SharePoint Archiving & Storage Cost Reduction
Cut your Microsoft 365 SharePoint bill by archiving cold files to object storage about 20x cheaper, without losing a thing. ArchiveBridge verifies every copy before it deletes the original and leaves a one-click restore stub in its place. Every file leaves a forwarding address.
See the saving on your own numbers
SharePoint charges premium rates to store files nobody opens. Here is roughly what moving that cold data to object storage does to the monthly bill.
What would you reclaim?
Drag to your rough volume of cold SharePoint data. These are indicative rates — your exact figure comes from a free read-only scan.
On SharePoint today
$410
per month, and climbing
Archived with ArchiveBridge
$33
per month on object storage
You would save about
$4,522 / year
92%
lower storage cost
Indicative only: SharePoint add-on around $205/TB/month, object storage around $16/TB/month. Nothing is archived until you run a scan and approve it.
The Problem
There is a line on your Microsoft 365 invoice for extra SharePoint storage, and it keeps growing. Every tenant gets a pooled quota; when you cross it, Microsoft charges roughly AUD $0.20 per GB per month for the overflow. On a terabyte of extra data that is about $200 a month, every month, for files that mostly nobody opens.
And that is the frustrating part. Dig into what is actually filling the quota and it is almost always cold: project folders from finished jobs, superseded document sets, years of departmental clutter. Live, working files are a small slice. You are paying premium SharePoint rates to warehouse an archive.
The obvious fix, deleting old files, is the one nobody will sign off on. Somebody always needs that one file six months later, links break, and worst of all you might bin something under a litigation hold or a retention label. So the safe move is to do nothing, and the bill compounds.
A one-off SharePoint clean-up or migration does not solve it either. Clear the decks today and the quota fills back up inside a year, because cold data is created continuously. You need cold files to keep moving out on their own, not a project that you run once.
Common Triggers
Microsoft is charging you roughly AUD $0.20/GB/month for SharePoint storage over quota
Most of what fills the quota is cold: files nobody has opened in years
A single site collection or department has tipped the whole tenant over its pooled limit
Bulk-deleting old files loses them for good and breaks links people still click
A SharePoint migration is a one-time clean-up; the quota just fills back up
Why This Matters to the Business
SharePoint storage overage is a recurring cost hiding in plain sight. The data behind it is cold, the fix is safe, and the saving is roughly 20x. The only reason it goes untouched is that deleting feels risky. Archiving isn’t deleting.
The SharePoint Storage Tax Is Real Money
SharePoint overage runs at roughly AUD $0.20/GB/month. Object storage runs at roughly $0.01 to $0.016/GB/month. That is about 20x. Move 1 TB of cold data and a line that costs about $204.80 a month typically drops to about $10. These figures are approximate, but the gap is the whole point.
Deleting Is Dangerous. Archiving Isn't.
The reason nobody clears old SharePoint data is fear: someone will need that file, or it is under a hold. ArchiveBridge never touches a file on hold, and it never deletes anything it has not verified byte-for-byte in object storage first. We delete nothing we haven't verified.
A Migration Fills Back Up. A Policy Doesn't.
Clean up SharePoint by hand and the quota creeps back within a year. A continuous archive policy re-scans on a schedule and moves newly-cold files automatically, so the saving compounds instead of decaying. Archiving becomes a managed service, not a project.
The CRS Answer: ArchiveBridge
ArchiveBridge is Cloud Ready Solutions’ own SharePoint archiving product, built and supported in Australia. It ends the SharePoint Storage Tax, and it is available through CRS with the Wasabi storage layer and local support already sorted.
ArchiveBridge
Cloud Ready Solutions' own SharePoint archiving tool. It moves cold Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online files to S3-compatible object storage that costs roughly 20x less, SHA-256-verifies the copy before deleting the original, and leaves a one-click restore stub where the file used to be. Your storage quota comes back immediately.
How ArchiveBridge Works
The order matters. ArchiveBridge copies and verifies before it ever deletes, and it always leaves a way back. Nothing is moved without proof it arrived safely.
1. Download
Read the cold file from SharePoint Online
2. Hash
Compute a SHA-256 of the file
3. Upload
Copy it to your object-storage bucket
4. Verify
Confirm the stored hash matches exactly
5. Delete
Only now remove the SharePoint original
6. Stub
Leave a clickable restore stub in its place
Restore
One click pulls the file straight back
Audit
Every action written to an append-only log
Where Your Cold Data Goes
SharePoint Online
Your live Microsoft 365 tenant, where cold files are burning premium quota.
ArchiveBridge
Copies, hashes, verifies, and only then deletes. We delete nothing we haven’t verified.
Wasabi Object Storage
Your own bucket, roughly 20x cheaper, with Australian data residency and no egress fees.
Wasabi is the default and recommended back-end and an existing CRS vendor. See Wasabi. ArchiveBridge is S3-compatible, so AWS S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, and MinIO also work. ArchiveBridge never marks up storage.
Key Capabilities
How Cloud Ready Solutions Enables This Solution
ArchiveBridge is our own product, so this is not the usual distributor story. We build the tool, supply the storage layer, and run the partner programme, all from Australia.
Built In-House
ArchiveBridge is CRS's own product, built and supported in Australia. We own the roadmap, the pricing and the partner programme, so there is no third-party vendor sitting between you and the tool that reclaims your storage.
Australian Support
Local engineers who understand Microsoft 365 tenant admin, Entra consent flows, and object-storage back-ends. Deployment help, policy design, and restore troubleshooting from people in your time zone.
MSP Partner Programme
Multi-tenant onboarding, white-label branding, and a per-client margin model built for managed service providers. We help you turn SharePoint storage savings into recurring margin across your book of clients.
Storage Layer Supplied
We supply Wasabi object storage alongside the tool: Sydney and Melbourne regions, no egress fees, AUD billing. One conversation covers the archiver and the bucket it writes to.
A Storage Saving You Can Charge For
ArchiveBridge is multi-tenant with a real account tree, distributor to MSP to customer, and billing rolls up that tree. You set your own margin on storage per client, and the cost, charge, and margin all sit on one screen. No spreadsheet back-calculation to work out what you make.
Onboarding a new tenant is one-click Microsoft admin consent, the Keepit style: no GUID pasting, no per-tenant app registration. White-label the portal per client and the saving looks like it came from you. Every deployment is also a Wasabi opportunity, since the storage layer sits underneath.
N-level account tree
Distributor to MSP to customer, with billing that rolls up the tree.
Inline margin table
Cost, charge, and margin per client on one screen.
White-label per client
Your branding on every client-facing portal and stub.
One-click consent
Microsoft admin consent onboarding, no GUID pasting.
Who This Solution Is For
MSPs Managing Many M365 Tenants
Roll archiving out across your whole client base from a multi-tenant tree, set your own storage margin per client, and add a recurring revenue line to every Microsoft 365 engagement. See the CRS MSP platforms and the partner programme for how the numbers work.
IT Teams Fighting a SharePoint Bill
A finance team or a single site collection has quietly pushed you over your pooled SharePoint quota. Archive the cold data, cut the overage line on your Microsoft invoice, and keep every file one click away for the people who still need it.
Compliance & Records Owners
Retention labels, litigation holds, and eDiscovery holds are detected and excluded automatically. Every scan, copy, verify, delete and stub is written to an append-only, exportable audit log, so archiving never puts a held record at risk.
Why the SharePoint Storage Add-On Isn’t the Fix
When you run out of SharePoint room, Microsoft’s answer is to sell you more of the same expensive storage at roughly $0.20/GB/month. That keeps cold data on premium infrastructure and grows the bill in lockstep with the clutter. You are renting the problem, not solving it.
Microsoft 365 Archive exists too, but it is still Microsoft-priced storage with reactivation fees, and your data stays inside the same tenant. ArchiveBridge instead moves cold files out to your own object-storage bucket at about a twentieth of the cost, with a one-click stub so nothing feels moved to the people who used it.
See how ArchiveBridge stacks up against the alternatives: vs the SharePoint storage add-on, vs Microsoft 365 Archive, and vs Vaultastic.
Common Use Cases
The scenarios below are illustrative, not named customers.
The Over-Quota Professional-Services Firm
A 500-seat professional-services firm has years of finished matter files pinning it above its pooled SharePoint quota. A free read-only scan returns the exact reclaimable GB and dollar figure. Archiving the cold matters clears the overage line while every file stays one click away behind a restore stub.
The MSP Adding a Margin Line
A Brisbane MSP rolls ArchiveBridge across its Microsoft 365 clients from a single multi-tenant tree, sets a per-client margin on Wasabi storage, and turns a storage saving into recurring monthly revenue. Onboarding each tenant is one-click admin consent, and the portal carries the MSP’s own branding.
Continuous Archive as a Managed Service
Instead of a one-off clean-up, a recurring policy re-scans on a schedule and auto-archives files that have gone cold, filtered by age since last modified, minimum size, extension, and path. Checked-out and retention-locked files are skipped. The quota stays low without anyone touching it.
Compliance-Safe Archiving
A regulated organisation needs to cut storage cost without endangering held records. ArchiveBridge detects and quarantines Purview retention labels, litigation holds, and eDiscovery holds, snapshots each file’s permissions at archive time, and writes every action to an exportable audit log. Files with unique permissions route to manual review.
Archive Cuts Cost. It Isn’t Backup.
ArchiveBridge lowers your storage bill by moving cold data out of SharePoint. That is a different job from backup, which is about recovering from loss or ransomware. The two work together, and CRS supplies both. These related solutions round out a Microsoft 365 plan:
Find Out Exactly What You’d Reclaim
Grant a read-only Microsoft Entra consent and the free scan returns your exact reclaimable GB and dollar figure in minutes. Nothing moves, and there is no sales call. Pricing is per terabyte archived, not per seat, and your number comes straight from the scan. ArchiveBridge is in early access with Australian MSPs and direct customers, with no long contracts.