On Saturday, Dropbox Plus subscribers received an email from the company notifying them of new changes to their plans. Dropbox doubled storage space and added Smart Sync and Rewind features to the Plus subscription plan. These new features, which Dropbox says are top requested features, arent free though. The storage provider increased the cost from $9.99 to $11.99 per month, plus applicable taxes, or $119.88 per year for those who prefer to pay annually.

New customers will pay the higher price when they sign up; existing subscribers will see the price increase with their next billing cycle. This is the first price increase for Dropbox Plus in four years. Dropbox Plus subscribers dont need to do anything to get the new features; Dropbox has already upgraded their accounts.

The new Dropbox Plus features include:

– Additional Storage: Dropbox doubled storage from 1 TB to 2 TB.

– Smart Sync: With this feature, out-of-date files can be moved off the users hard drive and into their Dropbox Plus account. Venture Beat reports this feature isnt new, but the Smart Sync feature is now automatic if you select the auto space saving feature.

– Rewind: Roll back accidental changes, such as deleting a file or undoing edits, for up to 30 days.

In addition to these changes, Dropbox has made changes to its Professional plan, increasing storage from 2 TB to 3 TB and adding a watermark feature. With the watermark feature, a document originator remains in control of the document and can choose to enable watermarking. When they do, other viewers of the document will see the originators name and date on JPEG, BMP, PNG and PDF files, as shown in the example below.

Business plan subscribers will see changes too. Their storage will increase from 3 TB to 5 TB and file version history will be extended from 120 days to 180 days. Changes to the Professional and Business subscriptions were made at no additional cost.

Heres a comparison between the Plus and Professional subscription plans:

Dropbox also offers plans for teams, starting at $12.50 per user per month. See all of Dropbox plans at Dropbox.com.

Heres how Dropboxs competitors compare in terms of price and storage capabilities:

– OneDrive: For personal use, One Drive offers a free plan with 5 GB of storage and a 50 GB of storage for $1.99 a month. It also offers additional storage for Office 365 Personal and Home subscribers and separate plans for Business users.

– Google One: Google One subscriptions offer 15 GB of free storage, 100 GB for $1.99 a month and 200 GB for $2.99 a month for Google accounts.

Insider Take:

I have a Dropbox Plus account and was surprised to see the email Saturday about the price increase. I certainly understand the need to raise prices, and am willing to pay the extra $2 to save the hassle of moving to another service, but a little more notice would have been nice.

Do subscribers really choose a storage service based on price, though? I think ease of use, convenience, integration with other apps and syncing abilities from different devices is far more important than price. That said, I wouldnt pay $50 a month for a storage service, but I am willing to pay $11.99 a month, plus taxes, to protect my files and to make them accessible wherever I am.