Online Backup Services Comparison for You & Your Clients

An online backup services comparison usually focus on which service is best.  The services are a popular way of protecting client data. The backups are automatic and off-site, giving your clients peace of mind in case of disaster. If you’re suggesting these services, you have to look at what’s best for your clients without forgetting which services will make you the most money.

Services Compared

The industry is dominated by four major players. For this article, I’m focused on small office, home office and residential customers with workstations. I didn’t consider server or business class options. All these companies offer iPhone and Android apps, so clients can access their data on the road.

Mozy

Pricing: Mozy is the only company that doesn’t offer unlimited pricing. For consumers, they have a $5.99 a month plan that backs up up 50 Gig and a $9.99 plan that backs up 125 Gig. Mozy shares the data space with additional computers for $2.00 a month. Additional space is sold in 20 Gig increments of $2.00 a month. They offer a free plan that backs up 2 Gig for free.

Backup features: Mozy uses a wizard-based approach and backs up common files. You can also select specific files or folders.Seeding: No consumer seeding program. The only way to get data to the servers is to wait for the backup to complete. The Pro version has “Data Shuttle.”

Restore by Mail: They offer a restore option by DVD or hard drive. Pricing is by the gig. 50 cents a Gig plus a $29.99 and a $40 processing fee.
Local option: Mozy will back up to an external hard drive along with the online backup service.
Revenue Opportunity: Co-branded partner program for Mozy Pro. Currently they have no opportunities for affiliate marketing.

Recommendation: For clients nervous about online backup, the Two Gig Free option helps them back something up. It’s an easy sell since it’s free. Otherwise, the consumer product isn’t a great deal for either backing up or restoring data.

Carbonite

Pricing: Carbonite’s standard pricing is $59.99 per year per computer with unlimited data. Higher price plans have local backup option and restore by mail. Discount for multi-year commitment: Two years 5%, Three years 10%.

Backup features: Carbonite uses a wizard approach and lets you specify files or folders. Files larger than 4 Gig aren’t backed up by default unless the consumer pays for the Prime ($149.99) program.Seeding: No seeding option for consumer backup.

Restore by Mail: Reserved for the Prime customers. This plan has a “courier recovery” service that restores customer files via mail for $9.99.

Local Option: Reserved for Plus customers ($99 per year per computer) and Prime customers.

Revenue Opportunity: Administered by Commission Junction. The payout is 30% for new sales. They also have a partner program with tiered payouts from 15% up to 25%.

Recommendation: The 30% commission is nice. Most clients have heard of Carbonite. Some clients like paying for the piece of mind of being shipped a hard drive.

Backblaze

Pricing: The standard pricing is $50 per year per computer with unlimited data. Consumers can pay by the month for $5 or pay for two years at $95.00. The backup also includes tracking for a computer that’s reported lost or stolen.

Backup Features: Backup uses an “exclusive” backup approach. Data files are backed up unless excluded. They exclude programs and certain file types by default.

Seeding: No seeding option for consumer backup.

Restore by Mail: For $99, they’ll ship 110 Gig of data overnight on a 128 Gig USB flash drive. The client gets to keep the drive. Restores up to 3.5 TB are shipped on a 4TB external hard drive and cost $189. If your restore is larger than 4TB, consumer will have to pay another $189 (or $99) for the remainder of the data to be shipped.

Local Option: No option for local backup.

Revenue Opportunity: They have a self-administered affiliate program that pays 10% on all sales. What’s unique is they pay recurring revenue. You’ll get 10% of their renewal fees as well.

Recommendation: With the pricing and recurring revenue, this is my preferred recommendation for clients and other computer repair service providers. The recurring revenue is nice. Once you get a critical number of clients on the program, you’ve got mostly guaranteed revenue. The restore by mail is a good peace of mind in an emergency.

Crashplan

Pricing: Crashplan has the most extensive options. For local backups or backups to another computer running Crashplan, the software is free. The backups are peer-to-peer over the Internet. That’s handy for a college student backing up to their parent’s home. Cloud based backups start at $59 per year per computer with unlimited data. They offer discounts for multi-year commitments. The maximum plan is four years at $189.99 ($47.50 per year). They offer a Family Plan that backs up a maximum of 10 Computers for $149.99 per year. A four year commitment is $429.99 ($108.50 per year). Month by Month pricing is also available on all plans.

Backup Features: The software doesn’t have a wizard that selects critical file types. It will by default backup the user’s folder or home directory. This program is a Java based application, so I’ve had compatibility programs. Some technicians avoid Java on client systems for security reasons. The user interface isn’t friendly, and most customers can’t figure it out. This UI could be a feature or a bonus for computer repair technicians, depending on your approach.

Seeding: All plans allow for a one-time seeding added on to a subscription. The price is $125 and includes up to 1TB of data. Any data over 1TB is still over the Internet.

Restore by Mail: All Plans support the “Restore-to-Door” option add-on. This includes 3.5 TB of data. Restores beyond 3.5 TB must still be done by the web.

Local Option: Built in by default. The software allows consumers to specify multiple destinations, except for network based drives (workarounds exist). Some clients will do an online backup option and rotate external hard drives for maximum protection.

Revenue Opportunity: Administered by Commission Junction. The payout is 15% for new sales. They also have a partner program for MSPs.

Recommendation: This is the least-known among the four brands for consumers. They’re hesitant to try a product that hasn’t been advertised. If they want a hard drive based solution, we install CrashPlan so they are familiar with it. We can then sell them the cloud idea later. For larger families with more than three computers to back up, the family plan is very attractive. I use this for most of my laptops while I still keep my primary computer on Backblaze.

Typical Objections

Most customers understand the value of data backup, but just don’t know how to do it. The first objection we get is privacy: “Can I trust these people with my data?” We respond explaining that the service encrypts the data. They should choose a strong password for backup. The next concern is price: “I don’t want to pay yearly!” We position like insurance and you are protecting against loss. The best time to sell these solutions is right after a data loss or recovery. The customer feels the pain of the loss and you can assure them it won’t happen again. Finally they are concerned about the companies’ longevity: “If they go out of business, how will I get my data back?” In these cases, we explain it’s highly unlikely they’ll experience a data loss at the same time the online backup service goes out of business. They aren’t likely to close overnight either. That’s why we stick with these well known and established brands.

Why not sell backup services to the customer?

For MSPs, this makes sense. You are taking full responsibility and control of the systems. The customer relies on your for everything, so this is a logical extension. For break-fix clients though, you are assuming a huge risk reselling services. If the software fails due to a glitch or customer configuration, the customer blames you. They’re paying you and then you need to fix the problem. If you act as an affiliate though and they pay the backup company, ultimately you can assist without taking on the liability for the software. The most common problem I see in the field is that an antivirus is blocking the backup software. We don’t find this out until a data loss.

We all know data loss is inevitable as storage doesn’t last forever. There’s no one right solution for your clients or your income stream.

 
Written by Dave Greenbaum