Data Backup Digest

Bitcasa is a cloud storage service that was founded in 2011. Available for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, the service lets you store your files (across various versions) and sync and access them from wherever you are.

Bitcasa drew attention when it announced that you could get unlimited storage for $99 a year. It severely undercut its competitors and was a great bargain. However, Bitcasa has now announced that they are changing their price scheme – with that $99 tag having flown out the window.

In a recent survey, the company discovered that 98% of customers stored less than 5TB of data and that 92% don’t store even close to a single TB. Bearing this information in mind, Bitcasa have updated their pricing scheme to reflect this.

A free account will give new users an initial 5GB, with this being increased up to a total of 20GB through friend referrals. The other tiers are Premium with 1TB ($10/month or $99/year), Pro with 5TB ($49/month or $499/year) and finally Infinite, with unlimited storage, has gone from $99 a year to $99 a month (or $999 for the year). That’s a ten-fold increase.

Of course, Bitcasa are passing this off as being beneficial for their users. However, the fact of the matter is that the first paid tier sets you back $99 a year and only gives you 1TB, whereas before you got unlimited space for the same price.

Customers who are already signed up and paying for the Infinite plan (whether it’s monthly or annual) will remain on that pricing plan. If you wish to change from monthly to annual (or vice versa) then you’ll be transitioned to the new pricing plans. Additionally, any future features will only be available if you’re paying the new prices.

Speaking of future features, the company have also released the Bitcasa Secure Storage API, which gives developers the ability to integrate the Bitcasa framework into their products. The company are also bringing out a Linux client and have said that a “series of new product enhancements” will be coming to their apps in the coming months.

The comments on Bitcasa’s blog announcing the change have been overwhelmingly negative. Time will tell whether this has an impact on the company’s user base or income.

Speaking to cloud storage news website Talkin’ Cloud, industry analyst Charles King said, “I have to wonder if another contributor was a small percentage of clients storing very large volumes of data. It's a variation of the old story of an all-you-can-eat restaurant being put out of business by diners with bottomless bellies.”

Bitcasa closed out their announcement by reiterating that their top priority is to ensure your digital files are private, accessible and stored affordably.

With competitor DrivePop offering unlimited cloud storage for $2.99 a month, it remains to be seen whether Bitcasa are going to be able to sustain their customer base. Then again, for the majority of their users it perhaps doesn’t matter that the capacity isn’t unlimited if their files don’t begin to touch the 1TB boundary.