--- title: Stellar Data Recovery canonical: https://saasranked.com/software/stellar-data-recovery/ category: Data Recovery Software points: 75 rank: 1 of 11 facts_checked: 2026-10-08 --- # Stellar Data Recovery Windows file recovery program in five editions, with a free edition that saves up to 1 GB. 75 points out of 100. #1 of 11 data recovery programs. Vendor: Stellar Information Technology. Website: https://www.stellarinfo.com/ - The free edition scans, previews and saves up to 1 GB [3]. - Standard costs $59.99 for a 1 Year License or $99 for a LifeTime License, one PC [1]. - Refunds run 30 days from purchase, for listed reasons such as defects, a wrong product or a duplicate purchase [4]. - Photo and video repair, disk images, bootable media and drive health come in Professional and Premium [5][6]. - RAID recovery needs the Technician edition [7]. Verdict: Stellar suits people who want to preview results before paying and need more than basic undelete: lost partitions, BitLocker drives and bootable media are covered across editions [5][6][7]. The free edition saves 1 GB [3]. The catch: the cheapest Standard edition lacks partition recovery, and the refund policy does not list a change of mind among its refund reasons [2][4]. Best for: People who need partition, BitLocker or photo repair features and accept a paid licence. ## Points | Criterion | Line | Value | Points | Note | |---|---|---|---|---| | Price | Free recovery limit | 1 | 4/9 | Stellar says the Windows free edition recovers 1 GB for free [3]. | | Price | Cheapest paid licence | $59.99/yr | 7/11 | Standard edition, one PC, 1 Year License at $59.99 on the buy page; lifetime is $99. No recovery cap is stated [1][2]. | | Price | One-time licence | Yes | 3/3 | The buy page offers a LifeTime License for Standard at $99, beside the 1 Year License at $59.99 [1]. | | Price | Money-back period | 0 | 0/3 | 30-day window, but the listed refund reasons are defects, wrong or duplicate purchases and similar. Change of mind is not listed, so 0 [4]. | | What it finds | Signature (raw) scan | Yes | 6/6 | The FAQ says Deep Scan facilitates file signature-based RAW recovery, for formatted and corrupt media [2]. | | What it finds | Lost partition recovery | Yes | 6/6 | Professional and Premium search for lost or deleted partitions; Professional has a Can't Find Drive option [2][6]. | | What it finds | File types listed | Not published | 0/4 | Not published on the vendor's product page, which says only "hundreds" of file types [2]. | | What it finds | Repairs damaged photos or videos | Yes | 4/4 | Premium repairs corrupt photo and video files inside the program [5]. | | Drives and systems | Drives and media | Hard drive or SSD, USB drive, SD or memory card, Optical disc, Virtual disk (VHD or VMDK) | 5/6 | Hard drives, USB and memory cards [2]; optical media [6]; VMDK, VDI, VHD, VHDX in the Toolkit [8]. Android is a separate product. | | Drives and systems | File systems beyond NTFS and FAT32 | exFAT, ReFS, APFS or HFS+, ext4 | 4/4 | exFAT [2], ReFS in Professional [6], APFS and HFS+ and ext4 in the Toolkit [8]. | | Drives and systems | BitLocker drives | Yes | 4/4 | Technician says it supports all BitLocker-encrypted drives when you enter the key [7]. | | Drives and systems | RAID recovery | Yes | 5/5 | Technician recovers RAID 0, 5, 6 and nested arrays [7]. | | Tools | Disk image before recovery | Yes | 6/6 | Professional has a Disk Image feature that copies a hard disk so you can recover from the image later [6]. | | Tools | Bootable recovery media | Yes | 5/5 | Professional builds bootable media for PCs that will not start [6]. | | Tools | Preview before you pay | Yes | 7/7 | The free edition scans and previews found files before purchase [3]. | | Tools | Pause and resume a scan | Yes | 3/3 | Premium saves scan results to a .DAT file so you can finish recovery later [5]. | | Tools | Drive health check | Yes | 3/3 | The Professional page lists SMART Drive Monitoring and says a Drive Monitor utility shows drive health [6]. | | Tools | Runs without installing | Not published | 0/2 | Not published on the vendor's Windows product page [2]. | | Trust and support | Open source | No | 0/6 | The licence agreement calls the source code proprietary and bans reverse engineering [9]. | | Trust and support | Support with a paid licence | Yes | 3/3 | Stellar says free technical support is included, even for free-edition users [3]. | ## Plans | Plan | Price | Per month (USD) | |---|---|---| | Free | Free [3] | $0 | | Standard | $59.99 [1][2] | $5 | | Standard Lifetime | $99 [1] | - | | Professional | $79.99 [1][6] | - | | Professional Lifetime | $149 [1] | - | | Premium | $99.99 [1][5] | - | | Premium Lifetime | $199 [1] | - | | Technician | $199 [1][7] | - | | Technician Lifetime | $399 [1] | - | The buy page lets you choose a 1 Year License or a LifeTime License for each edition and shows a different price for each: Standard $59.99 or $99 [1]. The FAQ describes Standard as $59.99 a year [2]. ## Strengths - Free edition lets you scan, preview and save up to 1 GB [3]. - Premium repairs damaged photos and videos after recovery [5]. - Professional builds disk images and bootable recovery media [6]. - Technician recovers RAID 0, 5, 6 and nested arrays; the Toolkit lists ext4, HFS+ and APFS [7][8]. - Free technical support is included, including for free-edition users [3]. ## Limits - Lost partition recovery needs Professional or Premium, not Standard [2]. - The refund policy lists reasons such as defects, a wrong product and duplicate purchases; a change of mind is not listed [4]. - The product page gives no file-type count, only "hundreds" [2]. - Source code is proprietary [9]. ## Sources 1. [Order Stellar Data Recovery for Windows](https://www.stellarinfo.com/order_online.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 2. [Stellar Data Recovery for Windows](https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows-data-recovery.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 3. [Free data recovery software](https://www.stellarinfo.com/free-data-recovery.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 4. [Refund policy](https://www.stellarinfo.com/company/legal/refund-policy.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 5. [Stellar Data Recovery Premium](https://www.stellarinfo.com/disk-recovery/data-recovery-premium.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 6. [Stellar Data Recovery Professional](https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows-data-recovery-professional.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 7. [Stellar Data Recovery Technician](https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows-data-recovery-technician.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 8. [Stellar Data Recovery Toolkit](https://www.stellarinfo.com/data-recovery-toolkit.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08 9. [End user licence agreement](https://www.stellarinfo.com/company/legal/eula.php), Stellar Information Technology, accessed 2026-10-08