Amazon Cloud Drive Gets New Unlimited Storage Plans, Free Tier Removed

Online retail giant Amazon has announced changes to the Amazon Cloud Drive tiers it offers. Removing its 5GB free tier, the company is now only offering two unlimited cloud storage paid plans to users, thus marking a shift away from the model being offered by rivals.

Unlike Google, Dropbox, and Microsoft, Amazon is offering unlimited storage plans to all users, instead of business-focused plans like its rivals. The two new plans are Unlimited Photos Plan, and Unlimited Everything Plan. As the name suggests, the former has a 5GB limit for files other than photos, such as documents or videos.

The Unlimited Photos Plan is priced at $11.99 (roughly Rs. 750) a year, while the Unlimited Everything Plan is priced at $59.99 (roughly Rs. 3,800) a year. Both come with free three-month trials.

Amazon says users currently on the 5GB free tier will not be able to upload content until they select one of the free three-month trials for the new unlimited plans, and till then will be in an "over-quota state".

For previous subscribers of paid tier plans, Amazon says they can continue to use their current subscription until it expires. At the end of the plan, if users have already opted to auto-renew their current subscription, they will be automatically entered into the free three-month trial that best fits their usage. At the end of the three months, the associated credit card will be charged the annual fee. Users can choose to the manual renew option via the Manage Storage setting.

Amazon adds that if current paid tier users wish to start the free trial immediately to take advantage of the unlimited plans, they can end their subscription and begin a free trial at any time, and the firm will refund the remaining balance of their subscription.

Josh Petersen, Director of Amazon Cloud Drive, in a statement detailed the reasons for the firm to shift to the new unlimited paid tiers, "Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don't know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up. With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don't need to worry about storage space - they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place."