We’re reaching out with an important update about Storj accounts.
What’s changing?
Starting July 1, 2025, Storj will introduce a $5 minimum monthly usage fee for all accounts. This helps cover the cost of payment processing and basic operations so we can continue offering fast, secure, and reliable storage—even for small accounts. UPDATE we are considering an adjustment to the policy for those that pay in STORJ. Stay Tuned
What does this mean for users?
If your monthly usage (storage, bandwidth, and segments) exceeds $5, nothing changes.
If your monthly usage totals less than $5, your account will be billed the $5 minimum monthly usage fee.
If users prefer not to be charged, they can close their account before June 30, 2025 to avoid the fee. Accounts without any usage in a month will not be charged the minimum fee.
Thank you for being part of the Storj community—we appreciate your continued support.
I was about to post a topic about this change after receiving the email.
As a node operator I wanted to use the product but I only store a little data. Now I see that unless I choose to store enough to cost at least $5 monthly, storj is no longer a viable option for me.
This change along with removal of the free tier make experimenting with storj as a storage solution a harder to justify…
I too am a node operator and storing within the minimal threshold and would no longer see this as a viable option. Was there any consideration if the payment of the balance was from the Storj account balance (available deposited funds)? I recently contributed a deposit there for it to withdrawal from month-by-month since it helps reduce your payment processing fees this way to that single larger lump sum deposit only. Shouldn’t that at least be considered and bypass the minimum usage fee?
Perfect. Now I can also ditch storj as a customer, and stop recommending it to everyone I meet at every corner, the same way I ditched Wasabi when they pulled the same stint. My usage has been steadily increasing, it’s probably over $5, but I have zero tolerance for this nonsense, because usually it’s all downhill from there.
This is disingenuous. If I create an account and upload 1 byte, it does not suddenly cost you $5 to “maintain” it. It’s insulting your users intelligence.
What you could actually do instead is be direct: “if you store less than $5 worth of data you don’t get dedicated support, use forum”. That would be fair. Because that’s what you are essentially doing – you don’t want to waste time supporting users that bring $5/month. That’s would be understandable and not insulting, unlike what you are proposing.
But punishing users for not using the service enough – lol.
Wait: I have unused credit in my account and have NO bucket or ANY project, I’m not using or consuming any service and you will be depleting my unused credit until I decide to actually use the service or until it’s zero? Can we request refund for unused credit?
I’m also a bit disappointed. There certainly should be an exception for node operators at the least. I also am afraid this will kill much of the incentive for others to experiment on the platform. We could be losing any potential scaling from those customers that won’t even give the opportunity to be pleased with the product at a smaller scale, because other platforms initial cost may be lower now.
I understand if you charge this for additional ticket support, but not for users that do not need support. If they need support, add them to a premium support plan if they want to continue.
I’m facing the decision to close my account after burning up the funds in or, or (2) figure out if i have 1.3TB worth backing up to the cloud each month. Because i roll my own storage at multiple sites as a node operator, i may not actually need to spend this cost at storj.
I run some VMs in a cloud hyperscaler, and they charge you by the minute for resources consumed. There’s no ‘membership’ fee to be a part of it that mandates I run at least 1 VM 24/7. I spend less than $5 a month, and would probably find a different provider if they did this move too…
I’ve requested it. I get there may be need for minimum usage fees. but charging for no usage at all? Why not set the minimum for actual usage (active projects) not based on existence of an account?
If I kept my credit I would use the service when the time comes. now I need to request account closure, request a refund, storj needs to handle the costs of refund and next time storj would be just another option in a see of options that I need to onboard. Right now there’s no friction for me to start using storj if I needed to.
It’s not only disappointing, seems like poorly thought off draconian conditions that generate more work for no value
It has been so long I can’t remember… but when you initially fund an account with STORJ tokens wasn’t there a minimum? So now is it something like you have to start with $100 and they’ll start to burn $5/month no-matter-what?
Edit: It looks like I’ve been using just over $1/month. What to do, what to do…
Edit #2: I’ve submitted a refund+delete request too. I can’t justify paying 5x for what I’m using.
I fully second all the regrets and concerns voiced by @arrogantrabbit@marios and many others.
Especially the constructive feedback on how this COULD have been achieved by limiting access to support or through payments for small accounts via token.
You really should know better..
Personally I too feel disrespected for investing my personal time in this project.
I hope you realize that the current business model, involving SNO’s, requires the relationship to be based on trust and respect. We are real people with personal investments. This is in strong contrast to Select network, which is based on real businesses and business plans.
Also, please bear in mind, that many of us, are working for real tech companies, with real influence on real future designs and projects. This certainly does make one think a few extra times before including StorJ in a shortlist of vendors.
Btw - deleting an account is not that quick and easy:
I have very little data stored on StorJ, but was actively testing and doing research on this account. However, it seems the system keeps me hostage until next billing cycle..
It would have been nice if it just deducted the MTD usage from my prepaid balance and asked where to return the remaining…
Certainly sounds like a bad management decision based on excel and powerbi, not knowledge of how Tech companies and IT departments work.
I’m not leaving as a SNO - I’ve made a long term commitment and expect to be here for a long time. I just sincerely hope this won’t cause too much missed newbiz, and thus harm us all.
Please reconsider and find a better model to achieve your goal.
Maybe charge only for the first year of new accounts. Like this:
when you create a new user account, it’s free and stays free until the first byte of data you upload.
then you have 30-60 days of free usage, if you provide a credit card, for identification purposes. (to stop someone creating multiple accounts and use only free tier).
after this free period, you will be charged only one time 60$, used as prepaid credit.
after a year passes or the credit is depleated, no more prepaid credit; only pay what you use.
I can’t close the account… To delete the account, it requires deletion of all project, which requires deletion of all buckets, which requires deletion of all access keys… Even if you tries to follow all of those steps, you get hit with this error:
Delete Project
There’s some recent usage in your project that hasn’t been billed yet. To delete your project, please follow these steps:
Please wait until the end of the current billing cycle (typically the end of the month).
We’ll generate your invoice early in the following month (usually around the 4th day).
