Effective November 12, 2024, AWS will discontinue previous generation AWS Snowball devices and both Snowcone devices (HDD and SDD). We will continue to support existing customers using these end-of-life devices until November 12, 2025. The latest generation AWS Snowball devices are available for all customers. For more information on the specific devices and alternatives, read the blog.
With AWS Snowball, you pay only for your use of the device and for data transferred out of AWS. There are two ways to pay for AWS Snowball: on-demand and committed upfront pricing.
On-demand pricing includes a service fee per job, which includes a specific number of free days of device use, a per-day fee for every additional day you use the device before sending it back to AWS, and a shipping fee to return the device to AWS. The service fee and per-day fee may vary by AWS Region and depends on which of the two Snowball device types you choose: Storage Optimized 210TB, Compute Optimized with EC2 Compute. The shipping fee varies based on standard carrier rates.
AWS Snowball offers monthly, 1-year usage commitments for Edge compute use cases. With these long-term deals, you pay upfront to use the Snowball device(s) at a discounted rate, and you avoid paying any additional service fees, per-day fees or shipping fees for that device until your prepaid period ends. You can sign up for committed upfront pricing in the AWS Snowball console when you order a Snowball device.
Pricing details
Service fee per job
There is a one-time setup fee per job ordered either through the Snowball console or jobs accessed through JMAPI (API) from the command line service (CLS). AWS does not count shipping days towards the included 15 days based on the device type. AWS only charges you based on the full days the device is at your physical location and we do not charge you for the day the device arrives or the day the device is shipped back to AWS. Pricing is listed by AWS Region in the tables below.
Per-day fee
Depending on the Snowball Edge device selection and job configuration, the first fifteen (15) days of onsite usage are included in the service fee. If you keep the device longer than the free onsite usage period, then you incur a fee for each additional day you keep the device. The per day fee is listed by AWS Region in the tables below.
Monthly fee
AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized with EC2 and AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 210TB can be ordered under monthly pricing plans. No additional charges such as Service fee per job, per-day fees apply. For Snowball devices ordered under the Monthly fee pricing plan, your AWS account will be charged at the beginning of the month for the Snowball device use until the device is returned to AWS. AWS prorates first month’s charges. Pricing is listed by region in the tables below.
Committed upfront fee
If you plan to use a Snowball device for one year or more and want to pay the device fees up front for a discount compared to Monthly or on-demand pricing, you can choose to pay for a Snowball device with a committed upfront fee. We will charge you the upfront fee when you receive the Snowball device and you will not pay any additional service fees or per-day fees for that device until the prepaid period ends. Pricing is listed by region in the tables below. Shipping charges are included in the 1 year committed upfront fee pricing plan. When the prepaid period ends, you will have an option to renew Snowball device in 1 year increment. Device Cycling fee may apply if you request to replace a Snowball device during your 1 year Committed upfront period.
Data transfer
Data transfer IN to Amazon S3 is $0.00 per GB (except for small files as explained below).
Data transfer OUT of Amazon S3 is priced by region. See data transfer OUT pricing by region in the table below.
Note workloads with millions of small files (less than or equal to 1 MB) can lead to higher Amazon S3 charges (S3 PUT costs for S3 import jobs or S3 GET costs for S3 export jobs).
If this applies to you, contact our Sales team to evaluate your needs. Data storage fees apply and are not included in Snowball pricing. See Amazon S3 pricing page for storage cost details.
Shipping
Shipping charges are calculated based on standard carrier rates for the shipping location and shipping option you choose (e.g. 2-day, overnight). Please review the AWS Snowball Edge shipping documentation for details of carriers and shipping options for your region. In-country shipping charges apply to Snowball devices ordered with on-demand pricing.
Other AWS service charges
You are charged standard request, storage, and data transfer rates to read from and write to AWS services including Amazon S3 and AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Read about considerations when working with Amazon S3 storage classes in our documentation. For S3 import jobs, data transferred from your Snowball device to S3 are billed at standard S3 charges, e.g. S3 capacity cost, S3 PUT costs, and others. You are also charged standard rates for Amazon CloudWatch Logs, Amazon CloudWatch Metrics, and Amazon CloudWatch Events.
Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snowball
Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snowball can be ordered only under Monthly or 1-Year Committed Upfront Fee pricing plans for Snowball Edge Compute optimized devices for local compute and storage jobs. When you select to add Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snowball on the AWS Snowball console, you are charged for storage based on the usable S3 capacity (per GB) you picked at the time of job ordering. The charge per GB per month is $0.01 or $0.12 per GB per year. There are no charges for S3 API actions against your S3 objects and buckets on AWS Snowball devices. Your AWS account will be charged at the beginning of the month for the Snowball device use until the device is returned to AWS. AWS prorates first month’s charges.
EKS Anywhere on Snowball
Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscription is a pre-requisite for enabling EKS Anywhere on Snowball. To learn more about EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscription, click here.
Pricing for Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 210TB
| Region | On-Demand Job Fee for up to 100TB (includes 15 days) | On-Demand Job Fee for 101TB to 210TB (includes 15 days) | On-Demand Per Day Fee (beyond 15 days of use) | Monthly Fee | 1 year Commitment Upfront Fee |
| US East (N. Virginia) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| US East (Ohio) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| US West (Oregon) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| US West (N. California) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| AWS GovCloud (US-Gov-East) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| AWS GovCloud (US-Gov-West) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Canada (Central) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| South America (Sao Paulo) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (Frankfurt) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (London) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (Paris) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (Ireland) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (Milan) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| EU (Stockholm) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Africa (Cape Town) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Singapore) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Sydney) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Tokyo) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Osaka) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Jakarta) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Mumbai) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Asia Pacific (Seoul) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
| Middle East (UAE) | $1,800 | $3,200 | $250 | $9,885 | $97,268 |
* Note: Upfront fee for full 1 year and 3 years results in per day discount. Please contact the AWS Sales team to obtain this pricing.
Pricing for Snowball Edge Compute Optimized with EC2 Compute instances
| Pricing Dimension | AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized – Monthly Pricing* |
AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized – 1 Year Commit Upfront Pricing* |
| Up to 104 vCPUs, 416 GB RAM | $5,038 per month | $37,960 per year |
* Note: If you would like to convert your Snowball Edge Compute Optimized with EC2 ordered under On-Demand pricing to either Monthly or 1-Year Upfront Commitment Pricing plan, please contact your AWS Sales Team or open a case with AWS Premium Support.
Data Transfer pricing - all Snowball device types
| Region | Data Transfer OUT Pricing |
|---|---|
| US East (N. Virginia) | $0.03 per GB |
| US East (Ohio) | $0.03 per GB |
| US West (Oregon) | $0.03 per GB |
| US West (N. California) | $0.03 per GB |
| AWS GovCloud (US-Gov-East) | $0.03 per GB |
| AWS GovCloud (US-Gov-West) | $0.03 per GB |
| Canada (Montreal) | $0.03 per GB |
| South America (São Paulo) | $0.04 per GB |
| EU (Ireland) | $0.03 per GB |
| EU (Frankfurt) | $0.04 per GB |
| EU (London) | $0.03 per GB |
| EU (Paris) | $0.04 per GB |
| EU (Stockholm) | $0.03 per GB |
| EU (Milan) | $0.03 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) | $0.05 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Jakarta) | $0.04 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Mumbai) | $0.04 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Osaka) | $0.04 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Seoul) | $0.05 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Singapore) | $0.05 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Sydney) | $0.04 per GB |
| Asia Pacific (Tokyo) | $0.04 per GB |
| Africa (Cape Town) | $0.05 per GB |
| Middle East (UAE) | $0.04 per GB |
Pricing examples
You would pay a service fee for one device ($1,800) plus round trip shipping. You would not pay additional per-day fees, as long as you load the device with your data in less than fifteen days, and ship it back to AWS.
The total cost of importing 80 TB to AWS would be $1,800 for the service fee, plus shipping. There are no data transfer fees, since data import is free, and no per-day fees, since you used the device for 15 days or less.
Additional service charges to expect as part of your overall AWS bill include: Amazon S3 storage fees, Amazon S3 PUT, and KMS charges if applicable. See the pricing pages for Amazon S3 and AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to learn more.
Suppose you use the Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 210TB device for 20 days total onsite, including the days that the device arrived and the day you shipped it out. You would pay a service fee for one device ($3,200) plus round trip shipping. Since the day the device arrives and the day you ship it out do not count towards the 15 days included in the service fee, you would pay per-day fees for 20 total days on site minus 15 days included for use minus 1 day shipping to you minus 1 day shipping back to AWS equals 3 additional days at $250 per-day for a total of $750 (3 x $250) in per-day fees. Since you are exporting data, data transfer OUT of Amazon S3 fees apply ($0.05 / GB * (125 TB * 1,024GB)) = $6,400).
The total cost would be $10,350, plus shipping (Service fees of $3,200 + per-day fees of $750 + Amazon S3 data transfer OUT fees of $6,400 + shipping).
Additional service charges to expect as part of your overall AWS bill include: Amazon S3 storage fees, Amazon S3 GET costs, data transfer OUT costs, and KMS charges if applicable. See the pricing pages for Amazon S3 and AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to learn more.
You would pay a service fee for one device ($3,200) plus round trip shipping. You would not pay additional per-day fees, as long as you load the device with your data in less than fifteen days, and ship it back to AWS.
The total cost of importing 150 TB to AWS would be $3,200 for the service fee, plus shipping. There are no data transfer fees, since data import is free, and no per-day fees, since you used the device for 15 days or less.
Additional service charges to expect as part of your overall AWS bill include: Amazon S3 storage fees, Amazon S3 PUT, and KMS charges if applicable. See the pricing pages for Amazon S3 and AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to learn more.
Suppose you have a 6 month project to collect drone footage in the field and are using EC2 instances on your Compute Optimized device to process the footage for a quick analysis.
You order a Snowball Edge Compute Optimized device under Monthly Pricing plan (e.g. 104 vCPU configuration) at a monthly fee of $5,038 and receive it on Sep 15, 2022. On Oct 1, 2022 you will see a pro-rated charge for partial use in Sep 2022 of $2,519. Additionally on Oct 1, 2022 and beginning of every month from there on you will be charged $5,038 each month until Snowball Edge Compute optimized device is returned to AWS. There are no additional fees shipping or for running EC2 compute on the device.
Suppose 6 months into your deployment you choose to replace the Snowball device for convenience (e.g. you want to use the latest version) and request AWS to send a replacement Snowball Edge Compute Optimized (up to 104vCPU, 416GB RAM) device.
AWS will support your request but will charge your account a Device Cycle Fee to equivalent to 1 month fee to prepare and ship you a replacement device.
Loss fees
If an AWS Snowball device is lost or irreparably damaged while it is in your possession – after delivery and before the carrier accepts the appliance for return delivery – you will be charged loss fees as noted below. Loss fees also apply if you do not provide the appliance to the carrier for return to us at our request.
Appliance Type Lost Device Fees
- Snowball Edge Compute Optimized $20,000
- Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 210TB NVMe $80,000
Device Cycling Fee
If you request to swap or replace a Snowball Edge device under 1 Year Commit Pricing Plan for any reason other than hardware or a software issue attributed to AWS Snowball service, you may be charged a Device Cycling Fee. This Device Cycling Fee is determined as the Monthly fee (for Snowball Edge Compute Optimized) or On-Demand Job Fee for your configuration.
Additional pricing resources
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