Upgrading or Downgrading Storage

The Drive Add-on is built to be resized. Start at 1 TB, fill it, bump to 5 TB. Realise you don't need all of it, drop to 2 TB at the end of the cycle. There's no penalty for adjusting — you pay for what you have at any given moment, prorated correctly when you change.

This guide covers the resize flow, what happens to billing when you change size, and the safety rule that protects you from accidentally downgrading below your current usage.

Where to resize

In the dashboard, go to Plans (or Billing → Plans). Find the Drive Add-on section. If you have an active Add-on, you'll see a card showing your current size with a Resize button.

Click Resize and the slider opens at your current size. Drag it to the size you want. The slider snaps to supported tiers (250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 5 TB, 10 TB, 20 TB, 50 TB, 100 TB).

The price preview updates as you drag, showing both the new monthly/yearly price and the prorated difference for upgrades.

Upgrading (going to a bigger tier)

Upgrades apply immediately. As soon as you confirm:

• The new larger capacity becomes available (within ~1 minute)
• Stripe charges the prorated difference for the rest of the current billing cycle
• The next renewal will be at the new larger price

How proration is calculated

Stripe's prorated math is straightforward. If you upgrade midway through your billing cycle:

• They calculate the cost-per-day for your new tier and multiply by the days remaining in the cycle
• They subtract what you've already paid (cost-per-day of your old tier × days remaining)
• They charge the difference now

A worked example: you're on 1 TB monthly at $15/month. On day 15 of a 30-day cycle, you upgrade to 5 TB monthly at $75/month.

1 TB cost-per-day:  $15 / 30 = $0.50
5 TB cost-per-day:  $75 / 30 = $2.50

Days remaining in cycle: 15

Already paid (for the 15 remaining days at the old rate):
  15 × $0.50 = $7.50

What you should have paid (at the new rate):
  15 × $2.50 = $37.50

Prorated charge now:
  $37.50 - $7.50 = $30.00

You're charged $30 immediately, and your next renewal (at the start of the next cycle) is $75 for 5 TB.

You don't have to do this math — it's shown in the resize confirmation dialog before you commit. We're walking through it because customers often ask "where did this number come from?"

Yearly proration

Yearly subscriptions prorate the same way, just over 365 days instead of ~30. Upgrading 6 months into a year-long 1 TB subscription to 5 TB will charge you the prorated difference for the remaining 6 months.

Currency stays locked

Upgrade preserves your existing currency. A USD subscription upgrading from 1 TB to 5 TB stays in USD. You can't switch currencies via resize.

Downgrading (going to a smaller tier)

Downgrades default to at the end of the current billing cycle. This is the right behaviour for most situations:

• You don't get a refund for the unused capacity (you keep it for the rest of the cycle, since you already paid for it)
• The smaller size takes effect at your next renewal
• The next renewal is at the new lower price
• You get the rest of the current cycle to delete files if you're over the new size

This is shown clearly in the resize dialog: "Your size will change to 1 TB on December 5, 2026 (next billing date)."

The usage-fits check

Even with the deferred downgrade, there's an immediate check: does your current usage fit in the new size? If you have 4.2 TB of files in Drive and try to downgrade to 1 TB, the dialog blocks the change with:

Your account is currently using 4.2 TB. Downgrading to 1 TB would put you 3.2 TB over the new limit. Free up space first, or pick a larger target.

This applies even though the downgrade is deferred — we want you to confirm what's about to happen before scheduling it. The window between scheduling and the actual change date may not be enough to clear out 3 TB of files.

If you really do want to downgrade despite usage being over the target, the workflow is:

1. Delete files to bring usage under the target
2. Empty Trash (deleted-but-trashed bytes still count)
3. Wait for the storage card to update to reflect the lower usage
4. Try the resize again

Canceling a scheduled downgrade

You can change your mind. If you've scheduled a downgrade and decide you want to keep the larger size, click Cancel scheduled change on the Add-on card. The downgrade is canceled and you continue at the current larger tier.

You can also override a scheduled downgrade with an upgrade — if you scheduled "5 TB → 1 TB at end of cycle" and a week later realise you actually need 10 TB, click Resize and pick 10 TB. The pending downgrade is cleared and the immediate upgrade charge runs.

Immediate downgrades

If your usage already fits in the smaller size and you'd rather take the smaller bill immediately, there's an option in the resize dialog: Apply immediately. This works only when current usage fits.

Immediate downgrades:

• Apply the new size right away
• Do not refund the proration difference for the unused larger capacity. You paid for the larger size for this cycle; you keep that capacity through end-of-cycle for accounting purposes
• Set your next renewal to the new lower price

Most customers prefer the deferred default — there's no upside to "applying immediately" unless you specifically want the smaller bill to start right now (e.g. month-end accounting).

What happens to your data

Resizing affects your capacity (how many bytes the pool can hold), not your content (the bytes already there).

• Upgrading: files stay where they are; you just have more headroom for new uploads.
• Downgrading and you fit: files stay where they are; you have less headroom for new uploads.
• Downgrading deferred and at the change date you've gone back over: the system handles this gracefully — see the next section.

Downgrade overage handling

This is an edge case worth being clear on. If you scheduled a downgrade from 5 TB to 1 TB and you're at 1.2 TB on the change date, the system needs a policy.

What happens:

• The smaller size takes effect at the renewal as scheduled
• Your account is now over the new pool by 0.2 TB
• New uploads are blocked
• New incoming email may bounce as the pool fills further
• Existing files stay accessible — we don't auto-delete

You then have a 30-day grace to bring usage back under the new size. During grace, the dashboard shows a warning banner asking you to free up space.

If after 30 days you're still over the limit, the system may delete files to bring you back under the cap. This is a last-resort cleanup; we'd much rather you delete deliberately. The 30-day window is generous enough to handle real cleanup work.

The cleanest way to avoid this entirely: clean up during the current cycle, before the downgrade kicks in.

When you'd resize

A few scenarios from real customer patterns:

Quarterly cleanup, then downsize. End of Q3, you do your usual housekeeping — delete old project files, archive completed deliverables, empty Trash. Realise you've gone from 8 TB use to 3 TB. Schedule a downgrade from 10 TB to 5 TB at end of cycle.

One-time large project, then downsize. Took on a video-editing client for two months. Bought 20 TB to handle the raw footage. Project wraps, you archive what you need elsewhere, and downsize back to 1 TB.

Growth surprise, upgrade now. You hit your storage cap on day 12 of the month and need it sorted today. Upgrade to the next tier — capacity available within a minute, charge prorated.

Switching to yearly mid-cycle. Realised you're going to keep this subscription long-term. Currently on monthly. The system doesn't directly switch billing periods via resize — you'd cancel the current monthly subscription and resubscribe at yearly. The cleanest moment to do this is just before a renewal date so you don't lose much money on the unused part of the monthly cycle.

What's next

• Subscribing to the Drive Add-on — if you don't have one yet.
• Canceling Drive Add-on — full cancellation, not just downsize.
• Drive Add-on Pricing & Plans — the price ladder.
• Pooled Storage Quotas Explained — usage you're trying to fit under your target size.