iCloud prices compared: which storage plan should you get?
iCloud storage is full. You have taken some photos of your favorite places, recorded videos at fun events, piled up notes… wait, notes can’t take up much storage. Photos, iPhone or iPad backups, videos, voice memos, and whatever else will eventually get you to this message.
What does "iCloud Storage Full" mean?
Your iPhone comes with 5GB of free iCloud storage, to use for backup of device settings, photos, and other data. Once you run out of iCloud storage, you might want to check out the paid iCloud storage options and determine which one will suit your needs if you want to upgrade.
Apple iCloud storage plan prices
Here are the iCloud storage plan prices:
- 50GB: $0.99 a month in the US (£0.79 in the UK, 0.99 € in Europe)
- 200GB: $2.99 a month in the US (£2.49 in the UK, 2.99 € in Europe)
- 2TB: $9.99 a month in the US (£6.99 in the UK, 9.99 € in Europe)
All of the aforementioned prices are for a monthly subscription.
You have different storage options available, and prices vary depending on your country.
50GB iCloud storage tier for your iPhone/iPad for $0.99 a month
The first iCloud storage plan gives you 50GB of storage on iCloud for $0.99, billed every month. Once you make the payment for the current month, the changes are effective immediately and your iCloud storage is upgraded to 50GB. This way you can safely back up your iPhone settings, photos and videos, memos and calendar reminders, as well as information from your Health app.
Just to get these gigs into perspective: here you can fit around 15,000 photos, assuming that the normal photo takes up about 3,3MB on average and selfies take about 2MB on average. Again, on average, you can have up to 5,430 songs, with one song taking around 9.2MB.
200GB iCloud storage tier for $2.99 a month
If you’re intense on photo-taking, you record and edit a lot of video material on your iPhone or iPad and still want to make sure you are always backed up, this iCloud storage option may be good for you. Every month you pay $2.99 in the US or 2.99 € in countries in Europe, and you can have access to 200GB of iCloud storage.
200GB iCloud storage will allow you to fit in more than 60,600 photos.
2TB iCloud storage tier for $9.99 a month
This is currently the maximum storage you can get from Apple iCloud. For $9.99 a month you get access to 2TB of cloud storage to upload your photos, videos, and everything you would like. 2TB can fit around 518,000 photos until the storage is full, about 81 hours of 4K video recordings.
iCloud storage family sharing
The cool thing about the two upper tiers of the iCloud storage options is that you can share those 200GB or 2TB with your family. Although you and your family members will be sharing the same storage, everyone’s personal photos, files, and documents remain private so you can’t see each other’s content.
iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive
In iCloud Drive, you can upload and store all types of documents that you can easily access, again from the internet, as long as you log into your iCloud account.
Do I need iCloud storage?
You may be asking yourself whether iCloud storage is worth it and whether or not you need it to begin with. This, of course, boils down to personal preference as some people like to have their information backed up on the cloud, while others don’t. It depends on how much photos, videos, and other data you have and want to back up on iCloud.
If you store a lot of important information on your iPhone and you do video-editing or photo-editing, it’s better to have a backup in the cloud. If you want, you can also select which categories you want to back up to iCloud storage. However, you might want to stick with the 5GB free iCloud storage if you don't care too much about backing up your iPhone or if you are used to regularly transfer your iPhone photos to your PC for example.
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