Azure Blob Storage vs Cloudflare R2
Cloudflare R2 is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | Azure Blob Storage | Cloudflare R2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | $0.018/GB-mo | $0.015/GB-mo | 1.2× Cloudflare R2 |
| Data transfer out | $0.087/GB | Free | — |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | — |
Source: Microsoft pricing (May 2026) · Cloudflare pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | Azure Blob Storage | Cloudflare R2 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $9.06 | $0.30 | Cloudflare R2saves $8.76/mo (97%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $96 | $7.50 | Cloudflare R2saves $89/mo (92%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $906 | $30 | Cloudflare R2saves $876/mo (97%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
Azure Blob Storage
by Microsoft
Microsoft's object store with hot, cool, cold, and archive tiers. Moving between tiers carries its own transaction cost that is easy to miss when modelling the bill.
Free tier: 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months
Cloudflare R2
by Cloudflare
S3-compatible storage with no egress charge at all, at any volume, permanently. For read-heavy workloads it is not marginally cheaper than S3 but cheaper by an order of magnitude.
Free tier: 10 GB-month of storage, plus zero egress fees at any volume
Common questions
- Is Azure Blob Storage or Cloudflare R2 cheaper in 2026?
- Cloudflare R2 is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between Azure Blob Storage and Cloudflare R2?
- Cloudflare R2 does not charge for data transfer out at all, while Azure Blob Storage charges $0.087 per GB. On a read-heavy workload that difference is the entire comparison.
- Which has the better free tier, Azure Blob Storage or Cloudflare R2?
- Both publish one. Azure Blob Storage: 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months. Cloudflare R2: 10 GB-month of storage, plus zero egress fees at any volume.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.