Microsoft 365 archiving pricing: scenarios, costs, calculation

Archiving in Microsoft 365 can be handled in different ways. One way is to use Microsoft's own archive. Microsoft 365 Archive pricing follows a pay-as-you-go model. Archived SharePoint data is billed at $0.05 per GB per month when the tenant's combined active and archived SharePoint storage exceeds its licensed storage quota.

There are no separate archive licenses or per-user fees for the archive itself, but an Azure subscription with pay-as-you-go billing enabled is required. Since March 31, 2025, reactivating archived SharePoint content is free of charge, with a four-month restriction on re-archiving the same content afterward.

Microsoft 365 archiving pricing at a glance

• storage rate: $0.05/GB/month for archived SharePoint data

• billed only when active and archived storage (total storage) exceeds your tenant's SharePoint storage quota

• reactivation of archived SharePoint content: free since March 31, 2025

• re-archive restriction: four months after a reactivation

• Azure subscription with pay-as-you-go billing required

• OneDrive archive accounts are billed under a separate rule set described later in this article

Billing model and scenarios

The Microsoft 365 Archive billing model is consumption-based and tied to your tenant's existing SharePoint storage quota rather than to a per-seat or per-user license. Your monthly archive storage usage is calculated as the combined storage of:

• all archived SharePoint sites

• archived files that remain within active (non-archived) sites

Files archived within already archived sites are counted only once as part of the site and are not billed separately.

For archived sites, billed storage equals the site's current storage usage, as shown on the site itself or on the Active sites page in the SharePoint admin center. That number only changes when the site's content changes, for example when items expire from the recycle bin or when a retention policy permanently deletes content.

The following scenarios, based on Microsoft’s official documentation, show how charges apply. They assume a tenant whose active storage exceeds the standard quota by 200 GB:

Archive charges apply only to archived storage that contributes to usage above the tenant's available SharePoint storage quota. If your active SharePoint storage stays within the licensed allocation, archiving does not lead to additional costs, although it can still serve operational and compliance purposes. Microsoft 365 Archive requires an Azure pay-as-you-go configuration, and all archive-related charges appear in Azure billing reports rather than in Microsoft 365 license invoices.

If Microsoft 365 Archive or its associated Azure billing subscription is turned off or becomes unavailable, archived content stays archived and remains reactivatable. New archive actions are blocked until billing is restored. During that period, archived content is counted toward standard storage consumption.

Microsoft 365 Archive pricing calculator

The calculator for Microsoft 365 archiving pricing is an Excel-based tool provided by Microsoft that estimates the cost of archiving SharePoint content based on your tenant's storage profile. Microsoft is explicit that the tool produces an estimate rather than an exact bill, since actual charges depend on the live state of your tenant at billing time.

The Microsoft 365 Archive pricing calculator takes into consideration:

• active tenant storage quota, in terabytes

• active storage currently in use, in terabytes

• archive storage expected to be consumed annually, in terabytes

• storage cost per gigabyte or per gigabyte per month

You can download the calculator from Microsoft Learn, enter values in the input columns, and see the estimated costs. Adjusting the inputs helps you to compare a range of scenarios, for example, what happens if active storage grows 20 percent per year.

The calculator is useful for budgeting and for the initial business case, but it has known limits. In practice, it does not fully capture all cost and operational factors, such as:

• additional SharePoint storage purchases that may still be required

• the operational effort needed to identify and manage archive candidates

• scenario-based effects such as reactivation and the four-month re-archive restriction

• temporary disruption to availability during reactivation, as it may take up to 24 hours for archived files or sites to become available after reactivation; this may cause delays for users and result in additional work for IT and administrative staff in time-sensitive situations

For tenants where a significant share of content is genuinely inactive, those gaps can be material.

Alternative: SharePoint cost calculator

For organizations that need to reduce costs while maintaining the end-user experience, ShArc is a smart alternative to Microsoft 365 Archive. To compare extra SharePoint storage costs against moving inactive SharePoint content into Azure Blob Storage, the SharePoint cost calculator is built for that side-by-side view.

Microsoft’s tool answers the question: "What will it cost to keep this data in Microsoft's Archive?" ShArc’s SharePoint cost calculator answers a broader question: "What does my total Microsoft 365 storage spend look like across three options, and where does each one break even?"

The SharePoint cost calculator gives you the following information:

• current SharePoint storage cost based on your extra storage need

• costs of staying on standard Microsoft 365 storage and buying additional storage

• costs of offloading inactive content to Azure Blob Storage via ShArc

• savings that you can invest in other IT projects 
  

The output is a per-year cost comparison, plus a view of your savings. The result is an annual cost comparison and an overview of your savings. The calculation is based on Azure list prices, and your input values. It is ideal for comparing your costs and savings. For more information and special offers, we recommend that you contact us directly.

The ShArc calculator is most relevant when a large share of SharePoint storage is inactive but still subject to retention requirements, or when you want to keep the archive outside the Microsoft 365 billing perimeter for cost-center or compliance reasons. Of course, this is also relevant when consistent user experience, including one-click end-user restore, is important to your organization, or, in other words, if you want to reduce the workload on your IT team without imposing additional work on users.

Pricing for unlicensed OneDrive archive accounts

OneDrive archive pricing works differently from SharePoint archive pricing and does not benefit from the same exemptions. Archive storage for unlicensed OneDrive accounts is billed per GB of archived data per month, and reactivation is billed per GB of reactivated data per reactivation.

Three points that matter for budgeting:

• Unlicensed OneDrive archive does not follow the SharePoint storage quota model and is billed separately at a storage fee of $0.05 per GB per month.

• Reactivating an archived account to regain access incurs a one-time fee of $0.60 per GB.

• For EDU tenants, pooled storage rules apply. Charges in education environments behave differently than in commercial tenants. Organizations should therefore evaluate archive pricing and behavior separately when working with education tenants.

A common use case is employee offboarding. When a user leaves and his or her license is removed, the OneDrive content is often retained for legal, HR, or audit reasons. Microsoft 365 Archive lets that content sit in cold storage at the per-GB monthly rate instead of maintaining an active license.

After a user’s license is removed, the OneDrive account enters a lifecycle process. It typically becomes read-only after 60 days and is archived after approximately 93 days, depending on retention and tenant configuration.

Microsoft 365 archive: file-level and on site-level

Microsoft 365 Archive supports two archiving granularities: full SharePoint sites and individual files within active sites. Both are billed against the same $0.05/GB/month archive meter, and both count toward the storage threshold that determines whether the meter is active in a given month. File-level archiving is currently available in public preview, while site-level archiving is generally available.

Site-level archiving works through the SharePoint admin center, while file-level archiving (currently in preview) can also be initiated by end users with appropriate permissions once the feature is enabled.

Site-level archiving moves an entire SharePoint site, including all libraries, list items, and version history, into the archive tier. The site is no longer accessible to end users, but search indexing, metadata, permissions, and versioning are preserved, and content can be reactivated within 24 hours.[MD1] This is the right granularity for entire projects, departments, or tenants that have wound down but whose content must remain available for retention or audit reasons.

File-level archiving leaves the parent site live and active and moves only selected files into the archive tier. The file remains visible in admin and Microsoft Purview searches but cannot be directly accessed by end users until reactivation. This is the right granularity when only a fraction of a site's content is inactive, for example legacy attachments inside a still-active document library, or older versions inside a heavily used team site.

Mechanisms that apply to both modes:

• Content on legal hold can be archived. Holds remain in effect during archive and after reactivation.

• Sensitivity labels, retention policies, and DLP rules continue to apply to archived content.

• Archived content is discoverable in admin, Microsoft Purview, and end-user search experiences (with permission trimming), although it cannot be opened without reactivation.

• Reactivation of archived SharePoint content is free of charge (this does not apply to OneDrive). Re-archiving the same content is restricted for four months after reactivation.

The choice between site-level and file-level archive is rarely either/or. Most tenants use site-level archive for clearly inactive workspaces and file-level archive for granular cleanup inside sites that are still in use. The cost is the same per GB; the operational fit is what drives the decision.