Methods and apparatus for backoff-based scheduling of storage object deletions are disclosed. A storage medium stores program instructions that when executed on a processor, obtain an indication of a collection of storage objects of a network-accessible multi-tenant storage service to be deleted in accordance with specified deletion criteria. A deletion of a storage object comprises a metadata deletion operation and one or more other operations. The instructions initiate, corresponding to at least some objects of the collection, respective metadata deletion operations at a metadata node of the storage service. If a metric associated with the metadata node meets a threshold criterion, the instructions delay, by a particular amount of time, an initiation of an operation corresponding to a deletion of another storage object.