Is iCloud+ worth it? Prices, what you get and who should skip it

What does each tier cost per year?

What do I get besides space?

• Sharing: every tier can be shared with up to five other family members.
• Private Relay for Safari and Hide My Email addresses.
• Custom email domain for iCloud Mail.
• Peace of mind: a lost phone can be restored from the last backup.

Sharing is where the value grows. Six people on one 2 TB plan pay $9.99 a month between them, well under the cost of six separate 200 GB plans at $2.99 each, which would be $17.94. A couple who both own iPhones often get more out of one shared 200 GB tier than two 50 GB ones.

Which tier fits a typical user?

• 50 GB: one phone backup plus a library of a few thousand photos and little video.
• 200 GB: most single users and many couples with years of photos.
• 2 TB: families sharing, heavy 4K video shooters, or a Mac with Desktop and Documents in iCloud.
• 6 TB and 12 TB: professionals and very large shared libraries.

When is it not worth it?

• You are leaving iPhone. Your new phone won't use iCloud backups, so the plan becomes a photo archive you could keep elsewhere.
• Most of the space is junk: duplicates, bursts and old backups. Clearing those may drop you a tier; see what to delete first.
• You already pay for Google One or another cloud and back up photos there.
• You back up to a computer regularly and accept that a lost phone means restoring from that copy instead.

For a price-by-price comparison with Google, read is iCloud or Google One cheaper. To leave, the stop-paying guide has the steps.