Backup & DR Readiness with Wasabi + Veeam: The Hidden Costs Behind Bill Shock

For MSPs, backup storage isn’t a background decision. It shows up when a customer needs a restore, when you run DR drills, and when you have to prove the backups you’re taking can actually be recovered. As data grows and ransomware pressure rises, you need cloud storage that works seamlessly with your backup platform and stays predictable enough to price services confidently, without eroding margin.

That’s what we dug into on a recent Spicy Bytes conversation with Rick Vanover, VP of Product Strategy at Veeam. The episode reinforced that resilience comes down to repeatable practices: immutable copies, off-site protection, portability, and routine validation that tells you whether you’re truly recoverable.

Where it breaks down in a lot of cloud pricing models is that day-to-day resilience work is also where the fees pile up. Costs spike around normal recovery operations, pricing gets harder to standardize, and margins take the hit.

Rick has a name for the result: bill shock.

In part 1 of this two-part series, we’re breaking down the hidden costs that create that volatility, why MSP backup and disaster recovery workloads feel it more than most, and how Wasabi supports predictable service delivery for Veeam environments.

The hidden cloud storage costs MSPs face

In the Spicy Bytes episode, the main theme was recovery readiness: the work MSPs are expected to deliver without hesitation. The problem is that many cloud storage bills become most unpredictable at exactly the moments MSPs need to do that work.

Many cloud storage providers lead with an attractive cost per TB. The issue is that storage is rarely the only line item. For backup and DR workloads, where data is written frequently and restores must be fast and reliable, fees can pile on quickly.

Common hidden costs include:

• API request charges (PUT, GET, LIST)

• Data retrieval and restore fees

• Egress charges during recovery

• Minimum object size penalties

• Replication and cross-region transfer fees

• Storage tiering complexity and performance delays

Wasabi’s 2025 Cloud Storage Index underscores how common this has become: roughly half of cloud object storage spending can go to fees rather than raw capacity, which helps explain why budgeting stays difficult even when the advertised storage rate looks low.

For MSPs delivering backup and disaster recovery services, that unpredictability creates a direct margin problem:

• Forecasting cost-to-serve gets messy

• Service pricing becomes harder to standardize

• Restore events can create cost spikes you don’t control

• Time goes to invoice triage instead of service delivery

Why these fees hit MSPs harder than most workloads

Backup and DR workloads don’t behave like passive storage. They’re active by design. The service you’re selling is recoverability, which means touching the data on purpose, on a schedule, and sometimes under pressure.

This is where most cloud pricing models become misaligned with MSP reality. The more disciplined you are, the more you pay. Core operational routines become cost centers instead of resilience enablers, including routine tasks like:

• Running restore tests and DR drills

• Validating recovery copies

• Replicating off-site

• Scanning data for malware signals

• Moving data when platforms change, infrastructure fails, or customer requirements shift

This is why the Cloud Storage Index stats around budget overruns matter in an MSP context: when organizations exceed storage budgets, it’s often not because of some rare catastrophe. It’s because normal operational behavior can get expensive fast. When readiness carries a surcharge, it puts MSP margins in a bind.

Wasabi for Veeam backups offers a predictable, lower-cost option

One of the clearest themes from Rick was that recovery depends on doing the fundamentals consistently. Predictable pricing is what makes “consistent” possible at MSP scale. Wasabi was designed to eliminate the cloud storage fee problem, especially for backup-heavy workloads.

When MSPs use Wasabi as a repository for Veeam Data Platform, the pricing model is simple and transparent:

• No egress fees

• No API request charges

• No data retrieval fees

• No minimum object size penalties

That predictability matters because it lets MSPs operate the way they need to operate:

• Back up and replicate without worrying about request charges

• Test restores and run DR drills without cost spikes

• Recover data without surprise egress bills

• Package services with stable pricing and healthier margins

It also reduces the temptation to cut corners. When costs are predictable, MSPs can standardize recovery practices across customers instead of selectively limiting validation or restore testing to avoid unexpected spend.

Key takeaways

Our Spicy Bytes conversation made it clear that MSPs can’t deliver reliable recovery on top of unpredictable storage bills. Wasabi + Veeam Data Platform gives MSPs a pricing model that aligns with how backup and disaster recovery actually work: active, routine, and non-negotiable.

But predictable economics are only half the story. The other half is freedom: the ability to place and move backup data where it makes the most sense for security, compliance, and customer requirements.

In the next installment, we’ll take a look at what freedom of choice really means for MSPs: placing data where it needs to be, moving it when conditions change, and meeting sovereignty, latency, and customer requirements without getting boxed in by rigid cloud architectures. We’ll break down the pressures driving that need and how Wasabi and Veeam give MSPs the portability and flexibility to stay resilient in a fast-changing landscape.