What is the cheapest way to back up multiple computers?
IDrive is built for exactly this: one plan, unlimited devices (PCs, Macs, phones) sharing a storage pool. Backblaze charges per computer, which stays competitive for one or two machines but adds up for a household. Acronis prices per machine in tiers with images and security included.
The pricing models diverge sharply once a household has three laptops, two phones, and a desktop. Backblaze's beautiful simplicity (unlimited data, one computer, one fee) becomes a multiplication problem: four computers means four subscriptions. Still unbeatable for the single heavy machine, but no longer obviously cheap for the family fleet.
IDrive flips the model: you buy a storage pool (terabytes) and connect as many devices as you like, computers, phones, tablets, even a NAS, all into one account with one dashboard. For mixed households, that dashboard matters as much as the price: one place to verify that the teenager's laptop actually backed up this month. The Express seeding service and strong versioning carry over to every connected device.
The third pattern is per-device tiers with extras: Acronis bundles disk imaging and anti-malware per machine, which suits the household that wants full-system restores everywhere. Run the math on your actual fleet: count devices, estimate total data, and price all three models against it. For most families of three-plus devices, the pooled-storage model wins, which is why IDrive is our default answer to this question.