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Start Now!Why Did Another Data Recovery Company Quote Me Thousands of Dollars?
Because most data recovery companies price by how difficult the job turns out to be, and $300 Data Recovery prices by device capacity instead. Our price is $300 for a hard drive 1TB or smaller, $500 up to 6TB, and $700 above that, decided before we open anything.
About one in four people who contact us have already been somewhere else first. If you were quoted $1,800 or $2,200 and it seemed arbitrary, here is an honest explanation of what’s going on.
Why do data recovery quotes vary so much?
The conventional model in this industry is severity-based pricing. The lab evaluates your drive, classifies the failure as logical, mechanical or severe, and quotes accordingly. A file system problem might be $500. A head swap might be $1,900. Platter damage might be $3,000.
That model is not a scam, and it’s worth saying so plainly. Cost really does vary between jobs. A head swap consumes a donor drive, cleanroom time and hours of an experienced technician. A corrupted partition table might take twenty minutes. Charging the same for both means one job subsidizes the other.
The problem with severity pricing isn’t dishonesty. It’s that you cannot know the price before you commit. You ship your drive, you wait, and then you find out what it costs, at the point where the lab already has your property and you’re emotionally invested in getting your data back. That’s a weak negotiating position, and everyone involved knows it.
What does “free evaluation” usually mean?
Free evaluation generally means the lab will tell you what’s wrong at no charge and then quote you. It does not usually mean free return shipping if you decline, and it doesn’t cap what the quote can be.
It’s a real service and it costs the lab real money. But it’s worth understanding what it is: a step that gets your drive into their building before the price is known.
What does $300 Data Recovery charge instead?
$300 Data Recovery prices by the capacity of the device, which is a number printed on the label. You can work out your price before you contact us.
| Device | Price |
|---|---|
| Hard drive, USB flash drive or memory card, 1TB or smaller | $300 |
| Same devices, larger than 1TB up to 6TB | $500 |
| Any SSD up to 6TB, regardless of capacity | $500 |
| Any device larger than 6TB | $700 |
| Phone or tablet, recovered in-house | $500 flat |
| RAID or NAS array | Each drive at its own tier, summed |
In plain terms: a hard drive 1TB or smaller is $300 at $300 Data Recovery. The same drive between 1TB and 6TB is $500. Anything over 6TB is $700. Any SSD up to 6TB is $500. A phone recovered in our lab is $500 flat.
The failure type does not change the price. A clicking drive that needs a head swap costs the same as one with a corrupted partition table, as long as they’re the same capacity.
What isn’t included?
Being straight about this is the point, so here is the complete list.
- Donor parts, if your drive needs them. Billed at our cost with no markup. You approve and pay for the part before we order it.
- A transfer drive to put the recovered data on, from $125 for 1TB. You can supply your own instead at no charge.
- Return shipping, $25 within the USA with signature confirmation and $100 insurance, or $20 without.
- A $100 open cover fee if someone opened the drive’s cover before it reached us. It’s applied toward your total, so you never pay more than the tier price.
- Specialist fees, only if our in-house attempt doesn’t succeed and you choose to escalate. See below.
What we do not charge for, and many labs do: encryption of any kind including BitLocker and FileVault, USB circuit board or enclosure work, drives over 2TB, drives over 8TB, or general complexity. Those surcharges used to exist here and were eliminated.
Does a lower price mean lower capability?
It’s a fair question and you should ask it of anyone, including us.
The equipment that does this work is not proprietary. $300 Data Recovery uses PC-3000 and DeepSpar Disk Imager, the same platforms the large labs use, plus dedicated tooling for chip-off and monolith work. We operate our own cleanroom and perform physical repairs, including head and platter swaps, in-house.
The difference isn’t capability. It’s that we accepted less margin on hard jobs in exchange for pricing customers can predict, and we make that back on the easy ones. It’s a deliberate trade, not a shortcut.
There are genuine limits, and we’d rather state them than imply we can do everything. BitLocker-encrypted drives cannot be decrypted without your password or recovery key, by anyone. Platters that have been physically scratched may be beyond recovery. Most helium-filled drives have welded covers and firmware the recovery community hasn’t cracked, so internal repairs on those often aren’t possible in-house.
Do phones and modern Macs go straight to a specialist?
No. $300 Data Recovery attempts every device in our own lab first. Phones and tablets are $500 flat for in-house recovery, and Macs with soldered SSDs fall under our $500 SSD price at that stage.
Only if our own attempt doesn’t succeed do we offer to send the device to a specialist partner, and you decide whether to go ahead. We pass along our discounted specialist pricing and never charge our in-house rate on top of it. Your device is returned to you either way.
| Device | Specialist fee | Shipping |
|---|---|---|
| Non-iPhone phones | $700 | +$75 |
| iPhone 14 and earlier | $600 | +$75 |
| iPhone 15, 16 and 17 | $800 | +$75 |
| Mac or laptop with a soldered SSD | $800 | +$75 |
In plain terms: a specialist recovery at $300 Data Recovery is $600 to $800 depending on the device, plus $75 of shipping covering three legs. Half of the specialist fee is due before the specialist begins, and the remaining half only if the recovery succeeds.
If the specialist fails, your deposit is refunded. You pay the $75 shipping and nothing else.
What if another company already opened my drive?
We’ll still take it. It’s common, and it isn’t disqualifying.
A $100 open cover fee applies to hard drives that arrive with the cover already opened, charged up front and non-refundable. It’s applied toward your recovery total rather than added on top, so a 1TB drive with an opened cover is still $300 total: $100 now and $200 on success.
The reason for the fee is that opened drives are more likely to have contamination or disturbed head geometry, which means more work and a lower success rate. It reflects the added risk, not a penalty.
Will trying one company first hurt my chances with another?
Usually not, but it depends entirely on what was done.
Diagnostics performed with proper imaging hardware are non-destructive and leave your chances unchanged. Where damage happens is when a drive with failing heads is powered on repeatedly, or when a shop without a cleanroom opens it. Both can scratch platters, and platter damage is the one thing that genuinely destroys data.
If a previous shop has already had it, the useful things to tell us are what they said was wrong, whether they opened it, and how many times it was powered on. Our Chances Form asks for exactly that.
What should I do next?
- If you have a written quote from another company, keep it. It’s useful context and it costs you nothing to compare.
- Submit our Chances Form. Tell us the model number, the symptoms, and what the other company found. We reply with an honest read on your odds and a firm price.
- If we don’t think we’re the right lab for your case, we’ll say so and point you somewhere that is.