Sorry, Proton, I’m Staying…

Four weeks ago I posed the question to myself: should I stay subscribed to Microsoft 365 or should I move to using Proton for my email and online storage services?

Well, now the decision has been made – I’m going to hold my nose and stick with Microsoft 365.

Let me be clear; there is no technical reason that would prevent me from moving and I would prefer to use Europe-based IT services that are predicated on privacy. However, the hurdle is primarily a financial one – it is currently very unattractive financially to make the move.

I currently have a subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (I’m the “IT manager” for four members of my family) and that costs me €102.50 annually from a certified Microsoft Partner. If I were to move to a Proton Family Plan, it would cost me €287.88 annually, and we would be limited to 3TB online storage in total. With Microsoft 365 we each get 1TB storage, so 4TB in total. That’s an additional €185 annual cost for 25% less online storage.

Moving to Proton would also mean switching to new email addresses (in the proton.me domain), which I know will be hard to sell to my family. A possible scenario then would be to leave the other three family members on Microsoft 365 and just move myself to a Proton-based service. I would then at least be contributing to a European service, at additional cost to myself.

Proton offer a plan (Proton Unlimited) that costs €119.88 per year. Unfortunately, this plan is limited to just 500GB online storage – and I currently use nearly 700GB of the 1TB storage that I have with Microsoft 365. So then I would have to use the Proton Duo plan with its 2TB of storage, even though this is intended for two people (hence the name) and this costs €179.88 per year.

It is strange that the “Unlimited” plan for one person has 500GB storage, while the “Duo” plan has 2TB – i.e. 1TB per person. Proton are currently out of step with Microsoft here for single person pricing.

Frankly, an additional €179.88 per year on top of the €102.50 for the rest of the family is financially unattractive. As I say, I’m going to hold my nose and stick with Microsoft 365 for the time being.