Over the coming months, Backblaze will make big updates and upgrades to both our products—B2 Cloud Storage and Computer Backup. Considering the volume of new stuff on the horizon, I’m dropping into the blog today to explain what’s happening, when, and why for our customers as well as any others who are considering adopting our services. Here’s what’s new.

B2 Cloud Storage Updates

Price, Egress, and Product Upgrades

Meeting and exceeding customers’ needs for building applications, protecting data, supporting media workflows, and more is the top priority for B2 Cloud Storage. To further these efforts, we’ll be implementing the following updates:

Price Changes

Storage Price: Effective October 3, 2023, we are increasing the monthly pay-as-you-go storage rate from $5/TB to $6/TB. The price of B2 Reserve will not change.

Free Egress: Also effective October 3, we’re making egress free (i.e. free download of data) for all B2 Cloud Storage customers—both pay-as-you-go and B2 Reserve—up to three times the amount of data you store with us, with any additional egress priced at just $0.01/GB. Because supporting an open cloud environment is central to our mission, expanding free egress to all customers so they can move data when and where they prefer is a key next step.

Backblaze B2 Upgrades

From Object Lock for ransomware protection, to Cloud Replication for redundancy, to more data centers to support data location needs, Backblaze has consistently improved B2 Cloud Storage. Stay tuned for more this fall, when we’ll announce upload performance upgrades, expanded integrations, and more partnerships.

Things That Aren’t Changing

Storage pricing on committed contracts, B2 Reserve pricing, and unlimited free egress between Backblaze B2 and many leading content delivery network (CDN) and compute partners are all not changing.

Why the Changes for B2 Cloud Storage?

1. Continuing to provide the best cloud storage.

I am excited that B2 Cloud Storage continues to be the best high-quality and low-cost alternative to traditional cloud providers like AWS for businesses of all sizes. After seven years in service with no price increases, the bar was very high for considering any change to our pricing. We invest in making Backblaze B2 a better cloud storage provider every day. A price increase enables us to continue doing so into the future.

2. Advancing the freedom of customers’ data.

We’ve heard from customers that one of the greatest benefits of B2 Cloud Storage is freedom—freedom from complexity, runaway bills, and data lock-in. We wanted to double down on these benefits and further empower our customers to leverage the open cloud to use their data how and where they wish. Making egress free supports all these benefits for our customers.

Backblaze Computer Backup

Price, Version History, Version 9.0, and Admin Upgrades

To expand our ability to provide astonishingly easy computer backup that is as reliable as it is trustworthy and affordable, we’re instituting the following updates to Backblaze Computer Backup and sharing some upcoming product upgrades:

Computer Backup Pricing: Effective October 3, new purchases and renewals will be $9/month, $99/year, and $189 for two-year subscription plans, and Forever Version History pricing will be $0.006/GB/month.
Free One Year Extended Version History: Also effective October 3, all Computer Backup licenses may add One Year Extended Version History, previously a $2 per month expense, for free. Being able to recover deleted or altered files up to a year later saves Computer Backup users from huge headaches, and now this benefit is available to all subscribers. Starting October 3, log in to your account and select One Year of Extended Version History for free.
Version 9.0: In September, the release of Version 9.0 will go live. Among some improvements to performance and usability, this release includes a highly requested new local restore experience for end users. We’ll share all the details with you in September when Version 9.0 goes live.
Groups Administration Upgrades: In addition to Version 9.0, we’ve got an exciting roadmap of upgrades to our Groups functionality aimed at serving our growing and evolving customer base. For those who need to manage everything from two to two thousand workstations, we’re excited to offer more peace of mind and control with expanded tools built for the enterprise at a price still ahead of the competition.

Why the Change for Computer Backup?

Since launching Computer Backup in 2008, we’ve stayed committed to a product that backs up all your data automatically to the cloud for a flat rate. Over the following 15 years, the average amount of data stored per user has grown tremendously, and our investments to build out our storage cloud to support that growth has increased to keep pace.

At the same time, we’ve continued to invest in improving the product—as we have been recently with the upcoming release of Version 9.0, in our active development of new Group administration features, and in the free addition of optional One Year Extended Version history for all users. And, we still have more to do to ensure our product consistently lives up to its promise.

To continue offering unlimited backup, innovating, and adding value to the best computer backup service, we need to align our pricing with our costs.

Thank You

We understand how valuable your data is to your business and your life, and the trust you place in Backlaze every day is not lost on me. We are deeply committed to our mission of making storing, using, and protecting that data astonishingly easy, and the updates I’ve shared today are a big step forward in ensuring we can do so for the long haul. So, in closing, I’ll say thank you for entrusting us with your precious data—we’re honored to serve you.

FAQ: B2 Cloud Storage

Am I affected by this B2 Cloud Storage pricing update?

Maybe. This update applies to B2 Cloud Storage pay-as-you-go customers—those who pay variable monthly amounts based on their actual consumption of the service—who have not entered into committed contracts for one or more years.

When will I, as an existing B2 Cloud Storage pay-as-you-go customer, see this update in my monthly bill?

The updated pricing is effective October 3, 2023, so you will see it applied starting from this date to bills sent after this date.

How does Backblaze measure monthly average storage and free egress?

Backblaze measures pay-as-you-go customers’ usage in byte hours. The storage average is based on the byte hours over the billing cycle. As of October 3, 2023, monthly egress up to three times your average is free; any monthly egress above this 3x average is priced at $0.01 per GB.

Will Backblaze continue to offer unlimited free egress to CDN and compute partners?

Yes. This change has no impact on the unlimited free egress that Backblaze offers through leading CDN and compute partners including Fastly, Cloudflare, CacheFly, bunny.net, and Vultr.

How can I switch from pay-as-you-go B2 Cloud Storage to a B2 Reserve annual capacity bundle plan?

B2 Reserve bundles start at 20TB. You can explore B2 Reserve with our Sales Team here to discuss making a switch.

Is Backblaze still much more affordable than other cloud providers like AWS?

Yes. Backblaze remains highly affordable compared to other cloud storage providers. The service also remains roughly one-fifth the cost of AWS S3 for the combination of hot storage and egress, with the exact difference varying based on usage. For example, if you store 10TB in the U.S. West and also egress 10% of it in a month, your pricing from Backblaze and AWS is as follows:

Backblaze B2: Storage $6/TB + Egress $0/GB = $60

AWS S3: Storage $26/TB + Egress $0.09/GB = Storage $260 + Egress $90 = $350

In this instance, Backblaze is 17% or about one-fifth the cost of AWS S3.

What sort of improvements do you plan alongside the increase in pricing?

Beyond including free egress for all customers, we have a number of other upgrades and improvements in the pipeline. We’ll be announcing them in the coming months, but they include improvements to the upload experience, features to expand use cases for application storage customers, new integrations, and more partnerships.

Is Backlaze making any other updates to B2 Cloud Storage pricing, such as adding a minimum storage duration fee?

No. This is the extent of the update effective October 3, 2023. We also continue to believe that minimum storage duration fees as levied by some vendors run counter to the interests of many customers.

When was your last price increase?

This is the only price increase we have had since we launched B2 Cloud Storage in 2015.

Does unused free egress roll over from one month to the next?

No. Backblaze B2 offers free egress up to 3x monthly storage. This free egress is calculated independently each month based on usage for the month. Unused egress does not roll over from month to month.

FAQ: Computer Backup

What are the new prices?

Monthly licenses will be $9, yearly licenses will be $99, and two-year licenses will be $189. One Year Extended Version History will be available for free to those who wish to enable it. The $2 per month charge for Forever Version History will be removed while the incremental rate for when a file has been changed, modified, or deleted over a year ago will be $0.006/GB/month.

When are prices changing?

October 3, 2023 at 00:00 UTC is when the price increase will go into effect for new purchases and renewals. Existing contracts and licenses will be honored for their duration, and any prorated purchases after that time will be prorated at the new rate.

How does Extended Version History work?

Extended Version History allows you to “go back in time” further to retrieve earlier versions of your data. By default that setting is set to 30 days. With this update, you can choose to keep versions up to one year old for free.

What is a version?

When an individual file is changed, updated, edited, or deleted, without the file name changing, a new version is created.

When will the One Year Extended Version History option be included with my license?

On October 3, 2023, we’ll be removing the charge for selecting One Year Extended Version History. Any changes made to that setting ahead of that date will result in a prorated charge to the payment method on file.

I do not have One Year Extended Version History. Do I need to do anything to get it?

Yes. We will not be changing anyone’s settings on their behalf, so please see below for instructions on how to change your version history settings to one year. Note: making changes to this setting before October 3 will result in a prorated charge, as noted above.

How do I add One Year Extended Version History to my account or to my Group’s backups?

For individual Backblaze users: simply log in to your Backblaze account and navigate to the Overview page. From there you’ll see a list of all your computers and their selected Version History. To make a change, press the Update button next to the computer you wish to add One Year Extended Version History for.

For Group admins: simply log in to your Backblaze account and navigate to the Groups Management page. From there, you’ll see a list of all of the Groups you manage and their selected Version History. To make a change, press the Update button next to the Group you wish to enable One Year Extended Version History for, and all computers within it will be enabled.

Can I still use Forever Version History?

Yes. Forever Version History is still available. The prior $2 per month charge will be removed, and only files changed, deleted, or modified over a year ago will be charged at the incremental $0.006/GB/month.

I already have One Year Extended Version History on my account. Will my price go up?

It depends on your payment plan. If you are on a monthly plan with One Year Extended Version History, you will not see an increase. However, anyone on a yearly plan will see an increase from $94 to $99, and for two-year licenses, your price will increase from $178 to $189.