Stop Overpaying for Cloud Storage: How Backup Saves You Storage Costs

In today’s cloud-driven workplaces, data in SaaS applications like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace is the backbone of your operations, collaboration and decision-making. However, ensuring this data remains accessible, secure and properly retained in accordance with compliance or regulatory standards has become overly complex.

Workforce turnover is inevitable, yet the information employees generate, including emails, documents and collaboration histories, remain critical to business continuity, even after they leave the organization. On that front, regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also demand meticulous data retention, placing a heavy burden on IT teams. Even cyber insurers, though not always explicit, favor organizations with structured retention and archiving policies — rewarding them with lower premiums and stronger coverage. Without a well-planned data retention approach, businesses risk operational setbacks, regulatory fines and even significant financial loss from cyber incidents.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer native archiving options, which provide some level of data retention. However, these solutions come with significant limitations, from escalating storage costs to rigid retention policies. In this article, we’ll explore how a dedicated backup solution like Backupify, with built-in archiving, delivers superior data protection, long-term retention and cost efficiency compared to these native options.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace native archiving: Limitations IT pros can’t ignore

Let’s explore some of the key limitations businesses must consider before relying solely on native archiving.

1.    Data retention constraints

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace impose rigid data retention policies that can lead to high costs, compliance risks and security challenges. Below, we break down key data retention limitations that organizations face when relying on these native solutions.

Skyrocketing storage costs for growing data volumes

Cloud storage costs are becoming an increasing burden, especially for organizations like nonprofits and educational institutions. Both Google and Microsoft have significantly raised their storage pricing, with Google Workspace discontinuing its once-generous free storage for nonprofits and Microsoft enforcing strict OneDrive and Exchange storage limits.

For most organizations, data growth is exponential — including emails, documents, instant messages and shared files. As storage needs increase, so do costs, forcing businesses to either pay exorbitant fees or risk losing critical data.

Rigid and complex retention policies

Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace enforce predefined retention rules that offer little flexibility. For businesses subject to industry regulations like HIPAA or GDPR, these rigid policies can complicate compliance efforts, making it difficult to ensure proper data retention while also managing secure deletions.

Challenges in managing inactive user data

Inactive user data presents a major security, compliance and operational challenge, especially as employees leave organizations. Here’s why relying on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for inactive user data management is problematic.

• Security risks: Unmonitored inactive accounts become easy targets for cyberattacks, as they often have outdated credentials or lack multifactor authentication (MFA).
• Data integrity issues: Over time, inactive user data can become stale or inaccurate, leading to poor decision-making and unreliable insights.
• Compliance concerns: Regulatory frameworks like GDPR and HIPAA enforce strict rules on data storage and deletion. Mismanaging inactive user data can expose businesses to compliance violations.
• Identifying inactive users: Determining when a user is truly inactive is complex, as different roles and departments have varied usage patterns.
• Retention policy challenges: Deciding how long to keep inactive user data is a balancing act between storage costs, compliance mandates and security risks.
• Operational overhead: IT teams must continuously audit, clean and manage inactive user data, increasing administrative workload.

Without a dedicated backup and archiving solution like Backupify, businesses are forced to choose between retaining inactive accounts at high costs or deleting them and risking permanent data loss.

2.    Accessibility and usability challenges

Retrieving and managing archived data using native options is far from seamless in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Organizations often encounter slow retrieval speeds, limited search functionality and rigid administrative controls, making it difficult to access critical business information when it’s needed most.

Complex and inefficient data retrieval

One of the biggest frustrations with native SaaS archiving is the difficulty of locating and restoring specific data. Unlike dedicated backup solutions like Backupify, which offer intuitive search and instant recovery capabilities, native archiving options have several limitations.

• Limited search and restore functionality: Native archives lack granular search capabilities, making it time-consuming to locate specific emails, messages or files — especially across large datasets.
• Cumbersome data retrieval processes: Exporting data from Google Vault or Microsoft Purview can be slow and complex, involving lengthy data extractions, potential compatibility issues and restricted access to raw files.
• Lack of granular control: Organizations often need to restore individual emails, files or chat messages rather than entire accounts, but native tools offer minimal flexibility in granular restoration.
• Slow retrieval speeds: Large volumes of archived data can take hours or even days to retrieve, delaying investigations, compliance audits or business operations.
• Risk of data corruption: When exporting archived data from SaaS providers, organizations risk file format issues or data corruption, which can lead to incomplete or unreadable records.

Without a fast, reliable retrieval mechanism, businesses relying on native archiving may struggle to recover key data during audits, legal inquiries or security incidents.

Archiving alone is not a replacement for backup

While archiving and backup both serve data retention purposes, they are fundamentally different in function and usability. Many organizations mistakenly assume that archiving in Google Vault or Microsoft Purview is enough to protect against data loss, accidental deletions or business disruptions — but this is far from the case.

Because native archiving lacks full backup functionality, organizations that rely solely on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace archiving risk:

• Permanent data loss due to accidental deletions or retention misconfigurations.
• Business disruptions from slow or incomplete data recovery.
• Non-compliance risks when archived records fail to meet regulatory requirements.

A dedicated backup and archiving solution like Backupify ensures that businesses retain complete control over their SaaS data, offering fast, seamless access while maintaining regulatory compliance and cost efficiency.

3.    Security risks of relying on a single vendor

Storing all business-critical data within a single SaaS ecosystem creates significant security risks. Vendor lock-in limits flexibility, making organizations entirely dependent on a single provider for data storage, retention and security. If the platform experiences an outage, misconfiguration or data loss, businesses may find themselves without access to critical records — often with no way to recover lost data.

One of the most striking examples of this occurred in May last year, when UniSuper, a $135 billion Australian pension fund, suffered a catastrophic data loss due to a Google Cloud misconfiguration. A Google error deleted UniSuper’s entire cloud-based environment, rendering all data inaccessible for over a week. While Google was eventually able to restore the data, the incident highlights the dangers of placing full trust in a single vendor for critical information storage.

The State of SaaS Backup and Recovery Report 2025: How organizations handle data archiving today

The State of SaaS Backup and Recovery Report 2025, which surveyed over 3,700 IT professionals worldwide, reveals how businesses approach data retention today.

About 10% of organizations have been failing to properly retain archived data, which can lead to serious consequences.

• Compliance violations: Regulations like HIPAA and GDPR require strict data retention policies. Accidental deletions or missing records can lead to fines, legal disputes and failed audits.
• Loss of intellectual property (IP): Emails, documents and chat histories contain valuable business insights — losing this data means losing institutional knowledge and previous project work.
• Recreating lost work: When former employees leave, their files and communications are often critical to ongoing projects. Without proper archiving, teams waste time and resources rebuilding lost information.

Nearly 15% of organizations attempt to retain inactive user data by keeping licenses active, but this approach quickly becomes financially unsustainable.

• Microsoft 365 licenses range from $6/month (Business Basic) to over $30/month (E3, E5).
• Google Workspace licenses range from $6/month to $25+/month (Enterprise).

By comparison, a Backupify archive license costs less than $3 per month, delivering massive cost savings while ensuring long-term data retention.

Close to 30% of organizations have been found to use Microsoft 365 Shared Mailboxes as a workaround for retaining emails without keeping full user licenses. While this can help in the short term, it has limitations:

• Shared mailboxes are capped at 50GB before requiring a license.
• They do not include OneDrive or SharePoint files, making them an incomplete solution for comprehensive data retention.

Back up and archive with Backupify: Retain control, ensure compliance and reduce costs

Organizations need a cost-effective, secure and compliant way to retain SaaS data. That’s where Backupify, the market-leading SaaS backup solution, provides businesses with unmatched affordability, control and security.

By leveraging Backupify for backup and archiving, organizations can:

• Drastically reduce storage costs: Archive inactive user data at a fraction of the cost compared to other options.
• Ensure compliance: Meet HIPAA, GDPR and other industry mandates with customizable retention policies.
• Protect against SaaS data loss: Keep an independent copy of your data in the immutable Datto Cloud to prevent all scenarios of data loss.
• Enable fast, granular data recovery: Get quick and precise restoration of emails, files and accounts.
• Eliminate risks from inactive user data: Securely store and manage ex-employee data without expensive active licenses.
• Streamline IT administration: Automate backups, simplify data retrieval and reduce administrative overhead.

With Backupify, businesses gain full control over their SaaS data, reduce cloud storage costs and ensure long-term security and compliance.

Over 40,000 businesses trust their SaaS data with Backupify. Want to experience its robust capabilities firsthand? Get a personalized demo today.