The subscription trap in backup pricing
By Lucas Flores, IT Systeme Flores UG. Last updated
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; dashed marks are optional.
Shown for a license bought from version 1.0; licenses bought in the pre-sale include every 1.x update. Without an update year, every version released until then keeps running with all modules, but gets no more security fixes.
Documented licensing terms
Veeam and MailStore from the vendors' own licensing pages, checked 2026-09-24 (sources on the comparison pages); Restow from its own license terms, section 5.
| 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 (Apache 2.0). From version 1.0: 12 months of updates included, then an optional update year at a fixed price per edition | Optional, for updates | No per-user price, no reactivation fee (the next update year costs the normal price); the software keeps running without one |
What a one-time license changes, and what it does not
Restow sells a one-time license per edition: Community is free of charge, with its core open source under the Apache License 2.0; Business and Service Provider are a one-time purchase, and the license is perpetual (see full pricing). That is the same basic shape as the MailStore model above, a perpetual license with time-limited updates. Restow is not free of recurring costs either, and says so: from version 1.0, a license includes 12 months of updates, then an optional update year is available at a fixed price per edition (Business €295, Service Provider €595 net per year). Licenses bought in the pre-sale, before general release, include every 1.x update.
Three things differ from the update-and-support subscriptions above:
- There is no price per user or mailbox. An update year costs the same however many mailboxes you protect.
- A gap costs nothing extra. The next update year is the normal price, with no back payment and no reactivation fee, and it covers every version released until it ends, those from the gap included.
- The software does not depend on it. Without an update year, every version released until then keeps running with all modules, restores included. Update years are bought one at a time and never renew automatically.
What you give up is newer versions and their security fixes: security fixes ship only in new versions, so staying on an old version means going without them. If development ever stops, twelve months' notice is given and the Business/Service Provider modules are published as open source under the core's license, Apache 2.0, so installations keep running without a license key. None of this makes Restow cheaper in every scenario automatically; it changes how the price behaves over years of use (a fixed amount per edition instead of a meter per user), which is the actual subject of the "subscription trap": see the worked 5-year math for the numbers, update years included.
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.
Does Restow have recurring costs too?
Not a subscription, but not free of recurring costs either. The license is a one-time purchase. From version 1.0, a license includes 12 months of updates, then an optional update year is available at a fixed price per edition (Business €295, Service Provider €595 net per year). Three things differ from per-user update and support subscriptions: there is no price per user or mailbox; a gap costs nothing extra, because the next update year is the normal price and there is no reactivation fee; and the software does not depend on it, because without an update year every version released until then keeps running with all modules, restores included. What you give up is newer versions and their security fixes. Licenses bought in the pre-sale include every 1.x update.
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. Restow's own terms are in section 5 of its license terms. 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.