Storage Costs

Understanding storage costs helps you budget effectively and avoid service interruptions. This guide explains how to calculate costs and fund your account for Filecoin storage.

How Storage Costs Work

Storage operates on a pay-per-epoch model where you deposit USDFC tokens and set allowances that control how much the storage service can spend.

What is an Epoch?

An epoch is Filecoin’s block time, which is 30 seconds. Storage costs are calculated per epoch, ensuring you only pay for the storage time you actually use.

Pricing Components

Component	Cost	Notes
Storage	$2.50/TiB/month	Minimum $0.06/month per data set (~24.567 GiB threshold)
CDN Egress	$14/TiB downloaded	1 USDFC top-up ≈ 71.5 GiB of downloads
CDN Setup	1 USDFC (one-time)	Per data set; reusing existing data sets incurs no cost

Be aware

Per month means per 30 days here, not calendar month like a traditional storage service.

Pricing Logic:

• Storage < 24.567 GiB: Minimum $0.06/month applies
• Storage ≥ 24.567 GiB: Actual cost (bytes / TiB) × $2.50/month
• CDN data sets require 1 USDFC setup on first creation only
• CDN egress credits can be topped up anytime

Real-World Cost Examples

Example 1: NFT Collection (10,000 × 5 KiB ≈ 48.82 MiB)

// 48.82 MiB less than 24.567 GiB threshold
// Price is $0.06/month
const PRICE_PER_MONTH = 0.06;
const months = 24;
const PRICE_FOR_24_MONTHS = PRICE_PER_MONTH * 24; // 1.44 USDFC

Duration	Total Cost
1 month	0.06 USDFC
24 months	1.44 USDFC

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Example 2: User Content Platform with CDN

• Storage: 1,000 users × 100 MiB ≈ 100,000 MiB
• Traffic: 1,000 users × 100 MiB/month ≈ 100,000 MiB/month egress

const STORAGE_PRICE_PER_TIB_PER_MONTH = 2.5; // $2.50/TiB/month
const CDN_EGRESS_PRICE_PER_TIB = 14; // $14/TiB downloaded
const storageMiB = 100_000;
const egressMiB = 100_000;

// Storage: 100,000 MiB ≈ 0.0953 TiB
const storageTiB = storageMiB / 1024 / 1024;

// Egress: 100,000 MiB ≈ 0.0953 TiB
const egressTiB = egressMiB / 1024 / 1024;

// Storage cost per month: 0.0953 TiB × $2.50 ≈ $0.238/month
const storageCostPerMonth = storageTiB * STORAGE_PRICE_PER_TIB_PER_MONTH;

// Egress cost per month: 0.0953 TiB × $14 ≈ $1.334/month
const egressCostPerMonth = egressTiB * CDN_EGRESS_PRICE_PER_TIB;

// Total cost per month: $0.238/month + $1.334/month ≈ $1.572/month
const totalCostPerMonth = storageCostPerMonth + egressCostPerMonth;

// Total cost for 24 months: $1.572/month × 24 ≈ $37.728
const totalCostFor24Months = totalCostPerMonth * 24;

Cost Component	Per Month	24 Months
Storage	≈ 0.238 USDFC	≈ 5.71 USDFC
CDN Egress	≈ 1.334 USDFC	≈ 32.016 USDFC
Total	≈ 1.572 USDFC	≈ 37.728 USDFC

Warm Storage Service Approvals

Before uploading, approve the WarmStorage operator and fund your account. FWSS requires a 30-day prepayment buffer—when your balance drops below 30 days, the provider may remove your data.

Approval Components:

Component	Purpose	Formula When Adding Storage
Deposit Amount	USDFC tokens for storage duration	Total cost for desired months
Rate Allowance	Max spending per epoch (cumulative)	currentRateUsed + newRate
Lockup Allowance	30-day prepayment buffer (cumulative)	currentLockupUsed + (newRate × 86,400)
Max Lockup Period	Safety limit on locked funds	constant of 86,400 epochs (30 days)

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Detailed Calculator Guide

Learn how to calculate storage costs, required operator allowances and fund your account for future storage needs.

In this guide we will calculate the costs for a 1 GiB storage capacity for 12 months.

Step 1: Calculate Base Storage Costs

Get pricing information and calculate the cost per epoch for your storage capacity:

// Get pricing structure
const warmStorageService = WarmStorageService.create({ account: privateKeyToAccount('0x...') })

const { minimumPricePerMonth, epochsPerMonth, pricePerTiBPerMonthNoCDN } =
  await warmStorageService.getServicePrice()

// Calculate base cost per month
const bytesToStore = SIZE_CONSTANTS.GiB // 1 GiB
let pricePerMonth =
  (pricePerTiBPerMonthNoCDN * BigInt(bytesToStore)) /
  BigInt(SIZE_CONSTANTS.TiB)

// Apply minimum pricing if needed
if (pricePerMonth < minimumPricePerMonth) {
  pricePerMonth = minimumPricePerMonth
}

// Calculate per-epoch cost
const pricePerEpoch = pricePerMonth / epochsPerMonth

console.log("Monthly cost:", pricePerMonth)
console.log("Per-epoch cost:", pricePerEpoch)

Step 2: Calculate Required Allowances

Calculate cumulative allowances for your new storage, accounting for existing usage.

Understanding Cumulative Allowances

Allowances are cumulative - you must add your new storage requirements to any existing usage. This is because the WarmStorage operator needs permission to spend on behalf of all your active datasets, not just the new one. Think of it like updating a credit limit to cover both old and new subscriptions.

• Rate Allowance: Total per-epoch spending across all datasets
• Lockup Allowance: Total 30-day buffer across all datasets

// Define storage duration in months (minimum 1 month)
const persistencePeriodInMonths = 12n;

// Check if creating a new CDN dataset (creates context to determine if one exists)
const storageContext = await synapse.storage.createContext({
  withCDN: true,
  metadata: { Application: "MyApp", Version: "1.0.0" },
});
const newCDNDataSetNeeded = storageContext.dataSetId === null;

const warmStorageDefaultLockupPeriod = TIME_CONSTANTS.DEFAULT_LOCKUP_DAYS; // 30 days

// Calculate total cost and lockup needed for THIS storage addition
const cdnDataSetCreationCost = 10n ** 18n; // 1 USDFC
let totalCostNeeded = pricePerMonth * persistencePeriodInMonths;
let lockupNeeded = pricePerMonth * warmStorageDefaultLockupPeriod;
if (newCDNDataSetNeeded) {
  lockupNeeded += cdnDataSetCreationCost;
  totalCostNeeded += cdnDataSetCreationCost;
}

// Get current approval status (what's already being used)
const [approval, accountInfo] = await Promise.all([
  synapse.payments.serviceApproval(),
  synapse.payments.accountInfo(),
]);

// Calculate cumulative allowances: existing usage + new requirements
// This ensures the operator can spend for ALL your datasets
const lockupAllowanceNeeded = approval.lockupUsage + lockupNeeded;
const rateAllowanceNeeded = approval.rateUsage + pricePerEpoch;

console.log("New lockup needed:", lockupNeeded);
console.log("Cumulative lockup allowance needed:", lockupAllowanceNeeded);
console.log("Cumulative rate allowance needed:", rateAllowanceNeeded);

Step 3: Fund Your Account

Check balances, calculate deposit amount, and execute the appropriate transaction:

// Calculate deposit amount needed
const depositAmountNeeded =
  totalCostNeeded > accountInfo.availableFunds
    ? totalCostNeeded - accountInfo.availableFunds
    : 0n;

// Check if allowances are sufficient
const sufficient =
  rateAllowanceNeeded <= approval.rateAllowance &&
  lockupAllowanceNeeded <= approval.lockupAllowance;

// Verify wallet balance
const walletBalance = await synapse.payments.walletBalance({ token: TOKENS.USDFC });
if (walletBalance < depositAmountNeeded) {
  throw new Error("Insufficient USDFC balance in wallet");
}

// Execute appropriate transaction
if (!sufficient && depositAmountNeeded > 0n) {
  // Need both deposit and approval
  await synapse.payments.depositWithPermitAndApproveOperator({ amount: depositAmountNeeded });
} else if (!sufficient) {
  // Only need approval update
  await synapse.payments.approveService();
} else if (depositAmountNeeded > 0n) {
  // Only need deposit
  await synapse.payments.depositWithPermit({ amount: depositAmountNeeded });
}

console.log("Account funded successfully");

Next Steps

• Storage Operations - Storage concepts and workflows
• Storage Context - Contexts and data sets