of use and the fiddliest to set up, because permissions go through IAM.

Worth it when. You already run on AWS, or you need something the others do not have. If neither is true, the other two are cheaper and quicker.

So which one

If you want one answer: Wasabi. It is what the setup page picks for you, and it is the only one of the three that lets your browser upload with no extra permissions step at all. One flat fee covers your first terabyte, nothing is charged when your clients download, and there is no meter to watch.

Pick Backblaze B2 if you are starting small and would rather pay only for what you use. Under a terabyte it is dramatically cheaper: 200GB is under two dollars a month against Wasabi's eight, there is no minimum, and the first 10GB are free. The trade is one extra screen during setup and a download allowance you have to keep half an eye on.

Pick Amazon S3 only if you already run on AWS. It is the most expensive of the three for this and the fiddliest to set up.

Where this stops being cheaper

Somewhere around five or six terabytes, an unlimited plan wins on price and keeps winning. If you keep every frame you have ever shot online forever, metered storage will cost you more than a flat unlimited tier, and we would rather you heard that from us than worked it out in a year's time.

What you get for the difference is the thing the price does not show: the archive sits in an account with your name on it. An unlimited plan is unlimited until the terms change.

Whichever you choose, the account is yours. If you leave ArchiveSend the files stay where they are and we lose our keys, which is the point of the arrangement. There is more on that in why your files live in your own account.