Understanding True Hosting Costs: Why Quantity Matters as Much as Price Per GB

Posted On: Tuesday, May 27, 2025

When evaluating hosting providers, the per GB price is an easy number to compare—but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Your costs are the price per GB times the quantity being hosted. Many vendors have a low price per GB but they inflate the quantity of data in a number of ways to increase your overall costs. To truly understand cost, it’s critical to look at the quantity of data being hosted which is frequently a calculation related to but far larger than the amount of data you started with. Ask your vendor for information about what you can expect for hosting quantities. Target Litigation aims to keep your hosting quantities as low as we can.

1. How large is the data overhead?

For most if not all ediscovery platforms, users are charged for the size of the hosted case. This  figure typically includes the original data you have loaded plus overhead, that is files that the system uses for your case.  With one platform we use, there’s only a 10% overhead on the original data size. So, 10 GB of source data becomes only 11 GB hosted. In contrast, some tools add 30–40% overhead or more. That same 10 GB becomes 13–15 GB hosted before other factors even come into play.

2. How is email processed?

In order to extract attachments, text, and metadata from email data, the files need to be processed. Many hosting environments default to storing processed native email data in msg format so attachments are embedded in the email file and then extracted and loaded separately. You are paying for hosting each attachment twice.  At Target Litigation, we typically convert email to HTML format before loading, so attachments are not embedded in the email message and you only pay for one copy of the attachment to be hosted. This significantly reduces “data expansion.” This commonly increases the size of hosted email data by 50%.

3. Compound Effect on Hosting Volume

The two factors above compound so the increase is even greater overall. As  you can see in the example below, the amount of data you are charged for can almost double because of the platform and process used by your vendor.

4. Check for Hidden Fees

In addition to reducing hosted volume, you need to look for common extra charges:

• If you are starting with a large set of data and filtering before review, make sure you understand how you are being charged for the data that is not promoted for review. Many vendors charge a monthly storage fee that is significant if your case is large.

• Many vendors charge more than $100 per user per month in user fees

• Ask when and how project management fees are charged. These hidden charges add up quickly if you are billed for training, support, and every question or change you request.

Be a sophisticated consumer. Don’t just rely on low per GB hosting rates to decide what vendor is best suited to handle your case. Ask questions about the quantity side; you might get a bit of hemming and hawing as many vendors prefer not to have this conversation with you. And make sure to ask about how and when you are billed for project management.