Quick answer: the cheapest paid consumer cloud storage in 2026 is TeraBox at about $1.63 per TB per month on the 2 TB annual plan, followed by IDrive at roughly $2.00 per TB. The mainstream value picks are Google One and pCloud at $4.17 per TB on annual billing. iCloud+ and Dropbox sit at $5.00 per TB, and OneDrive works out to $8.33 per TB but bundles the full Microsoft Office suite. For object storage, Backblaze B2 leads at $6.95 per TB with generous free egress. Prices last checked July 31, 2026.
| Provider | Plan | Per TB / month | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| TeraBox | 2 TB Premium | $1.63 | Annual |
| IDrive | 5 TB | $2.00 | Annual |
| Google One | 2 TB | $4.17 | Annual |
| pCloud | 2 TB | $4.17 | Annual (lifetime available) |
| iCloud+ | 2 TB | $5.00 | Monthly only |
| Dropbox | Plus 2 TB | $5.00 | Annual |
| OneDrive | M365 Personal 1 TB | $8.33 | Annual, includes Office |
How cloud storage pricing actually works
Consumer cloud storage is sold in stepped plans, not by the gigabyte. You do not pay for 1.3 TB; you pay for the 2 TB plan. That is why cost per TB is the only honest way to compare providers: it normalizes plans of different sizes to a single number you can rank. A 2 TB plan at $99.99 per year is $4.17 per TB per month. A 1 TB plan at $99.99 per year is $8.33 per TB per month, twice the unit price for half the space.
The step structure also means the right provider changes with your capacity. At 1 TB, OneDrive looks expensive per TB but includes Office, which changes the math if you would pay for Office anyway. At 5 TB, providers without large plans drop out entirely: Dropbox Plus stops at 2 TB and the Professional tier at 3 TB, so heavy users are pushed to Google One, pCloud, IDrive or object storage. Our cost calculator handles these cutoffs automatically.
How much does 1 TB of cloud storage cost?
Expect $4 to $9 per month for 1 TB from a mainstream provider on annual billing. The anomaly is Microsoft: 1 TB of OneDrive comes only through Microsoft 365 Personal at $99.99 per year, which is the priciest per TB on our index but includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you need Office, that plan is effectively cheap storage. If you do not, Google One and pCloud give you double the space for the same money.
How much does 2 TB of cloud storage cost?
2 TB is the standard tier of the industry and the most competitive price point. Google One and pCloud both land near $99.99 per year, which is $4.17 per TB per month. Dropbox Plus and iCloud+ charge about $9.99 per month for the same capacity, or $5.00 per TB, with iCloud offering no annual discount at all. The budget options undercut everyone: TeraBox Premium works out to roughly $39 per year for 2 TB, and IDrive frequently discounts its first year steeply below its already low renewal rate.
How much does 5 TB or more cost?
Above 2 TB, the field narrows. IDrive’s 5 TB plan holds the $2.00 per TB line, making it the volume value leader among consumer services. Google One scales to 5 TB, 10 TB and beyond with per-TB rates that stay near its 2 TB pricing. pCloud tops out at 10 TB. iCloud+ reaches 12 TB for Apple households. At these sizes it is worth comparing against object storage: Backblaze B2 at $6.95 per TB with no plan steps at all often beats consumer plans for archives you rarely touch, and pairs naturally with a NAS.
Are lifetime plans worth it?
pCloud sells lifetime storage: one payment, no renewals. The 2 TB lifetime plan at $399 pays for itself against pCloud’s own annual plan in about four years, and against Dropbox in roughly 40 months. The 10 TB lifetime at $1,190 costs the same as about 20 months of Apple’s 12 TB tier. The catch is concentration risk: you are prepaying years of service to one company, and the plans only pay off if you still want the service in year five. For data you know you will keep, the math is genuinely strong, which is why pCloud lifetime deals are among the most searched storage products every year.
The costs the headline price hides
Monthly billing typically costs 20 to 25 percent more than annual on the same plan. Free tier bandwidth caps can make a cheap plan expensive in time: TeraBox throttles free downloads hard, and MEGA meters transfers dynamically. On the business side, egress is the dominant hidden cost. Moving 1 TB out of Amazon S3 costs roughly $83 to $90, while Backblaze B2, Wasabi and Cloudflare R2 charge nothing. We track these exit costs on every comparison because they decide whether a low storage price is real or a lock-in discount.
How we check prices
Every figure on this page is checked against the provider’s official pricing page, in USD, on annual billing unless noted, and stamped with the check date. We do not source prices from press releases or other roundups. When a provider changes a price, this page changes. Current stamp: July 31, 2026.
Cloud storage pricing FAQ
What is the cheapest cloud storage per TB?
TeraBox at about $1.63 per TB per month is the cheapest paid consumer option, with IDrive at $2.00 close behind. Among object storage, Backblaze B2 at $6.95 per TB is the price leader when you include its free egress allowance.
Is Google One or iCloud cheaper?
At 2 TB, Google One on annual billing is $4.17 per TB per month against iCloud’s $5.00, and iCloud offers no annual discount. iCloud wins on Apple integration, not price. See the full Google One vs iCloud comparison.
Why is cost per TB better than plan price for comparing?
Because plans come in different sizes. A $9.99 plan can hold 1 TB or 2 TB depending on the provider, which is a 2x difference in what you actually get. Dividing price by capacity puts every plan on the same scale.
Family plans and shared storage
Per-TB math changes again when storage is shared. Google One, iCloud+ and Microsoft 365 Family all let five or six people draw from one pool or one subscription, which can cut the effective cost per person by 80 percent. A six-person Microsoft 365 Family plan gives each member their own 1 TB, which works out to a fraction of the Personal plan’s rate per terabyte and still bundles Office for everyone. iCloud+ family sharing pools one allowance across the household, which suits mixed usage where one person stores 1.5 TB of photos and everyone else stores almost nothing. If you live with other people, price the family tier before anything else on this page; it is usually the single largest discount available in consumer storage, and it is advertised the least.
Monthly vs annual billing: the quiet 25 percent
Nearly every provider discounts annual commitment. Dropbox Plus billed monthly costs $11.99 against $9.99 on the annual plan, a 20 percent premium for flexibility. Google One’s monthly 2 TB rate carries a similar markup, and pCloud pushes the logic to its endpoint with lifetime pricing. The exception is iCloud+, which has no annual option at all, one reason its per-TB rate sits above Google’s despite similar sticker prices. The rule: pay monthly only while deciding whether a service fits, then switch to annual the month you stop shopping. On a 2 TB plan the difference funds a spare external drive every year.
Which way prices are moving
Consumer storage prices have been remarkably sticky for years. The 2 TB tier at roughly $100 per year has held across Google, pCloud and Dropbox while the underlying cost of disk fell steadily, which means margins widened rather than prices dropping. Movement instead happens at the edges: bigger tiers appearing, Apple reaching 12 TB, Google 30 TB, budget entrants like TeraBox resetting the floor, and AI features being bundled to justify holding prices. The practical takeaway is that waiting for a price drop on the majors is not a strategy; capacity per dollar improves by switching tiers or providers, not by loyalty. That is exactly the movement this index exists to track, and why every figure carries a check date rather than an assumption of stability.
Prices outside the United States
All figures on this index are USD list prices, and local pricing can move the rankings. Providers set regional prices in local currency, add VAT or sales tax at checkout in most jurisdictions, and occasionally run regional tiers that undercut their US pricing; TeraBox’s aggressive pricing, for example, reflects a strategy built in markets where it competes hardest. Currency swings alone can shift an annual plan’s effective cost by 10 percent between renewals for anyone paying cross-border. Three habits keep the comparison honest wherever you are: check the provider’s pricing page while signed in from your region, compare tax-inclusive totals rather than stickers, and re-run the per-TB division in your own currency, because the division is the method and it works in any denomination. The rankings above hold in most markets; the gaps between providers are what varies.