Cloud Storage Pricing Comparison 2026: Cost per TB, Free Tiers & Egress Fees

Q: Which cloud storage gives the most free space?

TeraBox offers 1 TB free, by far the largest, but it is ad-supported with throttled downloads and a 4 GB per-file cap. MEGA's 20 GB is the largest unconditional free tier, followed by Google Drive at 15 GB.

Cloud storage prices compared (checked July 2026): cost per TB across Google One, OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud, MEGA, pCloud, TeraBox, IDrive, Sync.com — plus S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi and R2 egress fees, and what it really costs to move 1 TB out of each cloud.

Introduction

Every price on this page was checked against the provider's official pricing page on July 14, 2026 (USD, annual billing unless noted). Beyond the usual free-tier and per-TB comparison, we also compare what no other pricing roundup tracks: the exit cost — egress fees, transfer quotas and download caps you hit when you try to move your data OUT of each cloud.

The short answer for 2026: the cheapest paid consumer storage is TeraBox at ≈$1.63/TB/month (2 TB Premium, annual) followed by IDrive at $2.00/TB/month; the biggest free tier is TeraBox's 1 TB (ad-supported, speed-capped) with MEGA's 20 GB the largest no-strings free plan. For object storage, Backblaze B2 ($6.95/TB) is the cheapest, but the bigger cost trap is egress: moving 1 TB out of Amazon S3 costs about $83, while R2, Wasabi and B2 (within allowance) charge $0.

Consumer cloud storage: free tiers and price per TB

Prices checked July 14, 2026, USD, annual billing. Per-TB figures use each provider's standard personal tier.

Provider	Free storage	Price per TB/month	Plan behind the math	Best for
TeraBox	1 TB	$1.63	Premium 2 TB, $3.25/mo annual	Max space per dollar (ads, speed caps)
IDrive	10 GB	$2.00	Personal 5 TB, $119.88/yr (1st yr $83.88)	Cheapest backup-grade storage
Sync.com	5 GB	$2.80–6.00	Pro Solo 5 TB $14/mo · 1 TB $6/mo	Zero-knowledge privacy
Google One	15 GB	$4.17	Premium 2 TB, $99.99/yr (2026 promo: $49.99 first year)	Workspace users; now includes Google AI Plus
pCloud	up to 10 GB	$4.17 or $399 lifetime	Premium Plus 2 TB, $99.99/yr · lifetime one-off	Lifetime plans (breakeven ≈ 4 years)
MEGA	20 GB	≈$4.50	Pro I 2 TB, €99.99/yr	Most no-strings free space, E2E encryption
Dropbox	2 GB	$5.00	Plus 2 TB, $9.99/mo annual	Sharing, integrations, 50 GB transfers
iCloud+	5 GB	$5.00	2 TB, $9.99/mo (no annual discount)	Apple ecosystem
OneDrive (Microsoft 365)	5 GB	$8.33	M365 Personal 1 TB, $99.99/yr	Bundled Office desktop apps

Quick takeaway: if you only compare dollars per terabyte, TeraBox and IDrive win by a wide margin — but TeraBox monetizes its free tier with ads and heavy download throttling, and IDrive is a backup product more than a sync drive. Among the mainstream sync services, Google One and pCloud tie at $4.17/TB/month, and pCloud's $399 lifetime 2 TB pays for itself against Google One in about four years. OneDrive looks expensive per TB until you count the bundled Office apps.

Object storage: price per TB and the egress trap

For backups, NAS offload and developer workloads. The monthly price is only half the story — egress (what you pay to download or migrate your own data) is where the providers differ most.

Service	Storage per TB/month	Egress pricing	Cost to move 1 TB out
Backblaze B2	$6.95	Free up to 3× stored data/mo, then $0.01/GB	$0 (within allowance)
Wasabi	$7.99	No egress or API fees (fair use: egress ≤ storage)	$0
Cloudflare R2	$15.36 ($0.015/GB)	$0 egress, small per-operation fees	$0
DigitalOcean Spaces	$5 base (250 GB + 1 TB egress included)	$0.01/GB beyond included 1 TB	≈ $0–10
Amazon S3 Standard	$23.55 ($0.023/GB)	$0.09/GB after 100 GB/mo free	≈ $83

Quick takeaway: at list price, storing 1 TB on S3 Standard costs more per month than three of its rivals combined — and it is the only service here that charges ~$83 to take that terabyte back out. If your data may ever need to leave, B2, Wasabi or R2 remove the exit toll entirely.

The real cost of leaving each cloud (the number nobody publishes)

Consumer clouds advertise "no egress fees" — true, but they meter your exit in other ways: transfer quotas, download speed caps and clunky export tools. Here is what actually happens when you try to move 1 TB out of each service (checked July 2026):

Cloud	Egress fee	Real exit friction
Google Drive / Photos	$0	Google Takeout splits exports into archives (max 50 GB each) with download links that expire; API transfers are unrestricted
OneDrive	$0	Large batch downloads get zipped and size-limited; consumer API throttles sustained transfers
Dropbox	$0	Lowest friction of the majors; folder downloads capped at 20 GB/10k files per zip, API clean
iCloud	$0	Highest friction: no public file API; Apple's data-export process can take days
MEGA	$0	Transfer quota: free accounts get a few GB per ~6-hour window; even Pro I caps total transfer at 2 TB/month
TeraBox	$0	Free downloads are heavily speed-capped with a 4 GB per-file limit; bulk exit effectively requires Premium
pCloud	$0	No cap on your own account traffic (only shared-link traffic is metered)
Degoo	$0	Free tier caps downloads at ~3 GB/day and has no desktop app — see our Degoo → Google Drive escape guide

This is the gap CloudsLinker exists for: it transfers cloud-to-cloud over data-center bandwidth, so quota windows, speed caps and expiring export links stop being your problem — you don't download anything to your own device. See CloudsLinker pricing (traffic-based, from free).

Provider notes (all prices checked July 14, 2026)

TeraBox — cheapest per TB, with strings

Free 1 TB; Premium 2 TB at $3.25/mo (annual) ≈ $1.63/TB/mo (official plans). The free terabyte is ad-supported, download-throttled and capped at 4 GB per file. Popular as a receiving vault: see TeraBox → Google Drive and Google Photos → TeraBox.

IDrive — cheapest backup-grade storage

Personal 5 TB at $119.88/yr = $2.00/TB/mo, with 30% off the first year ($83.88 ≈ $1.40/TB/mo) (official pricing). Snapshot-style backup with sync as a secondary feature.

Sync.com — zero-knowledge, cheap at scale

1 TB at $6/mo or Pro Solo 5 TB at $14/mo (annual) = $2.80/TB/mo at the 5 TB tier (official pricing). End-to-end encrypted by default; GDPR/PIPEDA compliant.

Google One — the mainstream default, now with AI bundled

Free 15 GB (shared with Gmail/Photos); Premium 2 TB at $99.99/yr = $4.17/TB/mo, with a 2026 first-year promo at $49.99 (official plans). 2 TB subscribers now get Google AI Plus benefits at no extra cost. Migrating in or out: Google Drive → iCloud, MEGA ↔ Google Drive.

pCloud — the lifetime-plan outlier

Premium Plus 2 TB at $99.99/yr = $4.17/TB/mo, or $399 lifetime for the same 2 TB (official pricing) — breakeven vs an annual plan in ≈4 years. Optional client-side encryption (pCloud Crypto) costs extra.

MEGA — biggest clean free tier

Free 20 GB; Pro I 2 TB at €99.99/yr ≈ $4.50/TB/mo (official pricing). End-to-end encrypted. Mind the transfer quota (2 TB/mo even on Pro I) when planning a migration: MEGA → TeraBox.

Dropbox — pay for the ecosystem, not the TB

Free 2 GB; Plus 2 TB at $9.99/mo annual = $5.00/TB/mo (official plans). Best-in-class sharing, e-sign and app integrations.

iCloud+ — for Apple households

Free 5 GB; 2 TB at $9.99/mo = $5.00/TB/mo (no annual discount; 6 TB and 12 TB tiers exist for families). Deep OS integration, but the hardest cloud to migrate out of programmatically — CloudsLinker connects it via web session: iCloud → OneDrive.

OneDrive — storage plus Office

Free 5 GB; Microsoft 365 Personal (1 TB) at $99.99/yr = $8.33/TB/mo, including the full Office desktop suite (official plans). Priciest per TB here — you're buying Office with storage attached.

Conclusion

Price per terabyte is the easiest number to compare and the least complete. The 2026 picture: TeraBox and IDrive own the budget end ($1.63–2.00/TB/mo), Google One and pCloud are the mainstream value picks ($4.17), and egress is the hidden variable — $0 across consumer clouds and R2/Wasabi/B2, but ≈$83/TB to leave Amazon S3. Factor in the exit friction table above before you park multiple terabytes anywhere.

And if the numbers convince you to switch providers, you don't have to download and re-upload everything: CloudsLinker moves files directly between 140+ clouds over data-center bandwidth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which cloud storage is cheapest in 2026?

TeraBox is the cheapest per terabyte at about $1.63/TB/month (2 TB Premium, annual), with IDrive close behind at $2.00/TB/month for backup-grade storage. Among object storage, Backblaze B2 is cheapest at $6.95/TB/month. Checked against official pricing pages on July 14, 2026.

Which cloud storage gives the most free space?

TeraBox offers 1 TB free — by far the largest — but it is ad-supported with throttled downloads and a 4 GB per-file cap. MEGA's 20 GB is the largest unconditional free tier, followed by Google Drive at 15 GB.

What is the cheapest way to get 2 TB of cloud storage?

TeraBox Premium at about $39/year is the cheapest 2 TB. For mainstream sync services, Google One and pCloud both charge $99.99/year for 2 TB; pCloud's $399 lifetime plan beats annual billing after roughly four years.

What are egress fees, and which clouds charge them?

Egress fees are charges for downloading or migrating your data out. Consumer clouds charge $0 but throttle you instead (MEGA transfer quotas, TeraBox speed caps, iCloud's export process). In object storage, Amazon S3 charges $0.09/GB — about $83 to move 1 TB out — while Cloudflare R2, Wasabi and Backblaze B2 (within its 3× allowance) charge nothing.

Which cloud storage is the most private and secure?

MEGA and Sync.com encrypt end-to-end by default with keys only you hold; pCloud offers client-side encryption as a paid add-on (pCloud Crypto). Of the three, MEGA also has the largest free tier at 20 GB.

Can I switch cloud storage providers without re-uploading everything?

Yes. A cloud-to-cloud transfer service like CloudsLinker moves files directly between providers (for example Google Drive to pCloud, or TeraBox to MEGA) over data-center bandwidth, so download quotas, speed caps and local disk space stop being the bottleneck.