Is Google Photos free? What it actually costs in 2026
Google Photos is free up to 15 GB — but that 15 GB is shared with Gmail and Drive, so your inbox competes with your photo library.
Every Google account includes up to 15 GB of storage at no cost. It is not 15 GB of photos: Google Photos, Google Drive and Gmail all draw from the same pool.
Google One's storage tiers above 100 GB are now sold as AI plans — Google AI Plus (2 TB) and Google AI Pro (5 TB).
If you only want storage, the pricing page no longer offers a plain mid-tier: the step above 100 GB bundles Gemini access you may not want. Storage and AI are being sold as one product, which makes the comparison with self-hosting simpler than it used to be.
What the free tier actually includes
- 15 GB total, shared across Photos, Drive and Gmail
- No storage sharing with family members on the free tier
- Original-quality uploads count fully against the quota
Where the wall is
The shared pool is what catches people, and it catches them twice. Photos fill the quota, then Gmail stops receiving mail — the failure shows up somewhere you were not looking. Worse, once you are over quota Google stops backing up new photos, so the phone keeps taking pictures that never reach the cloud.
After that: Google One Basic at $1.99 a month for 100 GB, shareable with up to 5 others. Above that the plans are now bundled with AI: Google AI Plus at $9.99 for 2 TB and Google AI Pro at $19.99 for 5 TB.
Can you self-host Google Photos? No — cloud only
No, and this is the strongest case on the site for self-hosting: Immich and PhotoPrism both replace Google Photos on hardware you own, with face recognition and mobile backup. Google Takeout exports the library, though large exports arrive split across many archive files.
What it actually takes to run one yourself
Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.
Self-hosting Immich
Self-hosting PhotoPrism
Self-hosting LibrePhotos
Self-hosting Ente Photos
What you are locked into
Photos live in Google's cloud tied to your account and share one quota with Drive and Gmail. Google Takeout can export your library, but large exports come in multiple archives, some metadata (such as descriptions and album structure) lands in separate JSON sidecar files rather than embedded in the images, and re-importing elsewhere can take effort.
If you would rather not pay: Immich
Immich
A self-hosted photo and video backup that feels like Google Photos.
Free and open-source (self-host); you provide the hardware and storage
See all 4 Google Photos alternatives comparedCompare the free options head-to-head
Read from Google's own pricing and documentation on 2026-09-12 — 1 days ago. Vendors change prices without notice; confirm before you commit.