TL;DR
The cost of Microsoft 365 Backup, Microsoft’s native backup and recovery tool, increases as protected data grows, even when employee headcount remains stable. Enterprises evaluating backup solutions should account for billable backup storage consumption, SharePoint storage overages, retention, recovery, and administration to forecast five-year total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Microsoft 365 Backup pricing: Microsoft’s native service has a published list price of $0.15 per GB per month of billable protected content.
- Five-year cost exposure: Protecting 100 TB with 20% annual growth results in approximately $1.34 million in cumulative native backup charges over five years.
- SharePoint storage optimization: Archiving eligible inactive documents can reduce production storage consumption and associated overage charges.
- CrashPlan’s approach: CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 backup and archiving solution provides reliable backup and granular recovery across supported workloads, with flexible storage destinations and optional capacity-saving archiving to help reduce SharePoint storage costs. CrashPlan also offers a separate integration with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage for high-speed, full-asset recovery.
- Purchasing decision: Enterprises should compare complete five-year costs, validate recovery performance, and calculate net storage savings before selecting a solution.
The CrashPlan Microsoft 365 Storage ROI Calculator helps estimate potential storage savings if utilizing the archiving capabilities.
How Much Does Microsoft 365 Backup Cost as Enterprise Data Grows?
Microsoft 365 Backup uses consumption-based pricing rather than a fixed per-user license. Microsoft’s published pricing sets the native service rate at $0.15 per GB per month of billable protected content.
Microsoft calculates consumption using protected Exchange Online mailboxes, OneDrive accounts, and SharePoint sites, along with applicable deleted and versioned information retained for recovery. Accounting for deleted and versioned content varies by workload. As a result, backup billing can differ from the live storage figures administrators monitor.
Content retained for recovery can remain billable after deletion or removal from a protection policy, until the applicable backup recovery window expires.
For an enterprise with 100 TB of billable protected content, monthly charges would be approximately $15,000, or $180,000 annually, assuming decimal TB and constant billable consumption.
What Does Five-Year Microsoft 365 Backup Cost Growth Look Like?
The following model assumes 100 TB of initial billable protected content, 20% annual growth, and an unchanged $0.15/GB monthly rate.
| Year | Protected content | Annual backup cost |
| Year 1 | 100 TB | $180,000 |
| Year 2 | 120 TB | $216,000 |
| Year 3 | 144 TB | $259,200 |
| Year 4 | 172.8 TB | $311,040 |
| Year 5 | 207.36 TB | $373,248 |
| Five-year total | $1,339,488 |
Illustrative calculation uses 1 TB = 1,000 GB, assumes constant consumption within each year, and applies growth between years. It excludes taxes, price changes, and other services. Actual consumption may also vary based on retained deleted and versioned content.
By Year 5, annual backup costs more than double. Organizations budgeting only for current data volumes may underestimate long-term costs.
This calculation describes Microsoft’s native backup pricing, not CrashPlan’s enterprise pricing.
What Should Enterprises Include in Microsoft 365 Backup TCO?
A five-year TCO analysis for Microsoft 365 Backup should account for licensing, protected capacity growth, production storage charges, retention, recovery, and administration.
Comparing licensing prices alone can overlook long-term backup costs, especially as storage grows and recovery requirements evolve.
| Cost component | Enterprise purchasing consideration |
| Backup licensing | Supported workloads, licensing model, contract terms, renewals |
| Backup capacity | Included storage, projected growth, additional capacity charges |
| Production storage | SharePoint overages and applicable Microsoft storage charges |
| Retention | Historical versions, deleted content, preservation requirements |
| Archiving | Licensing, archive storage, retrieval, maintenance |
| Recovery | Restore capabilities, testing, and any applicable recovery charges |
| Administration | Deployment, monitoring, policy management, staff time |
Microsoft 365 Backup does not charge separately for restores, although testing and administrative effort can still contribute to TCO.
In addition, some third-party backup partners, including CrashPlan, have solutions built on Microsoft 365 Backup Storage, Microsoft states that customers are billed through the partner rather than receiving a separate Microsoft charge for the same backup storage consumption. Buyers should confirm what partner pricing includes to avoid double-counting when estimating costs.
A practical calculation for Microsoft 365 Backup is:
Five-year TCO = Backup licensing + Additional backup capacity + Production storage charges + Archiving costs + Recovery costs + Administration costs.
Organizations should model each solution against equivalent protection and recovery requirements, accounting for which costs are already included in licensing.
CrashPlan offers customized enterprise pricing based on the selected configuration and commercial agreement. Buyers should use a formal quote rather than assume published pricing for another licensing segment applies.
How Can CrashPlan Help Reduce SharePoint Storage Costs?
One way to reduce total cost of ownership for Microsoft 365 is to utilize CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 archiving solution. IT teams reduce SharePoint storage costs by automatically archiving selected documents that have already been successfully backed up, based on policies.
Administrators configure archiving policies based on document inactivity, minimum file size, and/or individual site storage consumption relative to the tenant’s pooled SharePoint storage quota. Files meeting enabled conditions are replaced with lightweight URL shortcuts, keeping them accessible to users within SharePoint. Archived content remains accessible through CrashPlan’s self-service console.
How Much Could an Enterprise Save on SharePoint Storage?
Microsoft’s SharePoint storage planning documentation describes a base allowance of 1 TB plus 10 GB per qualifying license, subject to applicable plan limits and additional allocations.
Consider an illustrative enterprise with 5,000 qualifying Microsoft 365 licenses and approximately 51 TB of included SharePoint storage, using simplified decimal units for the following cost comparison.
If CrashPlan archives 60 TB of eligible documents and this results in 60 TB of net billable capacity being reclaimed, additional SharePoint storage requirements decrease from 99 TB to 39 TB.
The following example uses the $0.25 per GB monthly additional-storage rate assumed by the CrashPlan Microsoft 365 Storage ROI Calculator. This is an illustrative pricing assumption, not a universal Microsoft rate.
The example assumes the enterprise pays for additional SharePoint storage above its included allocation and has no other purchased storage capacity. Exceeding the included quota does not automatically trigger usage-based billing unless the organization has enabled pay-as-you-go billing.
| Storage metric | Before archiving | After archiving |
| SharePoint production storage | 150 TB | 90 TB |
| Included storage capacity | 51 TB | 51 TB |
| Additional storage required | 99 TB | 39 TB |
| Modeled monthly additional-storage charges | $24,750 | $9,750 |
| Modeled annual additional-storage charges | $297,000 | $117,000 |
| Annual gross avoided charges | $180,000 |
This illustrative scenario uses decimal TB, assumes $0.25/GB/month, and requires 60 TB of successfully released billable production storage.
Under these assumptions, the enterprise could avoid approximately $180,000 in annual SharePoint storage charges.
Precise savings may vary based on the customer’s negotiated billing arrangement and negotiated CrashPlan licensing and storage costs.
It’s also important to note that production storage savings should be distinguished from backup savings. Archiving files does not necessarily eliminate Microsoft 365 Backup charges for retained protected content.
How Can IT Validate Storage Savings Before Deployment?
CrashPlan’s capacity savings dry-run capability estimates eligible SharePoint content without modifying production files. Administrators can review estimated eligible file counts and potential storage savings before enabling archiving.
After deployment, IT teams should compare actual SharePoint storage usage and Microsoft charges against the pre-archiving baseline to validate realized savings. For customers using purchased additional-storage capacity, this includes confirming that the licensed capacity and associated charges have been reduced.
How Does CrashPlan Compare With Microsoft 365 Backup?
Microsoft-native backup and CrashPlan address overlapping recovery needs, but their architectures, licensing models, and additional capabilities differ.
Microsoft 365 Backup provides consumption-based protection and supported native recovery capabilities. CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 solution provides backup and granular recovery across supported Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint workloads, with included Entra ID backup and recovery and additional options for managing storage costs and recovery requirements.
| Evaluation area | Microsoft 365 Backup | CrashPlan for Microsoft 365 |
| Pricing | Consumption-based | Enterprise licensing and selected capacity |
| Supported workloads | Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint | Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint; Entra ID backup and recovery |
| Recovery | Supported high-speed and granular native recovery operations | Granular recovery of supported assets and items, including self-service options |
| Storage architecture | Microsoft 365 Backup Storage | CrashPlan-managed or supported customer-managed backup storage |
| Storage optimization | Separate Microsoft storage management options | Optional capacity savings archiving |
| Purchasing consideration | Protected content growth and recovery scope | Licensing, capacity, archiving, recovery requirements |
CrashPlan’s flexible backup storage options include CrashPlan-managed and supported customer-managed destinations, allowing IT teams to align storage with cost, data residency, and operational requirements.
CrashPlan also offers a separate Microsoft 365 Backup Storage integration for supported high-speed, full-asset restoration. It preserves the same high speed recovery throughput of up to 2 TB per hour, and is limited by the same storage and restore point limitations as Microsoft 365 Backup. This is a good option for existing CrashPlan customers who have very tight RTOs for disaster recovery and want to add this high-speed backup option to their existing CrashPlan backup deployment without subscribing to a separate service from Microsoft.
When Should Enterprises Consider Microsoft-Native Backup?
Microsoft 365 Backup may meet requirements when its supported Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint recovery capabilities, Microsoft-managed storage architecture, and consumption-based pricing align with organizational objectives.
Its suitability depends on required recovery scope, retention, and projected billing.
When Should Enterprises Evaluate CrashPlan?
CrashPlan helps enterprises simplify Microsoft 365 backup and recovery while gaining more control over storage costs.
Granular and self-service recovery, flexible backup storage options, and policy-based SharePoint archiving help IT teams protect critical data, reduce routine recovery requests, and manage growing storage demands through the CrashPlan Data Resilience Platform. Entra ID backup and recovery is also included with CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 backup and recovery solution.
Which Recovery and Security Requirements Matter Most?
Enterprise backup evaluations should account for both security controls and verified recovery performance. Security controls include encryption, authentication, role-based access controls, audit logs, and appropriate separation of backup storage and administrative permissions. Successful backup jobs alone do not establish that an organization can restore information within its required recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).
According to the Uptime Institute’s 2026 Annual Outage Analysis, 57% of respondents to its 2025 annual survey reported that their most recent major outage cost more than $100,000. While these findings are not specific to Microsoft 365 or CrashPlan, they highlight the financial consequences of prolonged downtime and the importance of validating recovery capabilities before selecting a backup solution.
Key technical requirements include:
- Recovery: Ability to meet defined recovery point objectives (RPOs) and RTOs for files, mailboxes, sites, and larger incidents.
- Security: Encryption, authentication, privileged access, audit logs, and backup isolation.
- Coverage: Supported objects, historical versions, metadata, and permissions.
- Retention: Deleted data, preservation requirements, and legal holds.
- Operations: Monitoring, failed-job reporting, restore workflows, and administrative effort.
Recovery performance also affects financial exposure. IT teams should validate that their backup solution can restore critical Microsoft 365 data within required timeframes to minimize downtime and business disruption.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Microsoft 365 Backup cost per TB?
Microsoft’s native backup list price is $0.15 per GB per month. Using 1,000 GB per decimal TB, this equals approximately $150 monthly or $1,800 annually per TB of billable protected content, assuming constant consumption.
Is CrashPlan cheaper than Microsoft 365 Backup?
It depends on enterprise licensing, protected capacity, data growth, recovery requirements, and optional services. A five-year TCO comparison using equivalent protection requirements helps determine the potential financial difference. Flexible backup storage options and applicable SharePoint storage savings may also affect the comparison.
Can CrashPlan reduce Microsoft 365 storage costs?
Yes. CrashPlan’s archiving capability can archive eligible inactive SharePoint documents and reduce applicable production storage overages. Net savings depend on released capacity, Microsoft storage rates, incremental archiving costs, and whether the customer’s billing arrangement allows additional-storage charges to decrease.
Does CrashPlan replace Microsoft 365 Backup?
CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 solution provides configurable, policy-based backup and granular recovery for supported Microsoft 365 workloads, with flexible backup storage destinations and archiving capabilities. CrashPlan also offers a separate integration with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage for high-speed, full-asset recovery, with the same limitations on backup frequency, retention, and storage as Microsoft 365 Backup. A layered approach may be best for organizations that prioritize both easy, flexible day-to-day backups as well as large-scale, rapid recovery for major disasters.
Does CrashPlan support large-scale Microsoft 365 recovery?
Yes. CrashPlan can restore full assets out-of-the box. A separate Microsoft 365 Backup Storage integration for supported full-asset recovery operations across Exchange Online, SharePoint, and OneDrive takes advantage of this integration’s higher-capacity throughput for rapid restore. Actual recovery performance depends on the selected configuration, user network performance, and workload.
Does CrashPlan archiving require additional licensing?
Yes. Archiving is an add-on requiring appropriate licensing and Microsoft 365 administrator consent.
Does archiving SharePoint files reduce Microsoft 365 Backup charges?
Not necessarily. Archiving can reduce SharePoint production storage consumption, but protected content retained for recovery may remain billable under Microsoft 365 Backup until the applicable recovery window expires. Production storage savings and backup consumption savings should be calculated separately.
How Should Enterprises Evaluate CrashPlan Before Purchasing?
An enterprise Microsoft 365 backup purchasing decision should combine five-year cost projections, verified recovery performance, storage optimization potential, and operational requirements.
CrashPlan’s Microsoft 365 backup and archiving solution helps IT teams protect critical data and simplify recovery across supported Microsoft 365 workloads, with optional archiving capabilities to help reduce SharePoint storage costs. Its separate Microsoft 365 Backup Storage integration supports large-scale, full-asset recovery requirements in supported scenarios, which gives customers the option for a layered approach to disaster recovery.
A complete enterprise evaluation should establish:
- Five-year TCO: Licensing, protected capacity growth, SharePoint storage charges, additional services, and administration.
- Recovery performance: Demonstrated restoration of representative mailboxes, files, and sites against defined RPO and RTO requirements.
- Storage savings: Capacity savings dry-run results, eligible content, exclusions, and projected net financial benefit.
- Deployment requirements: Microsoft 365 permissions, storage destination options, access controls, retention restrictions, and operational responsibilities.
- Commercial terms: Included capabilities, optional licensing, additional capacity charges, renewals, and support.
Evaluating long-term costs, recovery capabilities, and storage savings together helps IT teams choose a Microsoft 365 backup strategy that protects critical data while keeping costs under control.
Organizations can use the CrashPlan Microsoft 365 Storage ROI Calculator to estimate potential storage savings and request an enterprise quote for their selected protection, recovery, and archiving configuration.
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