The Main Question to Start With

The choice of a cloud is mostly determined not by the characteristics of the service, but by which ecosystem you already use. If you have an Android phone, Gmail email, and documents in Google, then Google storage will be the most convenient simply because of the absence of friction. If you have an iPhone and Mac, then iCloud works automatically and does not require any settings, although on Windows and Android it is noticeably less convenient. If you or your employer already pay for Microsoft 365, then you already have space in OneDrive, and there is no point in buying something separately. This logic sounds banal, but it saves both money and time, since dealing with inconvenient integration usually costs more than the difference in tariffs.

How Much Space Is Actually Needed

Documents, scans, and work files, even over many years, rarely exceed several tens of gigabytes, so for this category free tariffs are mostly sufficient. Photos and videos are the main consumers of space, and they are what determine which tariff you need. A modern phone records video taking up several gigabytes per minute in the highest quality, so a family archive over ten years can easily exceed a terabyte. A practical way to estimate this is to look at how much space the gallery on your phone takes up now, and multiply it by several years ahead, taking into account that the volume grows every year.

Free Tariffs

Here the difference between services is large, and it matters for those who are not going to pay at all.

The largest amount among the major services is given by Google with fifteen gigabytes, which are shared between storage, email, and photos. Apple and Microsoft give five gigabytes each, which is enough for documents, but not for a backup of the phone. Dropbox gives only two gigabytes, so as a free solution it is practically not considered, and its value is concentrated in paid tariffs. Among the less well-known services, MEGA offers twenty gigabytes, which is the largest free amount without hidden conditions, although there are limits on the amount of uploads per month. The general rule is that free tariffs of major services are designed so that you come very close to the limit and switch to a paid one, so you should not plan long-term storage on them.

Approximate Prices

I will give figures to understand the order of magnitude, and I will immediately note that these are American prices as of the middle of 2026, which differ in different regions, so the current cost should be checked directly in the service. Approximately two dollars per month costs one hundred gigabytes in Google and Microsoft, and this is the cheapest entry into paid tariffs. Approximately one dollar per month costs fifty gigabytes at Apple, and this is the cheapest paid tariff on the market, convenient specifically for a phone backup. Approximately three dollars per month costs two hundred gigabytes in Google and Apple. Approximately ten dollars per month costs two terabytes in Google, Apple, Dropbox, and pCloud, and at this level the services are almost equal in price. A separate offer is Microsoft 365, where for approximately seventy dollars per year you get one terabyte of space together with a full set of office applications, while the family tariff gives up to six users one terabyte each.

The Biggest Savings Lever

Instead of each family member paying for their own two hundred gigabytes, it is more reasonable to take one tariff for several people, since the cost per unit of volume in this case falls several times. This applies to all major services, and the most profitable example is the Microsoft family tariff, where six people get one terabyte each together with office programs. Also check whether you are not paying simultaneously for two services with the same purpose, since such a situation arises unnoticed and continues for years. I wrote about subscription reviews in general in a separate material.

Synchronization Is Not a Backup

Synchronization means that the files on the device and in the cloud reflect each other, so deleting a photo on the phone deletes it in the cloud as well. Likewise, hacking your account means losing access to everything at once, and storage encrypted by ransomware is synchronized to the cloud in an already corrupted form. Because of this, the cloud covers only one of the three copies according to the classic backup rule, and full protection requires another copy that is not synchronized automatically. In practice, this means once a year copying the archive to an external drive and leaving it alone, which I wrote about in more detail in the material about the digital archive. Some services have their own function for recovering deleted files for a certain period, and this is useful, but it is limited in time and does not save you in case of losing access to the account itself.

About Encryption and Privacy

Here there is a fundamental difference between services that is worth understanding before uploading scans of documents. Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox encrypt data during transmission and storage, but technically they themselves have access to the contents of your files. Services with end-to-end encryption, including pCloud with an additional encryption function, Sync.com, Proton Drive, and Icedrive, are built in such a way that the contents are inaccessible even to the provider itself. The practical conclusion for most people is not to switch to a more expensive service, since for ordinary files the difference is insignificant. It is much simpler to do otherwise, that is, put truly sensitive documents into a password-protected archive before uploading them to an ordinary cloud. This takes a minute and closes the main risk without changing the usual service.

What Is Worth Thinking About in Advance

The difficulty of leaving is a factor that is realized only when deciding to change the service.

Transferring several terabytes from one cloud to another usually means downloading everything to a computer and uploading it again, which takes days and requires the corresponding amount of space on the disk.

iCloud is the most difficult in this sense, from which transferring data by automatic means is limited. The practical conclusion is to choose a service with a calculation for years, rather than changing it every time because of a small difference in price. Separately, it is worth checking the availability of lifetime tariffs offered by some services, since a one-time payment for several years of use may turn out to be more profitable than a subscription. The risk here is that the company may stop operating, so this option is more suitable for an additional copy than for the only place of storage.

Ukrainian Specifics

Payment for foreign services with Ukrainian cards works, but has its own nuances that are worth taking into account. The charge is made in a foreign currency, so the actual amount in hryvnias changes every month together with the exchange rate, and this should be included in the budget with a reserve. Some banks charge an additional conversion fee, so the real cost of the subscription turns out to be higher than the announced one. A convenient solution is a separate virtual card for subscriptions with a limited balance, since it simultaneously simplifies expense control and protects the main card. Also take into account the dependence on the internet, since during prolonged outages access to the cloud may disappear together with the connection. Because of this, important documents should be kept not only in the cloud, but also locally on the device or on a flash drive, and it is even better to have them in printed form as well.


Sources: Official Google One, iCloud, Microsoft 365, Dropbox and pCloud tariff pages, industry cloud service comparisons for 2026