Are you running out of hard drive space? In that case, you might be wondering about migrating some of your files to the cloud. But because you’re unsure of how much is cloud storage and its pricing, you’re too hesitant to begin. Don’t be afraid – cloud storage pricing usually isn’t too high.
In fact, many turn to this solution to save money on additional physical storage. Because let’s be real – SSDs can have eye-watering prices that go beyond our budgets. Yet, HDDs are slow and noisy, making them bad for large file transfers or pretty much anything else.
Thus, the best solution remains cloud storage. But what is the price of cloud storage and is it worth your money? For now, we’ll say its price is low and yes, it IS worth the money in 90% of the cases. We’ll examine some of the most famous cloud storage options to prove that to you, as well.
This way, you’ll have a clear and comprehensive overview of how much the service costs on average.
Which Factors Influence the Cloud Storage Pricing?
To start this guide, we need to talk about several factors that influence the price of cloud storage. You’ll frequently see, let’s say, a 2 TB option in one provider that costs way less than 2 TB in another provider. The question is – why do these two, at first the SAME offerings, cost differently?
Various factors influence the price, such as:
Security
If security is top-notch, you can be sure the service is going to charge you more for it. For instance, pCloud charges you for its zero-knowledge encryption additionally. While NordLocker includes this feature for “free”, it isn’t as future-rich as pCloud, so the value is, more or less, the same.
Some options include full device backups, AES-256 encryption, multiple data centers, and so on. And the more features you get, you usually have to pay a higher price. We say usually because it’s not always the case, as you’ll soon see.
Branding
Branding is another factor that influences cloud storage prices. Just look at Google Drive, iCloud, or even Dropbox. These options tend to be quite pricey, more so than pCloud, NordLocker, and other less popular options.
iCloud is used by millions and as a cloud service only, it’s lackluster. In fact, you can check our iCloud alternatives here if you’re interested. However, iCloud can seamlessly work inside Apple’s ecosystem, making it quite flexible for iPad, Mac, and iPhone users who combine all three devices.
Speed/Performance
Faster, more capable cloud storage providers will cost more. Let’s be real – slow uploads and downloads are some of the most annoying things that you can get. While pCloud is the fastest, NordLocker is a lot slower, hence its lower price in the end.
Ease of Access
Ease of access is vital for being able to use your cloud storage on any device. Having more apps for more platforms means spending a ton more money to develop and optimize them. As such, this might also influence the price to make up for the provider’s initial costs.
Storage Size
Finally, storage size is the single, most important factor that influences the cost of cloud storage. More storage means a higher price and vice versa. Unfortunately, some providers come with pretty steep pricing, which can increase dramatically based on your choice.
For instance, iCloud offers a 50 GB plan at $0.99/mo, while its 2 TB plan sits at $9.99. Yes, it’s much larger but it’s 10 times more expensive, which some people’s wallets simply can’t handle.
Cloud Storage Pricing Overview
Now that we know which factors can increase or decrease the price, it’s time to talk more about the subject matter. How are we going to answer the question of cloud storage pricing? Simply by going through several popular options and comparing their plans and prices.
We’ll address the popular storage sizes you see below, ranging from 50 GB to unlimited, making it easy to choose one based on your needs.
50-200 GB Storage
If you don’t need much space and you just want to offload some files that don’t exceed 50-200 GB in size, that’s okay. 50-200 GB of storage isn’t very popular with many providers but iCloud and a few other providers offer it. Prices are, however, very affordable.
Granted, this isn’t too much space to begin with but it’s great if you fill up your phone or PC and just need to transfer a couple more photos or videos to the cloud. Keep in mind that this cloud storage isn’t overly fast in most cases, so transfers will take a bit more than usual to complete.
Some of the popular options that offer 50-200 GB cloud storage include:
- iCloud – 50 GB at $0.99 a month, 200 GB at $2.99 a month
- Google Drive – 100 GB at $1.99 a month, 200 GB at $2.99 a month
- IDrive – 100 GB at $2.95 per year
- Icedrive Lite 150 GB – $19.99 yearly or $99 for the Lifetime plan
- OneDrive Microsoft 365 Basic 100 GB – $19.99 a year
200-500 GB Storage
Okay, so as we move on with the cloud storage cost analysis, we get to the 200-500 GB plans. And these plans are extremely popular, as you can find them in many providers out there. Let’s list some of them and see how much this cloud storage costs:
- pCloud Premium 500 GB – $54 annually or $215 for the Lifetime plan
- NordLocker 500 GB – $7.99 a month or $35.88 for the first year (annual plan)
- IDrive 500 GB – $9.95 a year
- MEGA Pro Lite 400 GB – $5.4 a month or $54 a year
500 GB to 2 TB Storage
If you find your 500 GB of storage insufficient and unsustainable in the long run, it’s time to move on to another tier. Cloud storage costs will now increase, as you need more space to store your files. However, many options in this segment still won’t charge you a fortune.
What’s more, it’s possible to find affordable large cloud storage with excellent performance, impeccable security, and impressive flexibility. Let’s take a look at how much is cloud storage when talking about 500 GB to 2 TB subscription plans.
- pCloud Premium Plus 2 TB – $107 annually or $430 for the Lifetime plan (recommended!)
- NordLocker 2 TB – $19.99/mo or $6.99/mo for the annual plan (paid upfront $83.88)
- Sync.com Solo Basic – $96 annually
- IDrive 1 TB – $19.95 annually
- iCloud 2 TB – $9.99 a month
- Google Drive 2 TB – $9.99 a month
- Icedrive Pro 1 TB – $4.99 a month or $49.99 annually
- MEGA Pro I 2 TB – $11 a month or $107 annually
- OneDrive Microsoft 365 Personal 1 TB – $69.99 annually
More Than 2 TB Storage
More serious users who have extreme needs for space will look at the most expensive cloud storage prices. Cloud storage is, generally speaking, affordable, but when talking about more than 2 TB of space, we’re bordering the Business plans which we’ll mention later.
While many providers offer more than 2 TB of storage, keep in mind that popular options like iCloud or Google Drive don’t. Or if they do, again, it’s in their Business category, with a hefty price tag that usually applies to a single user. If you multiply it with 5, 6, or more users, you get the final price.
Regardless, if you need personal cloud storage with more than 2 TB of storage, let’s look at some of the most popular options.
- pCloud Custom Plan 10 TB – $1283 for the Lifetime plan (recommended)
- Sync.com Solo Professional 6 TB – $240 annually
- MEGA Pro II and Pro III (8 TB and 16 TB) – Pro II at $22/mo or $215 annually; Pro III at $32.35 a month or $323 annually
- IDrive Personal 5 TB, 10 TB, 20 TB, and 50 TB – $119.25, $149.25, $299.25, and $749.25 for the first 2 years (cheapest IDrive offers for respective plans)
- OneDrive Microsoft 365 Family 6 TB – $99.99 a year
- Icedrive Pro + 5 TB – $17.99 a month or $179.99 a year; Pro X 10 TB Lifetime at $999; Pro III Lifetime at $499
Unlimited Cloud Storage
The last category in our cloud storage price analysis for 2024 is unlimited storage. Yes, this one is pretty rare, and very few services will offer it. Just so you know, individual unlimited plans don’t exist, so the ones you’re seeing below are Business plans.
This will, therefore, make for a good transition to business cloud storage options that we’ll list in a minute. For now, if you really need THAT much cloud storage, you’ll be looking at options like this:
- Sync.com Teams+ Unlimited – $180 a user a year (minimum 2 users); Enterprise for 100+ users with a custom quote based on your needs
- Dropbox Advanced – $24/user/month or $288 annually for each respective user
- Box Business Plus, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus – $24.28, $34, and Custom price per user per month (minimum 3 users)
- OpenDrive Business – $29.95 per user each month or $299 a year for each user
Business Cloud Storage Pricing
People who don’t store multimedia on a cloud but rather focus on business-related files obviously need a proper Business plan instead. These plans are quite different than individual plans, focusing on teams, larger storage options, file sharing, file versioning, and many other features.
Business plans aren’t suitable for individuals because they usually require more than 2-3 users. This means paying quite a large price for something you won’t use. However, needs are needs, and if you’re a company owner with increased cloud storage demands, you have no choice.
Or perhaps, you do, as plenty of providers offer Business plans. But how much is cloud storage if you need it for this purpose? Well, let’s again look at some of the most notable offerings and compare their prices.
- pCloud Business 1 TB and Business Pro 2 TB – $8.62 and $17.24 per month per user (billed annually); monthly plans at $10.8 and $21.5. Both options refer to storage per user, so each user gets either 1 or 2 TB of storage.
- NordLocker 100 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB – $0.99, $3.99, and $4.69 per month, per user, billed annually; Custom plan is available.
- Sync.com 1 TB – $6 per user per month or $72 per user annually
- MEGA Business – Custom pricing based on the number of users, storage, and transfer limit; starts at $16.2 per month for a minimum of 3 users and 3 TB storage/transfer limit. Up to 300 users & 10 PB storage/transfer limit for $28,590 a month
- IDrive Team and Business – from $149.25 a year for 5 TB/5 users and $74.62 a year for 250 GB/unlimited users. Both variants offer up to 500 TB and 50 TB of space respectively, with many pricing options available on the site.
- OneDrive Business Plans – Plan 1 at $5/mo/user for 1 TB of storage; Microsoft 365 Business Basic at $6/mo/user for 1 TB of storage + other features; Microsoft 365 Business Standard at $12.5/mo/user for 1 TB of storage + more features and apps.
- OpenDrive Custom Business Plan 500-1,000 TB – $7 a month to $6,146 a month
Of course, many other business plans are available but we listed the ones we think are the best. pCloud is our recommended option here but IDrive’s 50 TB of space sounds very exciting for large teams. In the end, you be the judge and feel free to select the option you think is best for you.
Free Cloud Storage
Aside from numerous cloud storage prices, there are many free providers on the market. While we’re at that, we recently wrote an in-depth guide on how to choose a free cloud storage provider, along with our top 6 favorite choices of 2024. Free options are indeed quite popular.
However, since you’re paying nothing, in return, you don’t get as many features and cloud storage size. On average, you’re looking at 10 GB of storage, with some providers giving less, and some more. MEGA used to offer 50 GB back in the day, which was excellent at the time.
Now, with 20 GB, MEGA remains the best choice in terms of sheer size. If you think you haven’t enough money to afford a paid option, we’ll list our favorite free providers below, along with the amount of cloud space they provide.
- pCloud – 10 GB
- NordLocker – 3 GB
- iCloud – 5 GB
- Dropbox – 2 GB
- Icedrive – 10 GB
- Sync.com – 5 GB
- Google Drive – 15 GB
- MEGA – 20 GB
- Box – 10 GB
- OneDrive – 5 GB
- IDrive – 10 GB
As you can see, it’s impossible to get over 20 GB of storage for free. On average, 10 GB seems to be standard, with providers like NordLocker, iCloud, Dropbox, Sync, and OneDrive going below this limit. That’s why we recommend going for a paid option immediately to avoid any unwanted limits.
Besides, many of these providers offer a money-back guarantee, so it’s easy to get a refund if you don’t think you can pay in the long run. pCloud comes with a 10-day refund policy, while NordLocker gives you a full 30-day money-back guarantee for all of its plans.
Physical vs. Cloud Storage Prices: How Do They Compare?
Before wrapping it up, let’s quickly address physical and cloud storage options and their prices. Which is cheaper? Well, it depends on the physical storage manufacturer and cloud provider. Generally, we always recommend pCloud due to its security and speed. Check out the pCloud review for more information.
A cloud storage service like this is better than your HDD or SSD. Sure, physical storage is cheaper at the very start but you don’t have the options like syncing, automatic backups, and access to your files on any device. Unless you buy a portable drive, which is another story.
Plus, if the physical drive fails, it’s hard or even impossible to extract your data. This means you need to take care of backups and take care of your files’ security on your own. On the flip side, pCloud will replicate your files across multiple servers, so they’re always there even if one server fails.
Not to mention AES-256 encryption or even zero-knowledge encryption for superb security. And with a provider like this, you can choose from 500 GB to 10 TB of storage for a reasonable price. Just try purchasing a 10 TB SSD and you’ll see it’ll cost you hundreds of dollars with no additional benefits.
With cloud storage, you get ease of use, flexibility, security, and scalability, which physical storage simply won’t give you. And even though it might seem expensive for some people, the guarantee that your files are safely stored on a cloud alone is worth the price.
Cloud Storage Price: The Final Verdict
In this guide, we listed the cloud storage prices of popular providers. You now know how much is cloud storage in 2024, depending on your space needs. For those too lazy to read the entire thing, let’s quickly summarize the average monthly price of each storage size segment:
- 50-200 GB of storage will cost from $0.99/mo to $2.99/mo
- 200-500 GB of storage will cost from $4.5/mo to $7.99/mo
- 500-2,000 GB of storage will cost from $8.9/mo to $20/mo
- More than 2,000 GB of storage will cost from $17.99/mo and above
- Unlimited cloud storage will start from around $25/mo and above
- Business cloud storage options start at $8.62/mo per user depending on the amount of storage
As you can clearly see, you can get 50 GB of storage for as low as $0.99 a month, which isn’t such an expensive price. Up to 2 TB, you’re looking at fairly affordable pricing that pretty much anyone can fathom. However, 2 or more TB of storage will end up being more expensive for individuals.
This amount of space is usually reserved for extremely demanding users or businesses who don’t mind paying a higher price. And if you’re interested in the Business plan, keep in mind that its prices are displayed per user per month, so more users, usually means significantly higher costs.
