MSP Backup Pricing Guide
What to Expect in 2026

The difference between a profitable backup service and a margin-killer often comes down to understanding pricing before you sign.

MSP backup pricing is notoriously opaque. You’ll find pricing ranges from $2 per endpoint to $25+ per endpoint, depending on features, storage, support, and vendor. Without a clear framework for comparison, it’s easy to accidentally sign a contract that leaves you with 20% margins when you should be at 60%.

This guide breaks down:

• How the four main pricing models work (and which fits your business)
• The hidden costs vendors don’t advertise (but should)
• A framework for comparing apples-to-apples across vendors
• Real-world pricing scenarios for different MSP sizes
• How to structure your own pricing to maintain healthy margins

The math starts here: Know your all-in platform cost. Make sure your client pricing covers at least 2–3x that number — if it doesn’t, you’re underpriced before you’ve even started. But 2–3x is the floor, not the target. Your billing model choice is what determines where your margins actually land. This guide walks you through each model so you can see the difference.

Common MSP Backup Pricing Models

Most vendors use one of four pricing models. Each has pros and cons depending on your client mix.

Per-Device Pricing (Most Common)

How it works: You pay a fixed fee for each protected device (laptop, desktop, server) per month. Typical vendor range: $3–15/device/month.

Pros:

• Predictable costs (easy to budget)
• Easy to quote clients (“$12 per laptop”)
• Minimal tracking overhead
• Scales simply (add device = add fixed cost)

Cons:

• Doesn’t account for data volume (a 100GB laptop costs the same as a 1TB laptop)
• Can lose money on heavy data users
• Doesn’t differentiate between endpoints (all devices = same price)
• May overpay for light users

Best for: MSPs with standardized client environments (SMBs with 10–50 laptops, predictable usage patterns)

Example: 50 client devices @ $5/device = $250/month vendor cost. You price at $15/device to clients = $750/month revenue (66% margin).

Per-GB Pricing (Data-Heavy Environments)

How it works: You pay based on protected data volume. Typical vendor range: $0.10–0.50/GB/month.

Pros:

• Fair for light users (don’t overpay for unused capacity)
• Scales with actual usage
• Encourages clients to manage data bloat
• No surprise overages if volume is predictable

Cons:

• Hard to predict costs upfront
• Storage creep can surprise you mid-month
• Clients see unpredictable invoices
• Requires ongoing monitoring

Best for: MSPs with highly variable client data volumes (mix of small and large users, video/media companies)

Example: 2TB protected data @ $0.20/GB = $400/month vendor cost. You price clients at $0.50/GB = $1,000/month revenue (60% margin). But if data grows to 3TB unexpectedly, your margin tightens.

What to charge clients per GB (retail ranges):

Always set a per-endpoint minimum ($10–25/month) so you’re never locked into absurdly low bills on tiny clients. Consider adding a $1–5/machine fee on top — it builds in margin to cover the backup software cost and lets you offer a slightly lower per-GB rate to close deals.

Per-User/Seat Pricing (SaaS-Focused)

How it works: You pay per protected user account. Typical range: $5–20/user/month.

Pros:

• Aligns with how clients think (per employee)
• Works well for M365/cloud-first environments
• Simple counting (number of employees)
• Predictable for growth planning

Cons:

• Doesn’t account for multiple devices per user
• Doesn’t account for server data
• May overpay if users have limited devices
• Less suitable for on-premises infrastructure

Best for: MSPs specializing in cloud-first companies or M365 management

Package/Tiered Pricing (Predictability at Scale)

How it works: You define storage or device tiers — buckets with a flat price — and clients fall into whichever tier fits their size. Example: $20/month for 0–50GB, $40/month for 50–100GB, $80/month for 100–500GB. Price is fixed within the tier regardless of where in the range the client lands.

Pros:

• Predictable revenue — no invoice changes every time a client adds a few GB
• Built-in minimum revenue floor (even the smallest client pays for their tier)
• Statistically favorable — clients average out to the middle of their tier, so you’re often collecting payment for more capacity than you’re actually storing
• Clean upsell path (client grows → moves to next tier naturally)
• Easy to explain: clients know their max cost upfront

Cons:

• Pricing cliffs if tiers aren’t designed well (a client at 49GB vs. 51GB sees a big jump)
• Requires thoughtful tier design upfront — wrong tier boundaries cost you margin
• Less precise than per-GB for very data-heavy clients

Best for: MSPs who want invoice simplicity without the risk of true unlimited pricing. Works especially well once you have a feel for your clients’ typical data sizes.

How WholesaleBackup fits here: On the platform cost side, WholesaleBackup uses a seat-block structure — $150/month for 50 connections, then $3/seat in blocks as you grow. That’s tiered pricing applied to your wholesale cost. Many WholesaleBackup resellers mirror this logic when billing their own clients: build storage tiers that match common client sizes, price each tier with healthy margin, and let clients self-select.

A note on “unlimited” pricing: True unlimited backup — one flat fee, no caps, no tiers — is a margin trap. Your storage, bandwidth, and support costs scale with data volume. One client who backs up 4TB at a $30/month flat rate wipes out the margin from ten smaller clients. Tiered pricing gives you the simplicity of flat fees without the unlimited liability.

WholesaleBackup Model: Flat Monthly Plan with Seat Blocks

WholesaleBackup uses a flat monthly plan model rather than per-unit pricing. In practice:

• Entry plan: $150/month — includes 50 client connections (seats)
• Infrastructure fee: ~$8–13/month — covers the web console, scales with endpoint count
• Additional seats: Add blocks of 10 or 20 at $3/seat as you grow — flat rate, no tier jumps
• Unlimited white-label brands included (no per-brand fee)
• Storage is separate — bring your own: Wasabi, Backblaze B2, AWS S3, GCP, Synology C2, or self-hosted. WholesaleBackup doesn’t mark up storage — you connect directly to your provider and get the lowest possible price straight from the source.
• No egress fees at the platform level
• No per-restore charges
• Free USA-based support included

How this helps your margins: Your platform cost is predictable and fixed until you add seats. Because storage is separate (BYOC), you control that cost too. Wasabi has no egress fees, so a large restore won’t spike your costs. You’re not locked into expensive bundled storage.

Hidden Costs to Watch For

This is where margins die. Vendors quote a base price, but the fine print hides costs that compress your margin dramatically.

Egress Fees

What they are: Charges for downloading or restoring data from the vendor’s cloud. These vary dramatically by cloud provider.

Why they matter: Egress fees hit your margins when you need them most — during a restore. A 500GB restore could cost anywhere from $0 (Wasabi or Backblaze) to ~$36 (AWS after 100GB free, @ $0.09/GB) to ~$25.50 (Google Cloud after 200GB free, @ $0.085/GB). On a larger restore — say 2TB — those costs scale to $0-$175 depending on your backend. Those fees come directly out of your margin.

Real cost impact by backend provider (500GB restore, North America pricing as of 2026):

• Wasabi: $0 (no egress fees)
• Backblaze B2: $0 (no egress fees; fair-use: 3x stored data free/month)
• Synology C2: ~$10-$25 (@ $0.02-0.05/GB)
• Google Cloud: ~$25.50 (500GB – 200GB free x $0.085/GB Standard Tier)
• AWS S3: ~$36 (500GB – 100GB free x $0.09/GB)

Red flags:

• Vendor won’t clearly disclose egress pricing upfront
• Bundled storage with hidden egress costs
• Egress charges that increase as data volume grows

Question to ask: “What are the exact egress fees per GB? Can I choose my cloud backend to control these costs?”

WholesaleBackup difference: WholesaleBackup applies zero egress fees at the platform level. Your choice of cloud backend (Wasabi, AWS, Google Cloud, Backblaze, etc.) determines your actual egress costs — giving you full transparency and control.

Storage backend selection by customer type:

• AWS S3 ($0.09/GB egress, first 100GB/month free): Enterprise customers expect it; proven reliability and 99.9% SLA justify the cost. Use for customers who prioritize enterprise-grade redundancy.
• Backblaze B2 ($0 egress): Best balance for MSPs — zero egress charges with fair-use allowance (3x your stored data free per month; covers 95%+ of restore scenarios), fast (163.80 MB/s on small files), low cost, plug-and-play configuration with no optimization needed.
• Wasabi ($0 egress, ~$6.99/TB storage): Absolute lowest cost with zero egress fees. Works reliably out-of-box with WholesaleBackup’s block-level incremental architecture. Important: Wasabi has a 90-day minimum storage charge per object and a 1TB minimum monthly billing ($6.99/mo) — best for clients keeping 90+ days of backups at meaningful data volumes.
• Google Cloud ($0.085/GB egress Standard Tier, first 200GB/month free): Fastest single-stream throughput (200+ MB/s). A natural fit for clients already integrated into the GCP ecosystem.

Real cost impact example: Across a portfolio of 50 customers with 2–3 incident restores per year (assuming 1TB average restore size, North America pricing):

• AWS S3: ~$247/year in egress costs (3 restores × ~$82 per 1TB after 100GB free @ $0.09/GB)
• Google Cloud: ~$204/year in egress costs (3 restores × ~$68 per 1TB after 200GB free @ $0.085/GB)
• Wasabi: $0/year in egress costs (same 3 restores)
• Difference: $200–250/year per portfolio — that compounds across multiple client bases and multiple restore events

Per-Restore Fees

What they are: Some vendors charge for every restore operation (per-file, per-server, per-day).

Why they matter: They punish you for doing your job well. Clients expect multiple small restores. Each one costs you.

Question to ask: “Is there a charge per restore? Per file? Per day?”

Support Tiers

What they are: Basic support often means email-only, 48-hour response. Priority support costs extra: 20–50% premium.

Why they matter: When your client has a backup failure at 4pm Friday, you need vendor support. Email-only isn’t enough. You’ll pay for priority.

WholesaleBackup difference: Free USA-based support included (no tier upsells).

Storage Overage Charges

What they are: “Included storage” limit with punitive overage rates (often 2–3x normal price).

Why they matter: Clients’ data grows. You’ll hit those limits. Overages are expensive.

Question to ask: “If I exceed my included storage, what’s the overage rate? Is it the same per-GB rate or higher?”

Minimum Commitments & Early Termination Fees

What they are: Annual contracts with penalties for canceling early. Also: minimum seat/device/storage counts.

Why they matter: You’re locked in even if the platform doesn’t work for you. If a better vendor appears, you’re stuck.

WholesaleBackup difference: Month-to-month agreements, no minimums, cancel anytime.

Training & Onboarding Fees

What they are: Some enterprise platforms charge $500–2,000 for onboarding. May require paid certification for your technicians.

Why they matter: They inflate your startup costs and ongoing training budget.

A Complete Cost Disclosure Checklist

Before signing any backup platform, ask for a complete cost breakdown:

Base platform fee:          $______/month
Per-device cost:            $______/device/month
Per-GB storage cost:        $______/GB/month
Egress/restore fees:        $______/GB (if any)
Support tier cost:          $______/month (if not included)
Overage rates:              ____________________
Minimum commitment:         ______________ (months)
Early termination fee:      $__________
Training/onboarding:        $__________
Annual cost estimate:       $__________

Pricing Comparison Framework

Before you can compare vendors apples-to-apples, you need a standard methodology. Here’s the four-step framework:

Step 1: Build Your Client Profile

Define a standard client scenario you can use for every comparison:

• Endpoints protected (e.g., 25 devices)
• Data volume (e.g., 500GB total)
• Expected restores per year (e.g., 2 partial restores, 1 full restore)
• Restore data volume (e.g., 100GB per incident)

Using a standard profile lets you plug the same numbers into every vendor’s pricing calculator and get a true comparison.

Step 2: Calculate Your True Monthly Cost

True cost = Platform fee + Storage cost + Egress cost (annualized / 12) + Support cost

Most vendors will quote platform + storage but omit egress and support. Run the full formula. A vendor charging $4/endpoint with $0.09/GB egress may be more expensive than a vendor charging $5/endpoint with $0 egress once you factor in your annual restore volume.

Step 3: Project Growth Costs

Run your cost formula at 2x, 5x, and 10x your current client count. Some vendors look cheap at small scale but have punitive pricing at volume. Others negotiate volume discounts that make them far more competitive at scale. Per-connection pricing (like WholesaleBackup uses) tends to scale predictably — no pricing cliffs or tier jumps.

Step 4: Factor Operational Costs

Add 30 minutes of admin time per client per month at your internal labor rate. If a platform requires more manual intervention (no automated alerting, complex console, poor documentation), your operational cost per client rises. Platforms with strong management consoles, automated alerting, and remote deployment can reduce operational overhead by 50% compared to manually managed alternatives.

For non-pricing evaluation criteria (management console quality, support responsiveness, white-label capabilities), see our MSP Backup Platform Selection Guide.

Real-World TCO Scenarios

Numbers make the abstract concrete. All three scenarios below use WholesaleBackup with Backblaze B2 as the storage backend (zero egress, $0.006/GB/month). The platform cost stays identical across tabs — what changes is how you bill your clients. Use the tabs to see how each pricing model affects your revenue and margin at the same scale.

A note on storage volumes: These scenarios use realistic SMB data sizes based on industry averages — roughly 75–120GB per workstation plus 200–400GB per server with standard retention policies applied. Actual backup storage varies significantly depending on data type (documents vs. databases vs. VM images), retention period, deduplication ratios, and whether you’re protecting servers alongside workstations. Your numbers will differ — use these as ballpark benchmarks, not guarantees.

How WholesaleBackup Pricing Works

WholesaleBackup uses a flat monthly plan structure that’s worth understanding in detail, because it differs from how most backup vendors charge.

Plans with Seat Blocks, Not Per-Device Metering

The entry plan is $150/month and includes 50 client connections (seats). A “seat” or “connection” is a unique backup client installation — one laptop, one server, one workstation. As your business grows, you add seats in blocks of 10 or 20 at a flat $3/seat — the same rate as your base plan, with no tier jumps or volume penalties. This gives you linear, predictable cost scaling from your first 50 connections to your first 500.

There’s also a small web console infrastructure fee of approximately $8–13/month, which scales based on the number of endpoints you’re managing. This covers the multi-tenant management console, remote deployment, alerting, and reporting — tools you’d pay extra for on most competitive platforms.

Effective cost: $3/seat across the board. Whether you’re at 50 connections or 200, the math stays simple — and at $3/seat, you’re getting white-label software, USA-based support, unlimited brands, and a full management console included.

Volume Discounts for Larger Resellers

If you’re already managing a significant endpoint count — or you’re switching from another platform with an existing book of business — WholesaleBackup offers volume discounts starting at 100 endpoints. Discounts are applied automatically at the following tiers:

The 100-endpoint plan at $240/month is our most popular volume tier. At a 20% discount over standard seat pricing, it’s the sweet spot for growing MSPs and resellers migrating from another platform. At $2.40/seat with BMR, white-label, and USA support included, the margin math becomes very compelling: billing clients at $12–15/endpoint yields 80–83% gross margin before storage costs.

If you’re coming to WholesaleBackup with more than 50 existing endpoints, it’s worth running the numbers against our volume tiers rather than defaulting to the base plan. See full pricing or start a free trial to explore what your specific endpoint count would cost.

Unlimited White-Label Brands

There’s no per-brand fee. Whether you run one backup brand or twenty (e.g., for different verticals or client segments), your platform cost doesn’t change. This matters for MSPs who operate multiple brands or want to test different positioning for different markets.

Bring Your Own Cloud Storage (BYOC)

WholesaleBackup doesn’t bundle storage — you connect your own cloud backend. This means:

• You control storage costs directly (choose Wasabi at $0.0068/GB, Backblaze B2 at $0.006/GB, or AWS at $0.023/GB)
• No markup on storage passing through the platform
• No egress fees at the platform level (only what your cloud provider charges)
• Freedom to switch backends if pricing changes or a better option emerges

MSPs who self-host can further reduce per-client costs — see the self-hosted online server backup setup guide for the technical path.

No Restore Fees. No Per-File Charges. No BMR Surcharges.

Some platforms charge per restore, per file accessed, or per recovery operation — and some charge a premium for bare metal restores. WholesaleBackup doesn’t. File restores, full system restores, bare metal recovery — no additional platform charges regardless of restore type or frequency.

Full Disaster Recovery Included (2025)

WholesaleBackup’s 2025 releases added a complete disaster recovery stack — included at no extra cost per seat:

• Bare Metal Restore (BMR): Restore a complete disk image (VHD) to any physical hardware. Web portal-initiated: browse available VHDs, generate a restore code, boot from WholesaleBackup’s WinPE USB, restore over the internet. Full machine recovery — not just file recovery.
• Image to Physical Disk: Restore virtual disk images (VHDs) back to real physical hardware. Critical for clients who’ve virtualized workloads and need a physical fallback.
• AWS Disk Image Restore: Cloud-native disk image restore for AWS S3-backed clients.

Platforms that offer BMR as a separate add-on (or only through expensive BCDR appliances) charge significantly more. WholesaleBackup includes it at $3/seat. For SMB clients who need whole machine recovery capability without Datto-tier pricing, this changes the competitive math entirely.

Free USA-Based Support

Support is included with unlimited training. New partners get onboarding sessions at no extra cost, and ongoing training is always available as your team grows. No tiered support levels. No “priority support” add-on. USA-based support is available to MSP partners without additional cost. When you have a client issue at 4pm on a Friday, you have someone to call.

Month-to-Month Flexibility

No annual contracts required. No minimum commitments. You can scale up or down as your client base changes. This matters during business transitions, client churn events, or when you’re evaluating the platform before committing.

See current pricing: WholesaleBackup Pricing Page — rates are updated regularly and volume discounts are applied automatically.

Ready to test the economics yourself? Start a free trial and set up your first white-label brand at no cost.

Model Your Own MRR Growth

The TCO scenarios above use fixed assumptions. Your numbers will be different — your pricing, your client size, your growth rate. Use the calculator below to plug in your own inputs and see how backup MRR compounds over 8 quarters at your scale.

Adjust four inputs: your per-endpoint price, average endpoints per client, new clients added per quarter, and quarterly churn rate. The model updates instantly and shows cumulative MRR, annualized run rate, and compounding effect quarter by quarter.

Want to save your scenario? 📥 Download the MSP MRR Growth Model (Excel) — same model, fully editable, with an Assumptions tab and a How The Math Works explainer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the average cost per endpoint for MSP backup platforms?

Platform fees typically range $3–15/endpoint/month depending on the vendor and pricing model. WholesaleBackup’s entry plan is $150/month for 50 seats, with additional seats available at $3/seat in blocks of 10 or 20. Add the infrastructure fee (~$8–13/month) and storage ($0.006–0.023/GB/month depending on backend), and most resellers land between $3.50–5.00 all-in per endpoint per month — leaving plenty of room to charge clients $12–20/endpoint at healthy margins.

Per-device vs. per-GB pricing: which should I choose?

Per-device pricing wins for predictability and simplicity. Per-GB pricing wins for fairness at extreme data volumes. For most MSPs with SMB clients, per-device (or per-connection) pricing is easier to manage and easier to explain to clients. Switch to a per-GB component only if you consistently have clients with data volumes that break the per-device economics (e.g., video production studios, large databases).

How much should I charge my clients for backup?

A 2–3x markup on your all-in platform cost is the standard starting point. If your total cost is $5/endpoint (platform + storage), charge clients $12–15/endpoint. If your market and positioning support it, $20/endpoint is achievable — especially in regulated verticals (healthcare, legal, financial) where clients understand the compliance value. Avoid pricing below $10/endpoint for managed backup; at that price point, support costs erode your margin quickly.

What hidden costs should I ask vendors about?

Ask every vendor for a complete cost disclosure covering: base platform fee, per-device or per-GB costs, egress fees per GB restored, per-restore charges, support tier costs (and what’s included vs. add-on), storage overage rates, minimum commitments, and early termination fees. Any vendor who won’t provide this clearly upfront is a red flag.

Is white-label backup more expensive than reselling?

No — white-label backup is typically the same cost or cheaper than branded reselling, because you’re buying directly from the platform provider at wholesale rates rather than through a channel markup. The branding is a configuration, not a cost adder. The additional investment is time (brand setup, typically 2–3 hours once) rather than money.

How do I calculate backup TCO accurately?

TCO = (Platform cost × 12) + (Storage cost × 12) + (Egress cost × expected restores) + (Support time × hourly rate × 12) + (Onboarding/setup cost). Run this calculation for a standard client scenario and then for your realistic portfolio growth at 2x, 5x, and 10x. The vendor that looks cheapest at a single client often stops being cheapest at scale — especially if they have punitive overage rates or egress fees that compound with data growth.

Backup pricing isn’t complicated

But it requires discipline. The MSPs who build profitable backup practices are the ones who understand their true cost, price at a sustainable markup, and choose platforms that give them cost control rather than locking them into opaque structures.

The framework is simple:

• Know your per-connection cost (platform + storage + egress amortized)
• Confirm your pricing covers at least 2–3x that cost — that’s your viability floor, not your ceiling
• Choose the billing model that fits your client mix and your operational capacity
• Use backends with zero or low egress fees to protect your margins during restores
• Track your actual margins monthly and adjust pricing as your portfolio grows

Transparency in pricing protects you from surprises. Ask every vendor for a complete cost disclosure before you sign. The ones who can’t or won’t answer clearly are the ones most likely to surprise you mid-contract.

WholesaleBackup’s pricing is simple by design: $150/month entry plan with 50 client connections, seat blocks to add capacity as you grow, BYOC storage, zero platform egress fees, zero restore charges, free USA-based support, and month-to-month flexibility. You control your costs because you control your storage — and your plan cost is fixed until you choose to scale.

Ready to run the numbers?

• See current pricing — calculate your cost for your current client base
• How to Start an MSP Backup Business — the complete operational guide
• MSP Backup Platform Selection Guide — evaluate and compare backup platforms before you commit

Your margins are set the day you choose your platform. Choose carefully.