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Carbonite Safe Basic$8/mo
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All Carbonite Plans & Pricing

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Carbonite Safe Basic

  • For 1 computer
  • Automatic cloud backup
  • One subscription per computer
  • 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year plan lengths available
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What does Carbonite actually cost you?

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Tier
Billing
Your projected cost$200per month · $8/unit × 25units
Year 1 license$2.4K12 months at this rate
At a glance

List price by tier (annualized, per unit)

Per-unit list price across Carbonite's plans, annualized. Custom-priced tiers show a hatched bar.

Carbonite Safe Basic$96/yr
Real-world benchmark

Buyers actually pay a median of $600/yr for Carbonite contracts (Vendr deal flow, n=47). That's a contract total — the more seats, the more leverage to negotiate down.

Quick Answer
Last verified:
High confidence

Carbonite costs $8 to $8 per month as of September 2026. Plan: Carbonite Safe Basic at $8/month. The median contract is $600/year based on 47 verified purchases.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

Carbonite offers 1 pricing tiers: Carbonite Safe Basic. Paid plans include Carbonite Safe Basic at $8/month. The Carbonite Safe Basic plan is individuals needing basic cloud backup for one computer.

Compared to other backup & recovery software, Carbonite is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • Median contract: $600/yr from 47 purchases Precise
  • 7 documented hidden costs beyond list price
  • Contracts auto-renew — 30-day refund window from purchase date; cancellation requires contacting support directly with no self-service path
Last verified: | Sources: 3 pricing pages and reviews

How much does Carbonite cost?

Carbonite costs $8/month. Plans include Carbonite Safe Basic at $8/month.

Carbonite Pricing Overview

Carbonite has 1 pricing plans ranging from $8 to $8/month. The Carbonite Safe Basic plan costs $8/month, best for individuals needing basic cloud backup for one computer.

Carbonite contracts auto-renew.

The median Carbonite customer pays $600/year based on 47 verified purchases.

There are at least 7 documented hidden costs beyond Carbonite's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in August 27, 2026 from 3 independent sources.

See Carbonite Plans

Carbonite, now owned by OpenText, provides cloud backup solutions for consumers and small businesses. The Carbonite Safe product line offers automatic, continuous backup with unlimited storage for personal plans and tiered storage for business plans.

Personal plans start at $4.91/month (Basic) for unlimited single-computer backup, with Plus ($8/month) adding external drive support and Prime ($8/month) including courier recovery. Business plans start at $24/month for multi-computer backup. Carbonite is known for simplicity but has been criticized for limited storage on business plans.

How Carbonite Pricing Compares

Compare Carbonite pricing against top alternatives in Backup & Recovery.

Acronis $49.99-$124.99/user/mo Compare → Backblaze $0-$99/user/mo Compare → Druva $3-$12/user/mo Compare →

Compare Carbonite vs Alternatives

Before committing to Carbonite, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSAcronis
From $49.99/user/mo

Home users who only need local backup without cloud storage

Full comparison
VSBackblaze
Free

Individual users and small deployments

Full comparison
VSDruva
From $3/user/mo

Small businesses with single data center needing cloud-native backup

Full comparison

All Carbonite alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for Carbonite

The median Carbonite buyer pays $600/year based on 47 verified purchase transactions.

What companies actually pay $600/yr Median across 47 community cost mentions Precise
Review scores
Trustpilot 1.5out of 5 (22)
Third-party review aggregates, as of Apr 2026
Top pricing complaints
Restore speeds intentionally throttled to 100-150KB/s, making full restores take months for large datasetsCustomer support only available Monday-Friday 9am-6pm Eastern; unreachable on weekends and eveningsStrict 30-day refund policy enforced on multi-year prepaid subscriptions regardless of product failure or compatibility issuesBackup fails after OS updates (Windows 11, iOS) with no proactive user notification
Source: Community cost mentions (Reddit, Hacker News) — aggregated from 47 distinct user reports. Indicative only — not contract-grade data.

Carbonite Year 1 Total Cost by Company Size

Real deployment costs including licenses, implementation, training, and admin — not just the sticker price.

Single Home Computer $71 Year 1 total
$4.91/month
Total $71

Basic unlimited backup for one computer, internal drives only

Home User with External Drive $111 Year 1 total
$6.99/month
Total $111

Carbonite Safe Basic plan for one computer cloud backup

Small Office (10 computers) $287 Year 1 total

Safe Backup Pro for 10 computers with 250GB cloud storage

Single Server Business $599 Year 1 total

Carbonite Safe Basic plan for one computer backup

Home User - Single Computer (Monthly Billing) $4 Year 1 total

Single home user backing up one computer on the most affordable personal plan, billed monthly

Small Business - 5 Computers $120 Year 1 total
$1,440/year
Total $120

Individual backing up one computer using the Carbonite Safe Basic plan at $8/month

Server Protection - Single Server $50 Year 1 total
$600/year
Total $50

User protecting one computer with the Carbonite Safe Basic plan

How Carbonite Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Carbonite $8/month $8/month
Acronis $4.17/month $10.42/month
Avepoint Cloud Backup Custom Custom
AWS Backup $0.00125/GB-Month $0.07/GB-Month
Backblaze Free $99/month
Cohesity Custom Custom

Detailed pricing comparisons:

Browse all Backup & Recovery pricing →

7 Carbonite Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, Carbonite has at least 7 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 7 hidden costs
  • Large Files Automatically Excluded from Backup Complete data loss for files above size threshold
    critical 3 sources
    Reddit "Carbonite -- another shit backup service that _excluded largest users files by default_ from the backup set. Not even kidding. Backup service my ass.."
    Reddit "I personally despise it for this sole reason... the “hands off” backup service that would silently skip large files. Yeah, it was mentioned in the manual but who reads manuals? And this sort of defeats the purpose."
    Reddit "I don’t want to think about nitty-gritty details or micromanage my backups or double-check that I haven’t missed a checkmark to ensure that my backup program really backs everything up (I’m looking at you Carbonite!)"
  • Single Computer and Drive Coverage Limitation $4.91-$24/month per additional computer requiring backup
    medium 2 sources
    Trustpilot "I've had carbonite for many years. I had a drive crash and felt confident all my files could be restored. WRONG! Carbonite apparently only backs up one drive. If your computer has two, you are screwed."
    Reddit "it appears that their pricing for personal users only includes one computer and one external drive. I'm backing up five external drives so already, I'm not even sure they handle my situation."
  • Intentional Restore Speed Throttling 20-40% of license costs in lost productivity; may require purchasing alternative recovery solutions
    critical 4 sources
    Trustpilot "Only after I proved the bottleneck was on their end did they finally admit they intentionally throttle restores to 100-150KB/s. At this rate, my data recovery will take over 4 months."
    Trustpilot "It is downloading at 3.5 Mbps. My ISP supports 300 to 500 Mbps. Customer support will not admit they are throttling the download speed. I understand them not wanting people to use as a file transfer service, but this is way too slow."
    Trustpilot "In 24 hours of restoration only 1 GB was downloaded. I ran an internet speed check and it was a high speed for downloading."
    Trustpilot "I needed to reinstall my laptop from scratch and decided to make use of the Carbonite restore for the first time after paying for an account for years."
  • NAS Device Backup Requires Expensive Server Plan Upgrade $50-$83.33/month for server plan if NAS backup is required
    high 1 source
    Trustpilot "Carbonite Safe Core was backing up files from my 2 NAS devices for about 10 years under Windows 10. I upgraded to Windows 11 and all of a sudden Safe Core doesn't know how to back up NAS devices."
  • Strict 30-Day Refund Window on Multi-Year Subscriptions $58-$300 in unrecoverable prepaid subscription costs depending on plan and term length
    high 2 sources
    Trustpilot "First of all, there's only a 30-day refund policy. Even if you buy a plan for 2 years and your computer dies, you cannot get that money back. Let's say in 30 days you can't figure out how to download the stuff or it just doesn't work on your computer."
    Trustpilot "I had purchased a one yr subscription And it appears to have stopped working after the IOS 26 update on my laptop. I tried to get this fixed by online as well as in person call."
  • Weekend and After-Hours Support Blackout 5-10% of license costs in unresolvable downtime incidents
    medium 2 sources
    Trustpilot "Unreachable except for M-F 9-5. Carbonite caused my computer to SHUT DOWN! It glitched and used all the system data on my computer, making it entirely unusable."
    Trustpilot "When I try to find an agent to clarify, I'm told that the Carbonite office is open only between 9 AM - 6 PM Eastern and closed on weekends."
  • Price Escalation Without Service Improvement 10-25% annual price increases reported by long-term users
    medium 2 sources
    Trustpilot "Their customer service has gone down and down in quality and accessibility over the years while the price has of course increased."
    Reddit "I was sick of the high prices of Carbonite and the slow backups/recovery."
Tip

Ask your Carbonite sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 2 independent sources
Reddit User discussions Trustpilot Consumer reviews
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 22 source citations total.

Carbonite Contract Terms

Carbonite contracts auto-renew. Changes require 30-day refund window from purchase date; cancellation requires contacting support directly with no self-service path. These terms are sourced from verified buyer experiences.

Contract Terms
Auto-Renewal Yes
Cancellation Notice 30-day refund window from purchase date; cancellation requires contacting support directly with no self-service path
Minimum Commitment Annual for personal plans (Safe Basic, Safe Plus, Safe Prime); monthly available for business plans
Mid-Term Downgrade Not allowed
Payment Terms Annual upfront for personal plans; monthly billing available for business plans
Price Escalation No published price escalation schedule; multiple long-term users report consistent annual price increases over multi-year subscriptions
Note

No downgrade policy information found in source data

Based on 3 verified sources

How to Negotiate Carbonite Pricing

Carbonite contracts are negotiable. These 2 tactics are sourced from real buyer experiences and procurement specialists.

Negotiation Playbook 2 tactics
Leverage competitor pricing as negotiation anchor low success

Backblaze, iDrive, and CrashPlan are frequently cited in community discussions as direct alternatives with comparable or better pricing for personal cloud backup. Contacting Carbonite retention while mentioning you are actively evaluating these alternatives may prompt a retention offer or discount. Backblaze and iDrive are specifically cited by multiple reviewers who switched away from Carbonite.

Reddit community discussions across multiple threads
Request legacy pricing grandfathering during plan transitions low success

Carbonite has historically honored legacy pricing during product consolidations. When Mozy was acquired by Carbonite, existing Mozy customers were moved to Carbonite but were given Mozy pricing for the duration of their subscription. If Carbonite changes plan structures or raises prices at renewal, explicitly request to be grandfathered at your current rate citing this precedent.

Reddit r/msp
High success Medium Low / difficult

Full negotiation guide →

Carbonite Price History

Pricing changes CostBench has tracked for Carbonite, verified across 3 snapshots going back to 2026Q1.

  1. Carbonite price decrease

    Highest tier decreased from $83 to $8/month

    -90.4%

  2. Carbonite tier restructure

    Changed from 6 to 1 pricing tiers

  3. Carbonite tier renamed

    "Safe Basic" renamed to "Carbonite Safe Basic"

View Carbonite's full price history →

Carbonite Pricing FAQ

01 How much does Carbonite cost per month?

Carbonite Safe personal plans range from $4.91/month (Basic) to $8/month (Prime). Business plans start at $24/month for Safe Backup Pro covering up to 25 computers with 250GB storage. Server plans range from $50-$95.99/month.

02 Is Carbonite really unlimited?

Carbonite Safe personal plans (Basic, Plus, Prime) offer unlimited cloud storage for one computer. However, the Basic plan excludes external drives and some video files. Business plans have defined storage limits (250GB for Pro) with paid upgrades available.

03 Does Carbonite backup external hard drives?

Only Carbonite Safe Plus and Prime plans include external hard drive backup. The Basic plan is limited to internal drives only. Business plans (Safe Backup Pro) support external and NAS drives.

04 What is Carbonite courier recovery?

Carbonite Safe Prime includes courier recovery service, where Carbonite will ship your backed-up data on a physical hard drive for faster disaster recovery. This is useful when downloading large amounts of data would take too long.

05 Is Carbonite good for business?

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro is suitable for small businesses with up to 25 computers needing basic cloud backup. However, the 250GB base storage can be limiting; businesses with more data may find competitors offer better value.

06 Does Carbonite back up all my files automatically?

No. Carbonite excludes large files from backup by default. This exclusion happens silently, and many users only discover that their largest files were never backed up when they attempt to restore data. Check your backup settings carefully to ensure all important files are included, especially large media files, disk images, or databases.

07 How does Carbonite pricing compare to competitors?

Historical pricing shows Carbonite around $5-6/month for unlimited storage, though recent sources indicate pricing has increased. Competitors like Backblaze and CrashPlan offer similar unlimited backup services, often with fewer restrictions on file sizes and types. The Safe Basic plan starts at $4.91/month, with business plans ranging from $24/month to $95.99/month depending on features needed.

08 How fast is Carbonite's data restore?

Carbonite intentionally throttles restore speeds to approximately 100-150KB/s, a limitation the company has admitted to customers only when pressed. Multiple reviewers report achieving 1-3.5 Mbps restore speeds despite having ISP download speeds of 70-500 Mbps available. At throttled speeds, restoring 1.5TB takes over 4 months; even 104GB can take more than 7 days.

09 Can I get a refund if Carbonite stops working after an OS update?

Only within the first 30 days of purchase. After the 30-day window, Carbonite does not issue refunds regardless of whether the product is functioning. This applies even to multi-year prepaid subscriptions—if your computer fails or the software becomes incompatible with an OS update after 30 days, no refund is provided for the remaining subscription period.

10 Does Carbonite support NAS device backup?

Not on the listed personal tier. Carbonite Safe Basic covers cloud backup for one computer at $8/month or $95.99/year, and the authoritative pricing here does not include a NAS backup tier.

11 What are Carbonite's customer support hours?

Customer support is available Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm Eastern time only. There is no weekend or after-hours support. Software failures, backup issues, or account problems that occur on Friday evening through Sunday cannot be addressed until Monday morning.

12 How do I cancel my Carbonite subscription?

Cancellation requires contacting Carbonite support directly—there is no straightforward self-service cancellation option. Multiple users report the process requires several emails and persistent follow-up. Note that canceling a subscription does not trigger a refund if you are past the 30-day refund window, regardless of how much time remains on your subscription.

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