The right iCloud+ tier depends on how many people share it and how many devices you are backing up: 200GB usually suits one or two people with a modest photo library, while 2TB or larger suits a family sharing one plan across several devices with large photo and video collections.
Who each iCloud+ tier suits
- A single user with a modest library: the 50GB or 200GB tier suits you if you are the only person backing up to this account and your Photos library is a few thousand images rather than tens of thousands.
- A family sharing one plan: the 200GB or 2TB tier, used with Family Sharing, suits you if several family members’ devices back up under one storage pool, since Family Sharing splits one iCloud+ subscription across everyone.
- Heavy photo and video shooters: the 2TB tier or above suits you if you shoot a lot of video, use Live Photos constantly, or have decades of family photos already digitised and backed up.
What actually counts toward the limit
- What counts toward the limit: iCloud+ storage covers Photos, device backups, iCloud Drive files, Mail and Messages attachments together, so a large Photos library shares space with everything else on your account.
- Family Sharing: 200GB and larger tiers can be shared with up to five family members under one subscription, with each person keeping their own private Photos library while drawing from the shared pool.
- Extra features at higher tiers: the higher iCloud+ tiers add features like HomeKit Secure Video support and more email domain customisation options, on top of the extra storage itself.
- Price scaling: the jump from 200GB to 2TB is a bigger monthly cost increase than the jump from 50GB to 200GB, so it pays to estimate your actual usage rather than assuming more is always better value.
- Video storage impact: video, especially 4K, uses far more storage per item than photos, so a library with a lot of video will fill a given tier much faster than a photo-only library of the same item count.
Questions to ask about your family’s usage
- How many family members’ devices would share this one storage plan?
- Does your library include a lot of video, which uses much more space per item than still photos?
- Have you checked your current iCloud storage usage in Settings to see how close you already are to your existing tier’s limit?
- Do you also use iCloud Drive or Mail heavily, which would share the same storage pool as your photos?
- Would combining an iCloud+ plan with an independent backup (an external drive or another cloud service) give you better protection than one plan alone?
A way to check your real usage first
Check your current storage usage in Settings > [your name] > iCloud on an iPhone or iPad first, since it shows exactly how much of your existing plan is used by Photos versus everything else. If you are already near your limit and sharing with family, jumping to 200GB with Family Sharing turned on is usually the simplest next step, since it is easy to upgrade further later if you outgrow it.
Next step
Open your device’s iCloud storage settings to see your current usage breakdown, then compare that figure against the next tier up, factoring in whether you will turn on Family Sharing to split the plan.
Sources and date checked
Researched from Apple’s own published iCloud+ and Family Sharing documentation, not a hands-on test performed for this article. Date checked: 22 September 2026.