Salesforce file storage costs €5 per 500 MB per month for additional capacity beyond what your plan includes by default. That adds up fast: a growing team storing contracts, presentations, and media assets can easily spend hundreds of euros monthly on storage alone. This article breaks down exactly what you get, what it costs, and what smarter alternatives exist in 2026.
File storage in Salesforce includes any binary file attached to a record, such as PDFs, Word documents, images, spreadsheets, and media files. This is separate from data storage, which covers structured CRM records like contacts, accounts, and opportunities. Understanding the distinction matters because both types have their own limits and pricing.
Files stored through Salesforce Files, Content Libraries, and Chatter attachments all count toward your file storage quota. Classic attachments on records such as cases, opportunities, and emails also consume file storage. What does not count toward file storage is standard CRM data records, which are measured in megabytes of structured data rather than file size.
For operational teams handling contracts, project files, or media assets, file storage fills up far more quickly than data storage. A single signed contract in PDF format, a project proposal, or a product image can range from a few hundred kilobytes to several megabytes each. When you multiply that across an active team and months of accumulated records, the numbers grow quickly.
Salesforce includes 10 GB of file storage per organization as a baseline, plus an additional 2 GB per user license on most standard editions. For a team of 10 users on Salesforce Professional or Enterprise, that means roughly 30 GB of file storage included before any additional purchases are needed.
The exact default allocation depends on your edition:
These limits apply to the entire organization, meaning all users share the same pool. A single department uploading large files can consume storage that other teams need, which creates friction in fast-paced environments where multiple teams rely on the same Salesforce instance.
Salesforce charges approximately €5 per 500 MB of additional file storage per month. That translates to roughly €120 per year for just 500 MB of extra capacity. For teams that need several gigabytes of additional storage, costs accumulate quickly and can become a significant line item in operational budgets.
To put that in perspective, 10 GB of additional file storage would cost around €100 per month, or €1,200 annually. For organizations in document-intensive industries like real estate, automotive, or media, where large files are the norm rather than the exception, Salesforce storage pricing can become a meaningful constraint on how the platform is used.
It is also worth noting that storage upgrades are sold in fixed increments. You cannot purchase a precise amount to match your exact needs; you buy blocks and may end up paying for capacity you do not fully use.
Salesforce storage costs escalate quickly because file volumes grow non-linearly as teams scale. Each new user, project, or client relationship generates new documents, and without a structured approach to document value management, files accumulate without any cleanup. Duplicate files, outdated versions, and large uncompressed attachments silently consume storage every day.
Several factors accelerate the escalation:
For operational managers overseeing growing teams, the challenge is not just the cost itself but the lack of visibility. Most teams do not realize how much storage they are consuming until they hit a limit or receive an unexpected invoice.
The most practical alternatives to purchasing additional Salesforce file storage are offloading files to external cloud storage, implementing a document management layer, or auditing and removing redundant files. Each approach reduces dependency on Salesforce’s native storage without disrupting how teams work.
Integrating with Amazon S3 is one of the most cost-effective options for high-volume environments. AWS S3 storage pricing is a fraction of Salesforce’s per-megabyte rate, and files stored in S3 can still be accessed directly from Salesforce records. This approach gives teams virtually unlimited capacity while keeping Salesforce as the operational hub.
Other alternatives include using SharePoint or OneDrive through an Office 365 integration, archiving closed-project files to a separate repository, or applying file size limits and upload policies to prevent unnecessary storage consumption. The right combination depends on your team’s volume, file types, and existing infrastructure. Reviewing the available document management features before committing to a storage upgrade is a smart first step.
To audit Salesforce file storage, start by navigating to Setup > Storage Usage, where Salesforce provides a breakdown of file storage consumption by object type and user. This report shows which records are consuming the most space and helps you identify where cleanup will have the greatest impact.
Follow these steps to run a meaningful storage audit:
Running this audit quarterly is a reasonable cadence for most teams. For organizations in high-volume industries, monthly reviews help catch growth before it triggers an unexpected storage upgrade.
A dedicated Salesforce document management solution makes sense when your team is regularly hitting storage limits, spending time searching for files, or managing documents across multiple systems without a consistent structure. At that point, the problem is not just storage capacity; it is a workflow problem that additional storage alone will not fix.
Signs that a document management layer is the right move include teams duplicating files because they cannot find the originals, compliance risks from uncontrolled document versions, and operational managers spending time resolving file-related confusion instead of focusing on execution. These are structural inefficiencies, not storage shortfalls.
A document management solution also becomes cost-justified when the price of ongoing storage upgrades approaches or exceeds the cost of a purpose-built tool. For growing teams in real estate, automotive, or media, that crossover point often arrives sooner than expected, especially when you factor in the productivity cost of poor file organization.
We built Cartularius specifically to address the storage, organization, and workflow challenges that Salesforce teams face as their document volumes grow. Rather than paying for more native Salesforce storage, Cartularius gives you a smarter path forward.
Here is what Cartularius delivers in practice:
For operational managers who need a practical, scalable solution to Salesforce storage costs, Cartularius turns a recurring expense into a controlled, efficient system. Explore our pricing options to find the edition that fits your team’s size and storage needs.
Install Cartularius now and experience the best Salesforce document management solution and enjoy clean and structured data and optimized processes, risk-free for 30 days.