Nothing lasts forever. In fact, some things only last two years, two months, and 14 days. That’s how long, at least, Amazon’s absurdly cheap unlimited cloud storage made it. Now that the greatest deal in tech has come to an end, it’s worth taking a fresh look at your data-stashing options.
Amazon’s Unlimited Everything plan truly was unprecedented when the company announced it in 2015, and went unmatched ever since. For $60 per year, you could keep as much as you could muster in your own private Amazon cloud locker. The industry standard, then and now, is roughly $10 per month for 1TB of space. Which is to say, twice as much as Amazon’s offering had been, with a firm cap, instead of all-you-can-cloud.
The good news? Amazon’s still comparatively cheap. While the company killed off unlimited, it still gives you 1TB for the same $60 per year, with an extra $60 for every terabyte thereafter, up 30 terabytes. Not bad! Here’s how it measures up to your other top options—especially now that Apple slashed its iCloud pricing this week.
A quick note that most of these offer lower tiers of storage/pricing, but we’re going to focus on the 1TB to 2TB range for ease of comparison, and because that should address the needs of most users. We’re also sticking with the big names, since long-term viability may be the most important factor in choosing the cloud storage that works for you.
Long the standard-bearer in cloud storage, Dropbox offers competitive pricing but also rock-solid speed and reliability. Perks include 30 days of version histories and file recovery, two-factor authentication support, and a relatively new collaboration tool, called Dropbox Paper, that you probably won’t use but looks nice.
Storage: 1TB
Annual cost: $100
Add more: If you need more than 1TB, you’ll have to upgrade from an individual Dropbox Plus plan to a Dropbox Business account. A 2TB business plan costs $150 per user per year, and you can go unlimited for $20 per user per month.
Apple’s cloud pricing has dropped dramatically over the last two years, including a deep cut at this week’s WWDC developer conference. And as with many Apple offerings, it’s most useful if you’ve bought into the rest of the ecosystem. It keeps your photos, notes, calendar, and more backed up across all of your devices—unless you use, say, and Android phone, for which there’s no official support.
Storage: 2TB
Annual cost: $120
Add more: Nope! Sorry. iCloud maxes out at 2TB, but that should be enough for most use cases, even with family sharing. Just maybe take it easy on the 4K video.
Everyone should use Google Drive. Not the paid plan, necessarily, but Google lets anyone store as many photos (up to 16MP) and videos (up to 1080p resolution) for free. Free! Toss in Google’s extremely smart machine-learning photo search powers, and it’s a true no-brainer. It also offers top-notch real-time collaboration, thanks to Google Docs and its other productivity tools. The interface isn’t exactly elegant, but at least it’s reliable. One more quick note: Before you pay up for Drive, know that it gives you 15GB of free space, in addition to all that photo and video storage, which may be all you need.
Storage: 1TB
Annual cost: $100
Add more: Can you ever. Want 10TB? That’s $100 per month. 20TB? Okay sure, $200 per month. Do you want 30TB, you madman? It’s yours for $300 per month. After that, you’re on your own.
It’s not quite as platform-limited as iCloud, but OneDrive will definitely appeal most to dedicated Windows users. And if you are one, it’s a good deal! Not only is the pricing competitive, but Microsoft also throws in an Office 365 subscription. (And vice versa; if you subscribe to Office 365, you also get OneDrive storage. The power of bundles!) The service itself, from interface to features, doesn’t blow the doors off otherwise, but if you’re firmly entrenched in Windowsworld you could surely do worse.
Storage: 1TB
Annual cost: $70
Add more: Microsoft offers a few multi-user configurations for both home and business, including an unlimited plan for $120 per year per user. That one doesn’t come with Office 365, but that’s still a solid deal.
Oh hello, Amazon. As we’ve said, it’s still cheap, just not quite as cheap. You’ve got some key factors to consider outside of just price, though. First, are you an Amazon Prime member? If so, you’ve got unlimited photo storage at your disposal, so do that. Yes, even if you’re already storing them in Google Photos or iCloud or wherever. The more important question, though, might be how prepared you are to live with Amazon’s stripped down cloud interface. It’s fine, just basic, which for novice users may be handy but could frustrate people who like to fiddle.
Storage: 1TB
Annual cost: $60
Add more: You can add another TB for an extra $60 year, up to 30TB. At that size, the savings really kick it; it’s half what Google charges for the same amount of space.
This post has been updated to reflect that Dropbox business pricing starts at $150 per user per year for 2TB.
