The subscription trap in backup pricing
Per-user, per-year backup subscriptions are structured so the price you pay tends to go one direction: up. Not because backup software necessarily costs more to run over time, but because a subscription model ties your restore path (the thing you need in an emergency) to a recurring bill, and switching away from it later costs real effort, which weakens the pressure a renewal price increase would otherwise face.
What the sourced facts actually show
Two documented examples, from official vendor pages, not speculation: Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is licensed per protected user as a subscription or, for service providers, a monthly rental. No perpetual license option is documented at all (full sourced comparison). MailStore Server sells a perpetual per-user license, which is already closer to a one-time model, but pairs it with a separate, time-limited update-and-support subscription, and its own published terms price reactivating a lapsed subscription at 70% of the current list price of your existing licenses, not a normal renewal rate (full sourced comparison). Neither fact is presented as unusual for the industry; it's the industry's usual shape, stated plainly with a source.
When you pay, over five years
Schematic, no amounts: one mark per payment.
Documented licensing terms
From the vendors' own licensing pages, checked 2026-09-24; sources on the comparison pages.
| Product | Model | Recurring fee | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 | Per protected user, subscription (or monthly rental for providers) | Yes, every term | No perpetual license documented |
| MailStore Server | Perpetual per-user license plus a time-limited update and support subscription | For updates | Reactivating a lapsed subscription: 70 % of the current list price |
| Restow | One-time license per edition; Community free (AGPL-3.0) | No | All updates for as long as Restow lives and receives updates |
What a one-time license changes
Restow sells a one-time license per edition: Community is free of charge, with its AGPL-3.0 code unable to be withdrawn once released; Business and Service Provider are a single payment, with all updates included for as long as Restow is actively developed (see full pricing). If development ever stops, twelve months' notice is given and the Business/Service Provider modules are published under the AGPL, so the version you bought keeps running, fully functional, either way. There is no renewal fee to plan around. That doesn't make Restow cheaper in every scenario automatically; it changes what happens to the price over years of use, which is the actual subject of the "subscription trap": see the worked 5-year math for the numbers.
Frequently asked
Why do backup subscription prices only ever go up?
Because the software holding your restore path also holds the switching cost: once mail, calendar and files live inside a vendor-specific backup format, migrating to a different tool means re-onboarding every mailbox, which is real, non-trivial work. That switching cost is exactly what makes a renewal price increase easy to accept and hard to walk away from: the incentive to raise it, and the disincentive to leave over it, point the same direction.
Is every subscription backup vendor doing this deliberately?
Not claimed here, and not needed to be true for the effect to hold. A recurring, per-seat license with a real switching cost behind it will tend toward rising effective prices over time even without any deliberate plan. It's a property of the pricing structure, not necessarily an accusation about intent.
Facts sourced from Veeam's and MailStore's own official licensing pages, checked 2026-09-23 and re-checked 2026-09-24. See the linked comparison pages for exact URLs. This page is not an argument that subscriptions are always the wrong choice; it states what the documented terms are and lets the arithmetic speak.