Hello and welcome to another Cloudwards video.
My name is Mauricio and today I’ll be walking you through cloud storage pricing.
Finding the right cloud storage service is exhausting enough as it is, even without all
the complicated pricing plans added on top.
That’s why I put together this nifty little cloud storage cost comparison to help you
guys get the most value for your dollar.
This video is part of our series on the basics of cloud storage, so if you want to get notified
when the next one comes along, please subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon.
Coming up we’ll look at some of the cheapest cloud storage plans available, to find the
best value cloud services.
And as a bonus, we’ll look into some of the best free plans out there, too.
Now let’s get into it.
When deciding which cloud storage to get, price is usually one of the first things to
take into account.
But it’s not just the price you need to look at.
After all, there’s no point in getting a cheap cloud service if it doesn’t have all
the features you need.
If you’re one of those people that thinks cloud storage is just for keeping your pictures,
you can check out this video here where I go over all the benefits of cloud storage.
But in general, what you wanna look for is a secure cloud service that has good sharing
features and apps that are easy to use.
That’s the basics anyway.
Some of you might need productivity or collaboration tools thrown in there as well, or even integration
with your other office apps, but those are more niche uses.
I’ll give you a little spoiler here: Sync.com is the cheapest cloud storage service in terms
of pure pricing, and it also gives you excellent value in terms of features you get for the
cost.
Before we dive deeper into Sync.com, we’ll look at two runners-up first, just to keep
you in suspense.
But before we jump in, there’s one thing I’d like to note.
As with most online services, you’ll always get a better deal by subscribing for longer.
Now, cloud storage is something that you don’t wanna change frequently, so longer plans make
a lot of sense.
But also, Sync.com, our top choice, only comes with yearly payment plans.
That’s why we’ll be comparing prices with yearly discounts taken into account for each
service, to sort of level the playing field.
So let’s jump right in, shall we?
Icedrive is a pretty young cloud storage service that’s been turning heads, thanks to its
excellent security and affordable plans.
It offers zero-knowledge encryption, which basically guarantees that only you can ever
access your files, though that only applies to one folder in your storage.
I also love its interface which is probably the most modern-looking I’ve seen in a cloud
storage service.
Icedrive has three pricing plans.
The cheapest one gives you only 150GBs of storage, but if that’s enough for your needs,
it’ll run you less than a cup of coffee each month.
Its 1TB plan takes the cake for me, though, costing just over $4 per month.
There’s also a 5TB plan for all you storage hogs out there, though it’s a bit more expensive,
coming in at $15 a month.
You can watch our full review of Icedrive here if you want to learn more about the service.
pCloud has always been a favorite of mine for a number of reasons.
It offers a ton of useful features, like an account-wide rewind that can roll back all
your files in case they get corrupted by malware.
It even comes with a cloud backup utility, too.
Like Icedrive, pCloud also offers zero-knowledge encryption, though unfortunately, you have
to pay extra for it.
pCloud’s plans come in two sizes -- 500GB and 2TB.
The smaller one doesn’t quite offer enough value, and is almost as expensive as Icedrive’s
1TB plan, which has double the storage.
But its 2TB one is one of the cheapest out there, costing only $8.33 per month.
The obvious caveat here is that zero-knowledge encryption isn’t included in the price.
You can check out our pCloud review here if it caught your attention.
And finally we come to our number-one cloud storage
deal -- Sync.com.
It’s no secret that we love Sync.com at Cloudwards, and it very often tops our cloud
storage lists.
It’s our choice for the best cloud storage overall, and you can watch that video here
if you’re interested.
What sets Sync.com apart is that it offers zero-knowledge encryption across the whole
platform, so all of your files are covered, not just the ones in a designated folder.
It also offers this free of charge.
Besides the air-tight security, you can also open and edit Microsoft Office documents,
including Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Add to that some really amazing sharing capabilities, and you’ve got a real powerhouse for secure
collaboration.
Now for the best part.
Sync.com comes at a bargain-bin price, especially considering everything you’re getting for
the money.
It comes in two flavors -- 2TB and 6TB.
The 2TB plan is the star of the show, costing only $8 per month.
The 6TB plan is a little overkill for most users, and it costs $20 a month.
Not the best value when you consider Icedrive gives you a cheaper deal on its 5TB plan,
though admittedly that’s 1TB less.
Our Sync.com review video goes into more detail, so check that out if you’re interested.
One important footnote is that pCloud and Icedrive come with lifetime cloud storage
plans.
You can see them compared in this video here, but basically, they’re the same as the regular
plans, except you only make one payment for them.
For both services, the lifetime plans offer arguably the best value.
This is because you only pay something like three years worth of cloud storage up front,
so after those three years are up, you’re basically getting cloud storage for free.
Now let’s take a quick look at some free cloud storage options.
We have a separate video on this subject, so check that out if you want a deeper look
into free cloud storage.
All three of the services we talked about offer free plans.
Unfortunately, Sync.com loses out here since its free plan is only 5GB and its best features
are restricted to the paid plans.
pCloud and Icedrive both give you 10GB of storage.
However, as I already mentioned, with pCloud you have to pay extra for zero-knowledge encryption
and Icedrive gives you that for free.
Google Drive offers a pretty large free plan, too, with 15GB of storage.
As with anything Google, you sacrifice a bit of privacy, but if you don’t care about
that, it’s good enough for government work.
But the largest free plan is decidedly the one from MEGA.
You get 20GB of storage and it comes with zero-knowledge encryption for all of your
files.
That’s it for today’s video, I hope you enjoyed it.
If you found the video helpful, please give it a thumbs up, I’d really appreciate that.
If you want to see more content like this, subscribe to the channel and hit the bell
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If you have any thoughts on the services we talked about today, feel free to drop us a
comment, we’d love to hear your feedback.
As always, thank you for watching.