Cloud Storage Pricing Compared: Annual, Lifetime, and the Free Tiers That Actually Matter
Effective $/TB varies 7ร across the major cloud-storage providers. Lifetime plans turn the calculus on its head. Here is the math for Proton Drive, pCloud, Sync.com, IDrive, MEGA, and Backblaze B2.
Effective $/TB across the audited / privacy-first providers
Effective $/TB/mo on the cheapest published tier as of 2026-04-30: IDrive Personal 5 TB at $69.65 first year โ $1.16/TB/mo (renews $1.66). Sync.com Pro Solo 2 TB at $8/mo = $4/TB/mo. pCloud annual 2 TB at $99.99/yr โ $4.17/TB/mo. MEGA Pro I 2 TB at โฌ9.99/mo (~$10.83) โ $5.42/TB/mo. Backblaze B2 at $6/TB/mo flat. Proton Drive Plus 200 GB at $3.99/mo โ $19.95/TB/mo (the price reflects E2E-by-default + Switzerland jurisdiction; Proton Family at $23.99/mo for 3 TB = $7.99/TB/mo is closer to category average).
pCloud Lifetime: the outlier
pCloud is the only mainstream provider offering lifetime plans โ a one-time payment for storage as long as the company operates. Per pcloud.com/lifetime: 500 GB $199, 2 TB $399, 10 TB $1,199. Amortised over 10 years, the 2 TB plan is roughly $0.40/TB/mo โ well below every annual competitor. The trade-off is company-continuity risk: pCloud, like any cloud-storage provider, is not refundable if it goes out of business or is acquired and shuts down. Lifetime makes sense for buyers who want predictability and accept the small probability of company-discontinuation risk.
Free tiers that actually fit a real use case
Free tiers vary 4ร by storage. MEGA Free at 20 GB is the largest E2E-by-default free tier (per mega.io/pricing). pCloud Free is 10 GB but increases to 20 GB with referrals. IDrive Free is 10 GB. Proton Drive Free is 5 GB. Sync.com Free is 5 GB. Backblaze B2 has no free tier โ it is API-priced from the first byte. None of these accommodate a primary photo library; they suit document overflow, sharing, or limited backup. The cheapest meaningful storage for a photo library is IDrive Personal 5 TB at first-year price.
Renewal vs intro pricing
Two of the providers in this comparison use intro-vs-renewal pricing: IDrive Personal renews at $99.50/yr after the first year's $69.65 (a 43% jump, per cloudwards.net analysis of idrive.com/pricing). Backblaze B2 has no intro pricing โ $6/TB/mo flat. Proton Drive, pCloud, Sync.com, and MEGA do not have intro-vs-renewal divergence on their core consumer plans โ what you pay in month 1 is what you pay in year 5.
Sources
Proton Drive pricing: proton.me/drive/pricing. pCloud pricing: pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-plans.html. pCloud Lifetime: pcloud.com/lifetime. Sync.com pricing: sync.com/pricing. IDrive pricing: idrive.com/pricing. MEGA pricing: mega.io/pricing. Backblaze B2 pricing: backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing. All URLs accessed 2026-04-30.