Understanding how SharePoint storage is priced can help you make smarter decisions about managing your environment. Whether you're planning for growth or trying to cut costs, here’s what you need to know.
What’s included in your Microsoft 365 plan
Every Microsoft 365 tenant includes:
- 1 TB of pooled SharePoint storage across all sites (excluding OneDrive, which has its own separate limits)
- +10 GB per licensed user
This means a company with 200 users gets 3 TB of total storage (1 TB + 200 × 10 GB). This allocation is shared across all SharePoint sites in the tenant, including those connected as file storage for Teams.
What happens when you need more
If your organization exceeds its allocated storage, you can purchase additional space:
- $0.20 per GB per month (approximate)
- Available through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center
This pricing is consistent across most plans, including Business Premium, E3, and E5. However, storage needs vary widely depending on how your teams use SharePoint.
💡 Tip: Before buying more storage, check if you can free up space by archiving inactive sites or trimming version history.
How to avoid unnecessary costs
Here are three ways to reduce your reliance on paid storage:
1 - Archive unused content
- Identify sites that haven’t been accessed in months.
- Move them to lower-cost storage in Microsoft 365 Archive or delete them.
2 - Limit version history
- SharePoint can store hundreds of versions per document, which is not always necessary.
- Reducing this to 50 or fewer can save gigabytes of space.
3 - Clean up large files
- Use reporting tools to find oversized files that aren’t being used.
- Remove or relocate them to OneDrive or external storage.
🔗 Related reading: Proven ways to reclaim SharePoint storage
When to upgrade your storage
If cleanup isn’t enough, purchasing additional storage may be necessary. But it’s worth doing a full audit first - many organizations find they can reclaim 20–40% of their space with basic housekeeping. The reality however is that most tenants with over 100 users will naturally run out of storage at some point, Microsoft simply does not provide enough base storage for the average org for more than a few years' use.
Final thoughts
SharePoint storage pricing is straightforward, but the costs can add up fast. By understanding your plan and optimizing usage, you can avoid unnecessary expenses.
Need help identifying what to clean up? SProbot can automate that for you.
