Cloud file storage and sharing · Comparison

Dropbox vs Google Drive vs Microsoft OneDrive

3 products compared side by side: what you pay for with each one first, then the five access facts, entry prices, recorded plan limits and the bottom line of each review. The evidence note under the table says how each product was checked.

Side by side

Dropbox vs Google Drive vs Microsoft OneDrive: value, access facts, plan limits and bottom lines
Metric	Dropbox	Google Drive	Microsoft OneDrive
What you're paying for	Easy to adoptTeam storage built for sharing with clients: link passwords, expiry dates, download blocking and 180-day recovery on the entry team plan.	Worth the priceTeam storage bundled with business email, meetings and documents in one seat, with SSO, Drive activity logs and a HIPAA BAA on every Business plan.	Worth the priceA terabyte per user with full link controls, file requests, audit logging and a HIPAA BAA for $5.40 per user, with business email and web Office apps.
Overall score	7.6	7.4	9.2Best
Free option	Free plan	Free plan	Free plan
Card to start	–Not measured	–Not measured	–Not measured
Getting access	Self-serve	Self-serve	Self-serve
Starter priceCheapest paid plan	$15/user/mo	$7/user/mo	$5.40/user/mo
Pricing model	Per seat	Per seat	Per seat
Pricing page	Public prices	Public prices	Public prices
Billing unit	Per license per month; storage pooled for the team	Per user per month; storage pooled across the organization	Per user per month; 1 TB of OneDrive per user
Free option	Dropbox Basic, 2 GB; free trial of Standard and Advanced (30 days per the plans page)	Google account, 15 GB; 14-day Workspace trial	Microsoft account, 5 GB; one-month business trial with a card
Reference scenario (10 users, 2 TB, annual)	$150/mo on Standard ($15 × 10), computed	$140/mo on Business Standard ($14 × 10), computed	$54/mo on Business Basic without Teams ($5.40 × 10), computed
Month-to-month price	$18 per user on Standard ($18 / $30 for Standard and Advanced)	$16.80 per user on Business Standard flexible ($8.40 / $16.80 / $26.40)	$6.48 per user without Teams, $8.40 with Teams
Storage on the scenario plan	3 TB plus 1 TB per additional active license, pooled (12 TB for 10)	2 TB per user, pooled (20 TB for 10)	1 TB per user; SharePoint pool of 1 TB plus 10 GB per license
Restore deleted files	180 days on Standard, 1 year on Advanced	30 days in the trash; admins can restore 25 days more	93 days for work accounts; restore the whole OneDrive to any point in 30 days
Password and expiring links	Standard and up	No link passwords; access expiry for eligible work accounts	Every business plan
SOC 2 / ISO 27001	SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate cover Standard and up	SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 (Workspace in scope)	SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 (Office 365 in scope)
HIPAA BAA	Standard and up; US admins sign it in the Admin Console	Accepted by admins in the Admin console	By default through Microsoft's data protection addendum
EU data storage	By support request: 10+ licenses, annual billing, billing address outside the current region	Data region policy from Business Standard	Follows the sign-up country or region
SSO	Advanced and up ($24)	Third-party identity provider on every Business plan	Microsoft Entra ID (free version included)
Admin activity log	Audit logs with file event tracking on Advanced; Standard admins see 180 days of activity	Drive log events on every Business plan	Purview Audit (Standard) on Business Basic
Bottom line	From its public pages, Dropbox Standard is a complete sharing plan for teams: link controls, file requests, 180-day recovery and a HIPAA BAA at $15 per user. SSO and audit logs need Advanced, and Enterprise and extra storage are priced outside the plans page.	From its public pages, Google Drive in Workspace ties with OneDrive for the top compliance and admin scores here, for $14 per user with email and documents included. Its sharing tools are simpler: no link passwords or file requests, and a 30-day trash.	From its public pages, OneDrive in Microsoft 365 Business Basic scores highest here: $5.40 per user with full link controls, 93-day recovery, audit logging and a BAA. Storage is per person, and shared team sites draw on a smaller organization pool.

Evidence: Dropbox: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Google Drive: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Microsoft OneDrive: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.

When to pick each

In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.

From our Dropbox review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Dropbox when
You share with clients and need password links, file requests and 180-day recovery.
Pick Google Drive when
You also want business email, meetings and documents, with SSO and an activity log on a $14 seat.
From our Dropbox review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Dropbox when
You want one pooled team space and 180-day recovery rather than 1 TB per person.
Pick Microsoft OneDrive when
You want the lowest cost: $54 a month for 10 users on Business Basic without Teams, with SSO, audit and a BAA.
From our Google Drive review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Google Drive when
You want business email, meetings and documents with SSO and an activity log on a $14 seat.
Pick Dropbox when
You share with clients and need password links, file requests and 180-day recovery.
From our Google Drive review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Google Drive when
You work in Docs, Sheets and Slides and want storage pooled across the team.
Pick Microsoft OneDrive when
You work in Office files and want the lowest seat price, $5.40 on Business Basic without Teams.
From our Microsoft OneDrive review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Microsoft OneDrive when
You work in Office files and want the lowest seat price with link passwords and file requests.
Pick Google Drive when
You want storage pooled across the team and work in Docs, Sheets and Slides.
From our Microsoft OneDrive review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Microsoft OneDrive when
You want SSO, audit logging and a BAA for $54 a month for 10 users.
Pick Dropbox when
You want one pooled team space of 12 TB and 180-day recovery on Standard.

Entry price

Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.

Dropbox
Standard
$15/user/mo
Billed yearly; $18 billed monthly; no minimum team size
- 3 TB for the first license plus 1 TB per additional active license, shared
- Password-protected and expiring links, download blocking, viewer history
- 180 days to restore deleted files and versions
- Admin console, team sharing controls, HIPAA BAA
Google Drive
Business Starter
$7/user/mo
1-year commitment; $8.40 flexible; up to 300 users
- 30 GB pooled storage per user
- Gmail with your domain, Meet for 100 participants
- SSO, Drive log events, remote account wipe
Microsoft OneDriveLowest price
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (no Teams)
$5.40/user/mo
Paid yearly; $6.48 on a monthly subscription; up to 300 users
- 1 TB of OneDrive per user, SharePoint team sites
- Business email, web and mobile Office apps
- Password, expiry and block-download link settings, file requests

Prices as listed on each pricing page, in USD per month, excluding tax. Observed: Dropbox 2026-10-16, Google Drive 2026-10-16, Microsoft OneDrive 2026-10-16.

Which one fits

If you need to start today without a sales call: Microsoft OneDriveSelf-serve sign-up; the highest score of the 3 self-serve products here (9.2/10).
Lowest starter price: Microsoft OneDrive$5.40/user/mo for the Microsoft 365 Business Basic, no Teams (paid yearly) plan.
Highest overall score: Microsoft OneDrive9.2/10 (Excellent). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.

Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score

Full reviews

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