That's true but OP clearly knows that already. You stop getting charged for storage as soon as the object is marked for expiration, not when the object is final

That's true but OP clearly knows that already. You stop getting charged for storage as soon as the object is marked for expiration, not when the object is finally removed at AWS's leisure. You can check the expiration status of objects in the metadata panel of the S3 web console. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/lifecycle-expire-general-considerations.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/lifecy... > There may be a delay between the expiration date and the date at which Amazon S3 removes an object. You are not charged for expiration or the storage time associated with an object that has expired.