Test Report Storage Costs Getting Out of Control? Here's the Fix

You set up an S3 bucket to store test reports. Smart move—now you have historical data. Six months later, the storage bill is 10x what you expected. Sound familiar?

The Hidden Cost of “Just Store It”

When teams outgrow CI artifact storage, the natural solution is cloud storage:

- name: Upload to S3
  run: aws s3 cp ./test-results s3://test-reports/${{ github.sha }} --recursive

Simple. Effective. And a ticking time bomb for your cloud bill.

Why Storage Costs Compound

Unlike compute (which stops billing when idle), storage bills accumulate:

Month	New Reports	Total Stored	Monthly Cost*
1	50 GB	50 GB	$1.15
3	50 GB	150 GB	$3.45
6	50 GB	300 GB	$6.90
12	50 GB	600 GB	$13.80
24	50 GB	1.2 TB	$27.60

*S3 Standard pricing at $0.023/GB

That’s assuming steady growth. Teams that scale up CI runs or add more test suites see exponential increases.

The Playwright Problem

E2E testing frameworks like Playwright make storage costs explode. A typical Playwright setup generates:

Screenshots on failure: 200KB–2MB each
Video recordings: 5–50MB per test
Trace files: 10–100MB per test run

A team running 100 E2E tests across 3 browsers, 4 times per day:

Artifact Type	Size per Run	Daily	Monthly
HTML Report	5 MB	20 MB	600 MB
Screenshots	50 MB	200 MB	6 GB
Videos	500 MB	2 GB	60 GB
Traces	200 MB	800 MB	24 GB
Total	755 MB	~3 GB	~90 GB

That’s 90 GB per month from one project. Most teams have multiple. And nobody wants to disable recordings—they’re essential for debugging flaky tests.

DIY Cleanup: Harder Than It Looks

“We’ll just write a cleanup script.” Famous last words.

Lifecycle Rules Look Simple

<LifecycleConfiguration>
  <Rule>
    <Expiration>
      <Days>90</Days>
    </Expiration>
    <Filter>
      <Prefix>test-reports/</Prefix>
    </Filter>
  </Rule>
</LifecycleConfiguration>

But Reality Is Messy

Problem 1: One-size-fits-all doesn’t work

Your main branch test reports are critical for debugging production issues. Feature branch reports are disposable after merge. S3 lifecycle rules can’t distinguish between them without complex prefix schemes.

Problem 2: Accidental deletion

A misconfigured rule deleted 6 months of production test history. Now you’re explaining to leadership why you can’t investigate that customer-reported bug from Q2.

Problem 3: Cost visibility

Which project is eating all the storage? S3 doesn’t tell you without additional tooling (CloudWatch, Cost Explorer tags, third-party analytics).

Problem 4: Access control

Who can view reports? S3 bucket policies are notoriously tricky. Teams end up either too permissive (security risk) or too restrictive (people can’t access what they need).

What Teams Actually Need

After talking to dozens of engineering teams, the requirements are clear:

Automatic cleanup - Old reports deleted without manual intervention
Per-project control - Different retention for different projects
Predictable costs - Know what you’ll pay before the bill arrives
Easy access - Browse and share reports without S3 permissions
No maintenance - No scripts to write, debug, or update

How Gaffer Solves Storage Costs

Gaffer is purpose-built for test report hosting. Storage management is built in, not bolted on.

Automatic Cleanup by Default

Every plan includes automatic cleanup based on your retention period:

Plan	Default Retention	Storage Included
Free	7 days	500 MB
Pro	30 days	10 GB
Team	90 days	50 GB

Old reports are automatically deleted. No lifecycle rules to configure. No scripts to maintain.

Per-Project Retention

Not all projects are equal. Configure retention per-project:

Feature branch tests: 7 days (auto-cleanup after merge)
Main branch tests: 90 days (debug production issues)
Compliance projects: Unlimited (paid plans can disable cleanup)

# Your CI stays simple
- name: Upload to Gaffer
  uses: gaffer-sh/gaffer-uploader@v2
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.GAFFER_API_KEY }}
    report-path: ./test-results

Retention is configured in the Gaffer dashboard, not your CI pipeline.

Predictable Pricing

Go over your storage limit? Simple overage billing at $0.50/GB. No surprise bills, no complex pricing tiers.

Example scenario:

Team plan: 50 GB included
Actual usage: 65 GB
Overage: 15 GB × $0.50 = $7.50 extra

Compare that to debugging S3 cost spikes across multiple buckets and projects.

Cost Visibility Built In

See storage usage per project in your dashboard:

Which projects use the most storage?
How is usage trending over time?
Where should you enable more aggressive cleanup?

No CloudWatch dashboards or Cost Explorer tags required.

Migration Is Painless

Already have test reports in S3? You don’t need to migrate anything:

Add Gaffer upload to CI (5 minutes)
New reports go to Gaffer automatically
Old S3 reports stay where they are (or delete them to save costs)
Over time, Gaffer becomes your source of truth

Your S3 bucket can run down naturally while Gaffer handles new reports.

When to Keep S3

Gaffer isn’t the right fit for everyone:

Raw build artifacts (binaries, packages) → Keep in S3/artifact storage
Compliance archives requiring specific certifications → Use compliant storage
Existing tooling that depends on S3 paths → Evaluate migration cost

For test reports specifically—HTML reports, JUnit XML, JSON results—Gaffer is purpose-built and cost-optimized.

The Bottom Line

S3 is great for general-purpose storage. It’s not optimized for test reports.

Concern	S3 DIY	Gaffer
Automatic cleanup	Manual lifecycle rules	Built-in
Per-project retention	Complex prefix schemes	Dashboard toggle
Cost predictability	Varies with usage	Fixed + simple overage
Access control	Bucket policies	Team-based permissions
Setup time	Hours to days	5 minutes
Maintenance	Ongoing	Zero

Get Started

Stop watching storage costs climb. Gaffer’s automatic cleanup keeps your test report storage predictable, with per-project controls when you need them.

Control Your Storage Costs - Free