How much cloud storage do I need?
The short answer
Check how much you use now and double it. For documents only, 100 GB is plenty. An average phone photo library needs 200 GB to 1 TB. A household with years of photos and videos fits in 2 TB. Hobby photographers and video makers need 5 TB and up. The 2 TB tier suits most families best.
In detail
Measure before you buy. Phones show their usage in settings, and Photos is almost always the largest part. Windows shows it under Storage settings and a Mac under About This Mac. Most people find that their whole digital life weighs 300 GB to 1.5 TB. The camera accounts for most of it. Documents barely count. A lifetime of spreadsheets fits in a few gigabytes, while one minute of 4K phone video takes 400 MB.
Why double it? Photo libraries keep growing. Each new phone camera makes larger files and people shoot more video every year. Room to spare also means you never have to delete memories to fit a plan. Doubling your current usage usually gives three to five years of headroom. That matches the break-even point of lifetime plans like pCloud’s. A 2 TB lifetime plan is a sensible family purchase for that reason.
The price tiers help you decide. 100 GB costs around $2 a month everywhere. That is enough for documents and a modest photo roll. The 2 TB tier sits at $9.99 at Google One, iCloud+ and Dropbox. Independents like pCloud are cheaper per terabyte or let you pay once. Above 2 TB, IDrive’s 5 TB backup plan stands out at $83.88 in the first year. Family plans like Google One and iCloud+ share their storage across everyone’s phones. Plan for the biggest photographer in the house rather than the average.