Google wants the cloud all to itself. On Thursday, the company slashed Google Drive prices dramatically, in what seems to be a direct challenge to Microsoft's OneDrive and Dropbox. Although neither Google Drive competitor has reacted yet, this is definitely the start of a huge price war.
Google Drive's new subscription prices are significantly lower than those of their two main competitors Dropbox and OneDrive. Now, Google Drive users will only have to pay $1.99 each month for 100 GB of cloud storage, $9.99 a month for 1 TB and $99.99 for a month for 10 TB. One year of 100 GB cloud storage on Google Drive only costs $23.88 a year.
It's absolutely mind-blowing, especially when you compare that low price to Microsoft's OneDrive, which has notoriously high prices. A subscription to 100 GB of OneDrive cloud storage amounts to more than double the cost of Google Drive's 100 GB plan, at $50 a year. Things get even worse if you want more storage on OneDrive, as the price doubles to $100 for 200 GB a year. Meanwhile, 1 TB on Google Drive only costs about $119.88 a year. Seeing as a terabyte is significantly bigger than 200 GB, the twenty extra dollars is more than well worth it. It's an absolute steal.
Believe it or not, Dropbox charges even more that OneDrive. Dropbox currently charges $9.99 a month for 100 GB of cloud storage, which amounts to about $100 a year and $19.99 for 200 GB of storage each month, which adds up to almost $200 a year.
Also, when you think about the fact that Google Drive offer 15 GB of free cloud storage, while Dropbox only offers 2 GB and OneDrive offers just 7 GB for free, it kind of makes it look like Google is your only option. For years people have been saying that cloud storage is too expensive, considering what it is, and Google seems to be the only one listening.
Google also has the advantage of its new fleet of Chromebooks, Chromeboxes and Android devices, all of which have Google apps installed. Google Drive will be the go-to cloud storage for most of those users and these markets simply continue to grow. Google's lower cloud storage prices will also entice more people to buy Chromebooks, which will in turn eat away at yet another part of Microsoft's business.
Now that Google has cut its prices by almost 80 percent, it has cut OneDrive and Dropbox out of the equation. New users will obviously choose Google Drive over Dropbox and OneDrive once they learn about the gigantic price difference. If Dropbox and OneDrive don't want to miss out on drawing new customers, they need to act fast and cut their own prices.
