Cloud storage provider, Bitcasa that has established itself as a provider of unlimited cloud storage invoked the wrath of its customers this week when it unveiled a new pricing scheme that increased its unlimited storage plan tenfold. However, there is a good chance that the new price scheme will not affect all customers.
Bitcasa, up until this price increase was charging organizations $99 annually for the unlimited cloud storage, but this price has been bumped up to $999. According to Brian Taptich, Bitcasa CEO, the current pricing plans for existing customers will not change. Besides, 98% of Bitcasa’s customers use less than 5TB of data in the cloud. Taptich further noted that 92% of the customers use less than 1TB.
New customers will be affected and 1TB of data will ring at $99 annually but it will not make a big difference considering the amount of data Taptich said that customers use. Those who will be most affected will be the ones who are looking for a large amount of storage.
New customers on 5TB storage plan will pay $499 annually while the unlimited plan will cost $999 annually. The free plan will also be changing, with old customers keeping their 10GB of free storage while new customers will be provided with 5GB of free storage instead.
The new changes will not affect the current customers for now but it has certainly not been received well by Bitcasa’s followers.
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, termed the price increase as ‘breathtaking’, although he indicated that the reasoning seems sensible. He further noted that the growing competition will keep pressure on Bitcasa.
