Microsoft increases OneDrive’s free cloud storage limit to 15GB, now gives 1TB to Office 365 users

Microsoft has today announced a ream of pricing and plan updates for its OneDrive cloud storage service, which include increasing capacity and cutting the cost of additional space.

Free OneDrive users previously got up to 7GB of storage space simply for signing up, but soon everyone will be able to store up to 15GB of files without handing over a penny. Additionally, Microsoft said that its paying Office 365 customers will all get up to 1TB of space included as part of their plan.

Office 365 Home ($9.99 per month) users will get 1TB per person for up to five people and Office 365 Personal ($6.99 per month) and University ($79.99 for four years) users will get 1TB per subscription, the company said.

Rounding off the announcement, Microsoft has also dramatically cut the cost of buying additional space on OneDrive.

Previously, the 100GB tier cost $7.49 per month but this is set to drop to $1.99 per month. If that’s still not enough space, the 200GB tier which previously cost $11.49 per month will fall to just $3.99 per month.

Microsoft said all these updates will take effect “in the next month” and that existing customers will be moved to the new pricing structure automatically. In April, Microsoft increased storage limits for Business and Office365 ProPlus customers to 1TB.

Converged services

Clearly, by slashing the cost of its storage plans and increasing the limits for free users, Microsoft is trying to encourage people to try out its cloud service.

More than that though, by including 1TB of storage with Office 365 plans, it’s also driving adoption of its other related (and lucrative) cloud services. It’s unlikely that a user would want to shell out for an Office 365 subscription and then pay an additional fee to a different service to store files, but with 1TB of storage now included for $6.99 per month, far more people are likely to give it a whirl.

After all, it’s cheaper than paying for OneDrive storage alone and from Microsoft’s perspective, it’s an opportunity cost worth bearing if it can get users locked into multiple cloud services.