---
title: 'Object storage billing'
description: 'How pay-as-you-go object storage is billed per GB-hour, with an example calculation and notes on invoices, bandwidth and bring your own storage.'
url: https://www.medialab.co/support/account/billing/object-storage-billing
---

# Object storage billing

MediaLab provides different kinds of storage options for customers. The most common type is **object storage** with **pay-as-you-go billing**, ensuring you only pay for what you use.

Most subscriptions include a set amount of storage. Once that limit is reached, the pay-as-you-go rate is applied.

### Billing Model

- Storage usage is billed **per hour**.
- Monthly storage prices (per GB per month) are calculated based on **730 hours per month** (average over a year).
- Storage usage is processed hourly and charged as **GB-hour**.

### Example Calculation

If your rate is €0,03 per GiB per month:

- **1 GB stored for 1 hour** → (1 ÷ 730) × €0,03 = **€0,000041**
- **1 GB stored for 1 day** → (24 ÷ 730) × €0,03 = **€0,000986**
- **1 GB stored for 1 month** → €0,03 × 1 = **€0,03**

### Invoices

- The number of **GB-hours used** is included in the invoice.
- The **total storage usage** is shown in your account dashboard.
- Pay-as-you-go storage can be enabled or disabled by **owners** under the **Extensions** tab.

**Note:** Disabling pay-as-you-go storage does not delete any data. You may still be charged for storage already used.

### Bandwidth

Depending on your contract, bandwidth usage may:

- Be included under a **fair-use policy**, or
- Incur a **separate fee**.

### Bring Your Own Storage (BYOS)

MediaLab supports **Azure storage accounts** and **S3-compatible storage**.

- With BYOS, you use your own storage and are **not charged by MediaLab** for usage.
- See the article on **Cloud Storage Support** for details.

### Storage Units

MediaLab storage usage is calculated in binary gigabytes (GB), where 1 GB is 2^30 bytes.

This unit of measurement is also known as a gibibyte (GiB), defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Similarly, 1 TB is 2^40 bytes, i.e. 1024 GBs.