Apple's iCloud pricing: How it compares to Amazon Cloud and others

Consumer Reports News: August 03, 2011 03:23 PM

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Apple opened up the website for its iCloud Net-based online storage system to software developers on Monday—and revealed how much the service would cost.

At first, the pricing structure for iCloud—$20 for 10GB, $40 for 20GB, and $100 for 50GB—seems reasonable. However, compared to the roomy options available from online retail giant Amazon's Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud seems a little fluffy.

What's more, while iCloud offers the first 5GB of space for free, software giant Microsoft offers five times (25GB) the free space on its SkyDrive service. Still, the company has yet to announce any additional storage space options or plans.

And to be fair, Apple's iCloud is still under limited beta testing with software developers and won't be available to the public until later this fall. So additional cloud storage plans and prices could be in the works.

We're anxious to try Apple's iCloud service when it come out of its testing phase. But what do you think? How much would you spend yearly on storing information on Apple's—or any one else's—cloud?

**Annual costs for cloud-based storage services**
	Apple iCloud	Amazon Cloud Drive	DropBox	SugarSync
5GB	Free	Free	Free (2GB only)	Free
10GB	$20
20GB	$40	$20
30GB				$50 (or $5 per month)
50GB	$100	$50	$120 (@ $10 per month)
60GB				$100 (or $10 per month)
100GB		$100	$240 (@ $20 per month)	$150 (or $15 per month)
200GB		$200
250GB				$250 (or $25 per month)
500GB		$500
1,000GB		$1,000