B2 Cloud Storage growth and feature updates

Performance and AI Workload Momentum

B2 Cloud Storage revenue reached $26.6 million in the second quarter of 2026, growing 34% year over year. This surge pushed B2 Cloud Storage annual recurring revenue to $113.3 million, an increase of 39% from the previous year. I see Backblaze focusing heavily on the AI sector, evidenced by a seven-figure annual recurring revenue deal with a frontier AI model developer for the B2 Overdrive tier. This high-throughput solution costs $15 per TB per month. This agreement validates the role of B2 in the AI infrastructure stack, following a $335 million strategic agreement with CoreWeave to provide capacity storage for AI workloads at scale. While B2 Overdrive targets organizations needing rapid data access for AI training and inference, the standard B2 tier remains an option for users seeking lower costs. Backblaze reported that ARR from customers generating $50,000 or more grew 67% year over year. During this same period, Backblaze reported a gross profit of $26.8 million, which accounts for 63% of its total revenue. The company also reported an adjusted EBITDA of $12.8 million, or 30% of revenue. I notice the company is successfully scaling with larger accounts, as the number of customers generating $50,000 or more in ARR increased by 57% year over year. B2 Cloud Storage revenue grew by 34% while Computer Backup revenue saw a 2% decrease to $16.1 million. Net loss per share was $0.08 compared to $0.13 in the second quarter of 2025. Will the massive demand for AI storage eventually overshadow the traditional backup business?

Technical Updates and Workflow Automation

The recent Winter Release adds tools to help larger organizations manage data workflows and security. Engineers added scalable application keys that allow enterprises to generate 10,000 unique data access keys per minute. This provides a 150x increase to help move massive amounts of data between endpoint networks and Backblaze B2 storage buckets. This update helps video surveillance systems and IoT device operators manage large camera deployments. I recommend using the new event notifications to trigger automated actions like media transcoding or Slack alerts when a file upload occurs. For companies migrating datasets, the custom upload timestamps feature preserves original file metadata to satisfy compliance-focused data lifecycle management. Developers can also set the minimum file part size as low as 5MB when working with large files, which gives more flexibility than the old 100MB limit. The strengthened Command Line Interface (CLI) moves credentials from disk storage to secure local caching and adds autocomplete suggestions to save time. Users can also use SHA-1 at the end of a request body to compute checksums during data streaming. To manage costs, life cycle rules allow users to set the length of time deleted files remain in a bucket before permanent deletion. Furthermore, the system supports IPv6 to help organizations avoid public IPv4 address costs and NAT complexity. Scoped application keys let administrators create access for specific prefixes within all of their storage buckets. This allows for more nuanced control access to specific groups of objects. The platform also supports syncing a Synology NAS to Backblaze B2 to create a 3-2-1 backup solution. Backblaze B2 users can use the new Backblaze Groups Management functionality to allow administrators to pay for their team’s usage or share access to accounts through Managed Groups.

Pricing and Egress Policies

Pricing for B2 Cloud Storage changed to $6.95 per TB per month on May 1. This update increased the rate from $6 per TB. While the storage cost rose, Backblaze also made all API calls free for pay-as-you-go customers on that same date. This change removes transaction costs and helps users scale high-volume workloads. I find the egress policy highly useful. B2 provides free egress up to three times the average monthly storage volume. If you manage large-scale data, check how the 3x egress multiplier affects your monthly bill. Beyond this limit, additional egress costs $0.01 per GB. Users downloading through partners like Cloudflare, Fastly, bunny.net, CacheFly, CoreWeave, Equinix Metal, Vultr, or phoenixNAP receive unlimited free egress.

Class A, B, and C API calls are free for pay-as-you-go customers. However, Class D transactions cost $0.004 per 10,000 calls, though the first 2,500 calls per day are free. For those needing even more predictable costs, B2 Reserve offers committed capacity pricing for organizations willing to sign 1 to 3 year agreements. B2 Reserve requires a minimum commitment of 20TB in 10TB increments. This tier works for organizations with stable storage needs exceeding 20TB. Both the Native API and the S3-Compatible API handle authentication, bucket management, upload, download, and list functions. The main differences involve key management, SDKs, pre-signed URLs, and file uploads. You can manage how long files remain in a browser cache using the syntax {"cache-control" : "max-age-NNN"}. Such policies work at the bucket level via the b2_create_bucket or b2_update_bucket API calls.