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Calcimator

IPFS Storage Cost Calculator

Estimate IPFS pinning costs and compare against Filecoin and Arweave for decentralized storage budgeting.

Inputs

Results

Monthly Cost ($)

$4.50

Total Cost ($)

$54.00

≈ 11 cups of coffee

Total Storage (GB)30
Annual Cost ($)$54.00
Filecoin Equivalent ($)$0.04
Arweave One-Time ($)$50.00
Arweave Breakeven (months)11.1
Total Bandwidth GB120
How to Use This Calculator
  1. Enter Data Size in GB — the total amount of files, images, or metadata you need to store on IPFS.
  2. Set the Storage Duration in months for the pinning commitment.
  3. Set the Replication Factor — 3 copies is standard for redundancy; higher counts improve availability but cost more.
  4. Enter the Pinning Cost ($/GB/mo) from your provider — Pinata charges ~$0.15/GB, Web3.Storage has a free tier.
  5. Review Monthly Cost, Total Cost, and the Arweave Breakeven Months to decide between pay-per-month pinning vs. Arweave's one-time permanent storage model.

How the result changes with Data Size (GB)

Data Size (GB)Monthly Cost ($)Total Cost ($)
100,000$45,000.00$540,000.00
350,000$157,500.00$1,890,000.00
650,000$292,500.00$3,510,000.00
900,000$405,000.00$4,860,000.00

What each input means

Data Size (GB)
Total size of data to store on IPFS in gigabytes.
Storage Duration (months)
How long the data needs to remain pinned and accessible.
Replication Factor
Number of pinning nodes storing copies. 3 is standard for redundancy.
Pinning Cost ($/GB/mo)
Monthly cost per GB from your pinning service. Pinata ~ $0.15/GB, Web3.Storage ~ free (limited).

What each result means

Total Storage (GB)
Actual storage consumed including replication across nodes.
Monthly Cost ($)
Monthly pinning service cost for all replicated data.
Total Cost ($)
Total IPFS pinning cost over the storage duration.
Annual Cost ($)
Projected yearly cost at current rates.
Filecoin Equivalent ($)
Estimated Filecoin cold storage cost for comparison (~$0.0001/GB/mo).
Arweave One-Time ($)
Arweave permanent storage cost (~$5/GB, one-time payment).
Arweave Breakeven (months)
Months until IPFS pinning costs exceed Arweave one-time cost. 0 means N/A.

How this is calculated

Worked example, using the default values

  1. Identify Input Parameters
    4 parameters
    Data Size (GB) = 10, Storage Duration (months) = 12, Replication Factor = 3, Pinning Cost ($/GB/mo) = 0.15 = 4 input(s) provided
  2. Calculate Monthly Cost
    Monthly Cost = totalStorageGB * pinningCostPerGBMonth
    4.5 = $4.5
  3. Calculate Total Cost
    Total Cost = monthlyCost * durationMonths
    54 = $54
  4. Calculate Total Storage
    Total Storage = dataSizeGB * replicationFactor
    30 = 30
  5. Calculate Annual Cost
    Annual Cost = monthlyCost * 12
    54 = $54

Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators.

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