Just to help give me a general idea, I’ve been running some approximate numbers to compare costs between Storj and S3, given the new minimum usage fee to consider.
Cost Comparison: S3 Cheaper Until vs. Storj Presuming ~5% Egress (retrieval & outbound data transfer, us-west-2)
S3 Storage Class
$5 Storj Fee
$0.50 Storj Fee
S3 Glacier Instant Retreival
~887 GB
~88 GB
S3 Standard-IA
~380 GB
~38 GB
S3 Standard
~215 GB
~21 GB
I could be wrong, but it’s fairly close I suspect. Big caveat is the ~5% egress presumption, totally will depend on usage, but seems appropriate to me for backup type scenarios in my experience. These seem to be about the breakpoints as far as I can tell (S3 cheaper until around these amounts).
If a customer would be happy paying cash cow amounts, it’s rather unlikely they will not be able to spend five bucks (plus some hundreds or thousands of dollars of software engineers’ time) on testing.
UPDATE:
Based on the feedback from the community we have decided to move forward with two adjustments:
Go forward with the 60 day implementation period instead of 30
We will be completely removing the minimum fee for users paying in STORJ. This of course will not address many of the issues discussed in the post above but we want to do this as a commitment to the community and those who have supported this project.
Official communication about these changes will be coming in the next day or two via email to account holders.
Link to the Storj token page from the Storj home page
On the Storj token page you already mention exchanges. Suggestion is to add some swap services too where users can purchase STORJ with credit card and send them to their Storj account without the hassle to open account with an exchange, KYC etc. It should be plain and simple then to obtain STORJ tokens and send them to the account address.
With the root causes unsolved, will there be new changes on the horizon soon?
Thank you for a quick reaction. This makes me back down from account deletion. I’ll reenable backups and other application data within the next few days.
Great, just made a deposit for enough STORJ to keep my usage funded for the foreseeable future
Looking forward to continued dialogue on possible solutions. As you can read from many of the reactions, the community seems very committed to a solution.
Oh so you are just here to argue? Well please continue that part without me. If you have more questions I am happy to help.
Edit: You might still be reading the announcement wrong. You paniced because you thought the June invoice will contain the 5$ minimum fee. That was never the case. The only thing that has changed is that according to the new announcement even the July invoice will not contain the 5$ minimum fee. The first invoice that will contain it will be the August invoice that should go out around the 4th of September.
This is very puzzling. The reasons $5 was deemed necessary are supposedly still there. But now anyone can just pay in tokens and not only avoid $5 fee but get 10% discount on top. And now everyone has a strong incentive to do so, unlike before, when people would overpay 10% just to avoid messing with crypto.
So all you did now is ensure you will get paid 10% less
Then what’s the point of having that $5 in the first place? It can’t be just cost of payment processing — and yet that’s the only variable now.
This is very inconsistent. The right approach would be to address the root cause, such as
no dedicated support for small accounts, use forum
jack up segment fee? Tiered segment fee?
Fair use transaction cap, after which charge the cost of transactions?
What’s for sure, solving the issue by arbitrary imposing different surcharges on different payment methods cannot be a long term solution
sadly… any company i worked for that has been working with vc or has been taken over completely has gone to shit. and … i hate it when that happens to good companies…
I’ve worked with a couple companies that did well after selling to VCs: so I could see them expanding Storj so they were selling enough used-space to survive.
I kinda want Storj to be bought by Amazon: and rebranded to “S3 Community Edition”. Then pay all the SNOs with Amazon Gift Cards/Credits instead
As a customer, I use Storj primarily for backups, and as an operator, I cover my monthly usage fees using the earnings generated from operating Storj. So this particular update doesn’t directly affect me.
However, I find it encouraging and reassuring that the Storj team takes the time to explain plans in detail and genuinely listens to user feedback.
Of course, no service can cater perfectly to everyone’s preferences, but I truly appreciate your ongoing efforts to create a better environment for all users. I’ve recommended Storj to several of my colleagues in the medical field, and a few hospitals have already adopted it based on my suggestion. Please continue providing your excellent service for a long time to come — thank you!
I’m the existing customer since 2017 and participated in early tests when storj storage was slow and glitchy. I upgraded my account to paid in 2022 and added $200 via cryptocurrency and Storj tokens (which you converted to USD).
I use Storj as very long term backup of my personal projects data (~50GB).
I only update my backups once a month so it doesn’t put a strain on your resources.
My monthly payment is around $1 and I expected to use storj for years with my current balance, but enforcing $5 monthly will ruin my backup strategy and centralized S3 storages would cost me less than storj. I am technically experienced and do not need your support, as the forum and knowledge base are enough for me.
So, I have the following questions:
I’ve never used any recurring payments or credit card, I only once refilled my balace with crypto in 2022 adding $200. Will you start draining my balance with $5 per month starting from August?
I’ve also added STORJ tokens via “Add STORJ Tokens” option in billing panel, but you automatically converted it to USD, will this amount be charged $0.5 per month instead of $5 ? If not, what the point of token option in billing ?
Do you feel that my use of Storj (as described above) is generally a burden to you?
I don’t think that changes anything. You did nothing wrong. Rather or not the company thinks you are a burden is their problem isn’t it?
Edit: You can find the latest update from Bryanm by scrolling to the top. He updated his first post in this thread and added the latest update to the end of it.
So, community member flagged it. “System” just hid it until moderator takes a look. There is no point in re-posting: either the post was OK and will be unhidden, and now you have a duplicate; or it was not – in which case the second post will be also flagged.
That said, I don’t see anything wrong with the quoted text of your post – to be entitled, to overreact, or speak in grotesque absolute terms all for $5 is not a crime. But I wonder, what does your username “sjsucks” mean? Perhaps its the reason?
Looking that you joined less than a week ago, and only participate in threads related to fees – I kind of guess what it is; in this case — yes, that’s the reason your post was flagged. Surpiringly, just that your post. Maybe the person flagging did not bother looking for other posts.
I see a new bill with status “paid”, but still see this message when trying to delete my account: "There’s some recent usage on your account that hasn’t been paid yet."
As a user who keeps few GBs of backup and actively using the network while pays only with Storj I am concerned if I am misusing it or abusing it in a way I am not aware if this is harmful. Can you at least create some knowledge base on the ways it is abusive to use the network? Proper configuration or backup / data storing patterns which would lead to a health & sane use at least for the percentage of users who try to be on the good side of things here?
As a node operator who provide a disproportionate bigger volume of data storage versus data usage, I don’t understand why I can be a bottleneck in the network. Providing 7TB of storage to store 70GB isn’t something someone could justify it to me a minimum charing cost.
Update: the period has been extended by August 1, 2025 and the minimum fee for STORJ token payments has been waived.
Please note that the minimum fee will not apply to invoices for June 2025 and July 2025 and will apply to invoices beginning in September 2025 for prior month usage less than the minimum fee. If there is zero usage or you prepay via a partner or pay with STORJ token or the invoice is greater than or equal to the minimum amount, there is no minimum fee.
