Which types of data transfer are free for Amazon S3?
Uploads from the internet, the first 100 GB a month out to the internet, transfer to CloudFront, and transfer to any AWS service in the same Region are free. Downloads beyond 100 GB, cross-Region transfer and every request are not. Here is the list and what it means for a team opening files in the browser.
Free S3 transfers are uploads from the internet, the first 100 GB a month out to the internet across the whole account, transfer to CloudFront, and transfer to any AWS service in the same Region. Internet egress past 100 GB is $0.09 per GB, cross-Region transfer is billed per GB, Transfer Acceleration has its own fee, and requests are always charged. Previews that read by range stay inside the allowance; bulk downloads and cross-Region replicas do not.
Four kinds of S3 data transfer are free: data transferred in from the internet, the first 100 GB a month transferred out to the internet, data transferred out to Amazon CloudFront, and data transferred from a bucket to any AWS service in the same Region. Everything else on the transfer line is metered, and requests are billed whether or not the transfer was free.
The free 100 GB is the figure that matters to a business team, because every file someone opens in a browser from outside AWS counts against it. This article lists what is free, what is charged, and how a team's file traffic maps onto the two, from the S3 pricing page as read on October 27, 2026.
The free transfers
The 100 GB allowance is per month and aggregated across all AWS services and Regions, except China and GovCloud, so S3 shares it with everything else in the account that sends data to the internet. The same-Region rule is the one that keeps application traffic free: an EC2 instance, a Lambda function or a Bedrock call reading from a bucket in its own Region pays nothing for the transfer.
- In from the internet: free, any amount.
- Out to the internet: the first 100 GB a month free, shared across the account.
- Out to Amazon CloudFront: free.
- To any AWS service in the same Region: free.
The charged transfers
Past 100 GB, data out to the internet costs $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month, with lower tiers beyond that. Transfer to another AWS Region is billed too; the pricing page's own example prices Oregon to N. Virginia at $0.02 per GB, which is what a cross-Region replica pays for every object it copies. Transfer Acceleration adds its own per-GB fee on top of the transfer. And requests, the GET, PUT and LIST calls behind every transfer, are billed per thousand regardless.
| Transfer | Charge |
|---|---|
| Out to the internet beyond 100 GB a month | $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB |
| To another AWS Region | Per GB; $0.02 in the Oregon to N. Virginia example |
| Transfer Acceleration | Its own per-GB fee plus the transfer |
| Requests on any transfer | Billed per thousand, free transfer or not |
What this means for a team opening files
A person previewing a 5 MB PDF in a browser from the office is internet egress: the bytes leave AWS. A team that opens 10,000 such files a month moves about 50 GB, inside the free allowance. A 20 GB export downloaded five times is 100 GB on its own, which is where the meter starts.
Replication is the other surprise. A copy to a second Region is cross-Region transfer on every object written, which the replication guide prices out; same-Region replication avoids the transfer charge and pays only storage and requests. The full price list, including the egress tiers past 10 TB, is in S3 pricing for business file storage.
- Browser previews: internet egress, usually within the free 100 GB.
- Bulk downloads and video: internet egress that outgrows it.
- App servers in the same Region: free.
- Cross-Region replicas: per-GB transfer on every object.
Previews that read only what is opened
BucketDesk reads files by range straight from your bucket, so a PDF preview transfers the pages being read rather than the whole object, and nothing is copied out of your account. The connection is a scoped IAM role deployed with CloudFormation, and the AWS transfer and request charges stay on your own bill at your own rates, with no markup.
Plans and pricingPreviews on the features page
Minimum is free for one bucket; Standard at $100 a month adds Office and media previews and expiring share links.
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