"How much does data recovery cost?" deserves a straight answer, so here it is: assessment starts from $230, and the recovery itself is quoted firmly - one number, your specific device, before any work begins. Nobody can honestly quote a recovery sight unseen, because the price is decided by what physically failed - but every dollar you'd spend with us is known and approved by you before it's incurred.
Nobody can honestly quote a recovery sight unseen, because the price is decided by what physically failed. What we can promise is that every dollar you would spend with us is known and approved by you before it is incurred.
Step one
From $230
Real specialist work: opening the device, testing it on dedicated equipment, establishing what physically failed and whether your data is recoverable. The exact assessment cost depends on the device and is confirmed with you upfront, before you commit to anything.
This is the only money you spend before knowing exactly where you stand.
Step two
Your firm quote after diagnosis
The assessment produces a firm quote for your specific recovery - what failed, what it takes to fix, one number. Approve it and that's what you pay: the quote doesn't creep, and there are no extras invented mid-job.
No charges you haven't approved. No percentage of "data value", no urgency loading you didn't ask for, no handling fees, no charge for bad news.
A clicking hard drive and a hard drive with a corrupted file system sound identical in an email. One needs donor parts and hours of mechanical work in controlled conditions; the other may be a fraction of the cost. A dead phone might need one power component - or a board rebuilt after salt water.
Until a specialist has the device on the bench, any number offered is a guess, and guessed numbers behave badly: they're pitched low to win the job, then "revised" once your device - and your hopes - are already in the door.
That's the quiet trick of "free diagnosis, cheap recovery" advertising, and it's why our model is the reverse: you pay for the diagnosis, and in exchange the recovery price you're given is real, firm and yours to refuse. The assessment fee isn't a cost of doing business with us - it's what makes the honest quote possible.
No two recoveries cost the same, but the factors are no mystery.
It would be strange for a recovery lab's pricing page not to say this: before you spend anything, make sure you need us.
If your files might be in a cloud backup - Google Photos, iCloud, OneDrive, Dropbox - check there first; we'll even point you where to look when you call. If you deleted a file minutes ago on a healthy computer, the app's own rubbish bin or a backup may solve it free. And if a simple cable or power adapter is the real fault, an assessment will find that too - the cheapest good news a lab can deliver.
What we'd steer you away from is the middle path: cheap recovery software aimed at a failing device. On a healthy drive it has its place; on a failing one it's how a recoverable job becomes an expensive one. If the device is making sounds, disappearing, or has been dropped or soaked - skip the software, power it off, and start with a diagnosis.
Three ways data recovery gets priced, and what each one really means for the customer.
"Free diagnosis" model
Diagnosis costs the business real money, so it's recovered in the recovery price - paid by the customers who proceed, with a built-in incentive to make sure you proceed.
"No data, no fee" model
Sounds like shared risk, but the successful recoveries are priced to carry the failed ones, and "success" is defined by the fine print - sometimes very little data still counts as chargeable success.
Our model
You pay for an honest diagnosis once, the recovery quote is firm and yours to refuse, and nobody who walks away subsidises anybody else. It's the same logic as any specialist you'd trust: the expertise is the service, starting with the diagnosis.
Including the ones that are awkward for a recovery lab to answer.
Assessment starts from $230; the recovery itself is quoted firmly after diagnosis, because the price depends on what physically failed - a software-level fault, a dead board and a mechanical failure needing donor parts are different jobs. You'll know the exact assessment cost before you book, and the full recovery price before any work starts. Nothing is ever charged without your approval.
Because the diagnosis is real specialist work, and someone always pays for it - the only question is how visibly. "Free" diagnosis gets folded into recovery prices and leans on you to proceed. Charging for assessment keeps our diagnosis honest: we earn the fee whether the answer is good or bad, so you can trust the answer.
They're quoted separately: the assessment fee covers the diagnostic work, and the firm quote is the full price of the recovery. Both numbers are in front of you before anything proceeds, so nothing is ever charged outside numbers you have seen and approved.
We'll happily tell you the assessment cost, what the process looks like, and - honestly - whether your situation sounds like one we can help with at all; sometimes the advice is "check your cloud backup" and no courier is needed. What we won't do is guess your recovery price sight unseen. Any lab that quotes a recovery before diagnosing the device is either padding heavily or planning to revise the number later.
Urgency changes scheduling, not honesty. If you have a genuine deadline, tell us up front: we'll say plainly whether it's achievable and whether prioritising your job carries any cost, before you decide. What you'll never get is an invented "emergency fee" discovered on the invoice.
You pay the assessment fee and nothing more, and you get the reasons straight. We don't bill for doomed attempts and we don't take on work we've diagnosed as hopeless. Bad news costs the same as good news - that's what makes both believable.
No job is too small - a single folder of photos on a cheap USB stick gets the same process as a company server. The assessment fee is the same honest gate for both: if what's recoverable isn't worth the quote to you, you decline and walk away having spent the assessment fee only.
No. The quote is based on the work the recovery requires, not on gigabytes recovered or what the data is worth to you. It's set at assessment, before you approve anything, and it doesn't change based on what we find inside.
Assessment from $230 to learn exactly where you stand; a firm quote to decide with; and not a dollar spent beyond those without your say-so. If you're still comparing labs, ask every one of them the same question: "what will the recovery cost, and when will I know?" The answer tells you everything.