SD card recovery costs $100 flat at my bench for a deleted or formatted card that still reads, and $150 to $250 when files need rebuilding. A card that no reader can detect is quoted case by case. USB flash drives follow the same prices.
People assume a little SD card should cost less to recover than a big hard drive. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes the sixty-cent piece of plastic is the harder job on the bench. Here’s how small-media pricing actually breaks down, so the quote makes sense before you ever get one.
How much does SD card recovery cost?
| Situation | Price |
|---|---|
| Deleted photos, formatted card, card that mounts but acts wrong | $100 flat |
| Fragments, corrupted video, very large cards | $150–$250, quoted after evaluation |
| Card or flash drive not detected at all | Case by case; some I refer out, at no charge |
| Physically broken card or flash drive | Case by case |
Deleted photos, formatted card, card that mounts but acts wrong: $100 flat at my bench. The card works; the data organization is damaged, and the files come back intact. Photos and video recover especially well because their file formats are easy to identify and carve out of a raw read, even when the file system is gone entirely. If you shot a wedding on it and then formatted it in-camera, this tier is usually where you are — and the sooner the card stops being used, the more complete the recovery. (More on that in SD card says it needs formatting.)
Fragments, corrupted video, very large cards: $150–$250, quoted after evaluation. The files are there but need rebuilding before they’re usable: long recordings stored in pieces, video the camera never finished writing, or a very large card that takes far longer to copy and search.
Card or flash drive not detected at all: case by case. When no reader or camera can see the device, the controller that manages the flash memory has usually died, and the data has to come off the memory chip directly. On microSD and other one-piece devices, everything is sealed in a single chip and access means working on the chip itself. Some of these jobs I can do at my bench. The ones I can’t, I refer out, at no charge. The evaluation tells you which yours is, and if it’s one I can do, you get a quote before anything else happens.
Physically broken devices are case by case too. A snapped USB connector with a healthy board behind it is a far smaller job than a flash drive snapped through the board itself, where it depends on what the crack went through. Either one gets quoted after evaluation, and if it’s not a job I can do, I refer it out at no charge.
Why can a small card cost more than a hard drive?
The material is smaller; the work isn’t. When a card or flash drive isn’t detected, getting the data means working on the memory chip directly and then rebuilding the way the dead controller had arranged it. That is hours of skilled work regardless of whether the device held 32GB or 512GB, and it’s why those cases cost more wherever they’re done. I can take on some of them; others go to a lab that specializes in that work. Price scales with labor and difficulty, never with gigabytes. Anyone charging per-GB on a memory card is pricing your desperation, not the work.
Is a $12 card worth $100 to recover?
Here’s the conversation I actually have with people: the card cost $12, so paying $100 or more to recover it feels wrong. But the card was never the thing being priced — the only copy of your kid’s first birthday is. That’s a decision only you can make, and my job is to give you a firm number and an honest read on the odds so you can make it with real information. What I won’t do is charge you to find out. The evaluation is free. I'll show you what's recoverable before you pay anything. If what you're looking for isn't there, you owe nothing.
No data, no charge. The evaluation is free. I'll show you what's recoverable before you pay anything. If what you're looking for isn't there, you owe nothing.
The bottom line
Deleted or formatted cards that still read: $100 flat. Fragment reconstruction and corrupted video: $150–$250. Cards that aren’t detected at all: case by case, and some are referred out. USB flash drives follow the same prices. And whatever tier you’re in — stop using the card now. Continued use is the only thing that makes photo recovery worse at every price point.
If the device is a thumb drive that no computer will detect, see USB flash drive not recognized.
Card or thumb drive with irreplaceable files on it? Start a case — tell me the device type and what happened, and the evaluation costs you nothing.