Is Reflect free? Which edition do I need? What happens if I stop paying? The honest answers, including the one nobody likes: the free edition is gone, and the current Reflect X is a paid program with a trial.
Macrium changed its model when Reflect X (version 10) replaced Reflect 8. Older advice about a generous free edition is now out of date, so this page states the current position carefully - and deliberately keeps prices loose, because Macrium's offers change and the only trustworthy price list is the one on macrium.com today.
Macrium's own edition split. Prices are not pinned in this panel on purpose - they change; macrium.com is the live list.
There is no free edition of Reflect X. The old Reflect 8 Free was withdrawn, and support for Reflect 8 has ended, so an old free install is running on borrowed time. What exists now is a 30-day trial with the full feature set - long enough to build your images, create rescue media and do a test restore. Treat the trial as an evaluation with a deadline, not as your backup plan.
Reflect X is sold mainly on annual plans - at the time of writing, roughly US$50 a year for one Home PC, with a four-PC pack working out cheaper per machine and multi-year discounts appearing from time to time; a one-time purchase option has also been offered. Indian pricing and taxes vary, so read these as magnitudes, not quotes - the video description and macrium.com carry the current numbers.
Licensing is per computer: one licence per PC it is installed on, and Macrium allows moving a licence to a replacement machine. Your money buys the imaging engine, scheduling, the rescue environment, updates and support - the polish that free tools make you assemble yourself.
This is the part Macrium deserves credit for, stated in its own licensing notes: if an annual plan lapses, Reflect drops into restore-only mode. You can still boot the rescue media and restore every image you own - your data is never held hostage. What stops is making new backups, until you renew. That is a fair model, and it means buying Reflect is a subscription to protection, not a ransom for your own files.
Pay for Reflect if the PC holds work, accounts data or family photos you cannot recreate - priced against one professional data-recovery bill, a year of Reflect is small money. If the PC is a throwaway test machine, Windows' built-in tools and other imagers exist, and Reflect's trial still lets you judge the difference with your own hands. What is not an option is the middle path many people drift into: the trial expired months ago and no other backup replaced it.
See every click in Macrium Reflect - the image, the settings and the restore - live in the full video.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo current one. Reflect 8 Free was discontinued and Reflect 8 is out of support. The supported route is a Reflect X licence after the 30-day trial.
No. Macrium states that a lapsed annual plan leaves Reflect in restore-only mode - your images remain yours and restorable, including from rescue media. Only creating new backups waits for renewal.
No - licensing is per computer. The multi-PC Home pack exists precisely for households, and it works out noticeably cheaper per machine than single licences.