Here’s a quick tip for reducing S3 storage costs without changing your application code.
Enable Intelligent-Tiering
S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves objects between access tiers based on usage patterns. Objects not accessed for 30 days move to infrequent access storage.
After 90 days without access, objects move to archive tiers. Access patterns that resume move objects back automatically.
Cost Calculation
Standard storage costs $0.023/GB in US East. Intelligent-Tiering costs the same for frequently accessed data, plus a small monitoring fee of $0.0025 per 1,000 objects.
Infrequent access tier costs $0.0125/GB, nearly 50% savings for dormant data.
Implementation
Enable via bucket properties in the S3 console. New uploads automatically use the configured storage class.
Existing objects require lifecycle rules or batch operations to convert.
When to Skip
Buckets with consistently accessed data see no benefit. The monitoring fee adds cost without savings.
Very small objects (under 128KB) should use Standard storage due to minimum size charges.
