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Cannot find pay-as-you go storage usage (M365 Backup). Estimated costs do not match actuals so far.

Michael Belisle 0 Reputation points
2025-08-11T17:39:19.0433333+00:00

I'm trialing Microsoft 365 Backup and I can see how much money it is costing me but how do I see how much storage space I'm currently using? Specifically, the pay-as-you-go service. I can do the math roughly, but I should be able to see this somewhere and I'm not finding it under Cost Management anywhere as I would expect. Also, prior to the trial, I filled out the M365 Backup Pricing Calculator and the estimated costs per month do not match my actual forecasted burn rate which is almost double. This is a problem. Thank you.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Other
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  1. AceRobertT 8,590 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-08-11T23:05:51.7666667+00:00

    Hello Michael. Microsoft 365 Backup is a pay-as-you-go service that charges based on the overall size of the protected content like SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and Exchange mailboxes. There is currently no dashboard or report in Cost Management that shows the size of the storage consumed for backup. This can cause confusion for users who are trialing Microsoft 365 backup because their actual costs exceeded those predicted by the Microsoft 365 Backup Pricing Calculator.

    The backup cost includes:

    -Live content size (eg. OneDrive, SharePoint, mailboxes)

    -Deleted and versioned data in second-stage recycle bins or online archives

    -In general content is only billable until it has expired from the backup retention period

    In accurate ways to monitor usage, Microsoft has recommended using usage reports in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange to find the size of the content you have protected and this data is then manually correlated to your backup costs. Unfortunately, there is also not a way to create a built-in backup billing consolidated view of this data flow.

    Here's the reference: Pricing model for Microsoft 365 Backup

    Best regards,

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