“Stellar Data Recovery Premium is easy to use and works well on hard disk drives, and the advanced repair tool even restored some SSD files, a rare feat.”
- Excellent recovery of HDD files
- Recovers some SSD files with repair tools
- Live support 24 hours a day on weekdays
- Offers a free version
- File previews are awkward
- App window sizes aren't ideal
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Stellar Data Recovery Premium often appears on lists of the best paid file restoration software for Windows, and there’s also a limited free version. I reviewed the premium app last year to test how well it works, how responsive customer service is, and whether the subscription plans are worth the cost.
Stellar has made some updates to improve the app’s design, usability, and performance, so I went hands-on with the 2025 upgrades to refresh my recommendation.
If you’re a Mac owner, Stellar Data Recovery also works on macOS. It earned a place on our guide to the best data recovery software for Mac.
Specs
| Stellar Data Recovery Premium | |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| Devices | 1 |
| Support | Live chat 24 hours daily on weekdays |
| Free version? | Yes |
Tiers and pricing
Stellar Data Recovery has a free version which allows up to 1GB of file restoration. That’s a sizeable amount you can use to get back over a hundred high-resolution photos, several hundred documents, or thousands of text files. However, a long video could be over a gigabyte.
If you need to recover more data, you’ll need a subscription. For $60 per year, Stellar Data Recovery Standard can restore an unlimited number of files from hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), thumb drives, USB drives, SD cards, and network-attached storage (NAS).
If you have lost partitions or need to get files from an unbootable PC, you need the $90 Stellar Data Recovery Professional. It’s only $10 more to upgrade to Stellar Data Recovery Premium, which includes advanced photo and video repair capabilities that could be essential to fully restore media files.
To be worth $100 annually, this service should be easy to use and deliver excellent results in challenging situations.
Design
I tested Stellar’s Data Recovery Premium plan. An email with a download link and activation code guided me through installation and opened a browser tab with a video tutorial and user guide. I was already familiar, so I went back to the app.
I was struck by the new design for 2025 featuring elements that extend beyond the normal window bounds. In settings, I could choose from three color themes: light, dark, and vibrant. I tried them all but selected dark, which had the best contrast.
The app is easy to understand. I select what type of files I want to restore with the default option to recover all files. Next, I pick the drive or folder to check for lost files before beginning a scan. It’s exactly what I would expect.
I like that the 2025 version has a slightly larger window and the option to enter full screen mode. That’s an improvement since I can view more files and folders without scrolling. Still, I’m facing a Goldilocks problem: the default size is a little too small, and full screen is much too large.
Unfortunately, Stellar removed the preview pane. I have to double-click to open a preview window and close it before continuing. Disk Drill Pro has a much more functional design.
Stellar Data Recovery splits the window into two panes. The folder structure appears on the left, like in Windows File Explorer. The right pane shows a list of files. If a quick scan doesn’t find the files I need, I can select a deep scan with a button at the bottom of the window.
At the top left, there’s a menu button with app information and support. Settings have been moved to the sidebar. A toolbar at the top right has buttons to access advanced tools like drive monitoring or photo and video repair.
Features
I started testing Stellar Data Recovery Premium by deleting all files from an SSD partition, then scanned and attempted to restore those files.
The best SSD drives use a feature called TRIM to extend the life of the drive and to speed up operations. Unfortunately, that makes deleted files difficult and often impossible to recover.
With Stellar Data Recovery Premium, the list of files and folders looked good after a quick scan, but no previews were available. I did a deep scan before trying to restore files. Still, I saw no previews, and I couldn’t open any of the recovered files. In my review of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro, it also had trouble with deleted SSD files.
Stellar Data Recovery Premium has an advanced repair feature that can sometimes restore photos and videos even when a deep scan fails. I selected several photos and was surprised to see the app fully restore them within a few minutes. The same feature failed last year, demonstrating the big improvements in the latest version.
My second SSD test starts with a quick format. I told Stellar Data Recovery Premium to scan for lost files. A deep scan found system files, but none of the files. Still, getting any lost file back from an SSD is impressive, and Stellar Data Recovery Premium is the first app I’ve tested that could restore deleted SSD files.
Moving on to HDD recovery, I used File Explorer to delete the files on a small, slow USB drive, then scanned it with Stellar Data Recovery Premium. As expected, it took several minutes to finish, but the app showed what it was finding and I could open a preview during the process, giving me confidence that it was worth the wait.
This isn’t a challenging test, and every data recovery app I’ve tested succeeds. Even the $20 DMDE recovery app aced this test.
Stellar Data Recovery Premium saved my files and filenames. It even kept my nested folder structure. The only error was changing the first letter of folder names. “Copy” became “Xopy,” which is easy to correct manually.
Stellar Data Recovery Premium also easily restored HDD files and folders after a quick format. As with any file recovery app, it’s essential to detect the problem and recover files as soon as possible. If you save data or make any changes to the drive that contains the lost files, your computer can overwrite the data, preventing restoration.
Support
To test support, I selected the question mark button in the app. At the bottom right of the support center, there’s a chat button. Live agents are available 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, the best support of any data recovery software I’ve reviewed.
The person I spoke with was a bit more technical than I would have expected for live support, but I’m sure they would explain further if I didn’t understand their questions.
In my case, it simply sped up the process, and Stellar Data Recovery support only took about a minute to answer multiple questions.
Privacy and security
The Stellar Data Recovery app doesn’t upload data for processing, so your files are secure. You don’t have to worry about Stellar selling, leaking, or sharing your personal data.
Stellar’s end-user license agreement allows the company to use your account data for promotions about Stellar products. In my testing, I didn’t receive any marketing that seemed excessive or abusive.
Is Stellar Data Recovery Premium right for you?
If you’ve only lost a few files, the free version of Stellar Data Recovery is a good place to start. The 1GB cap might be able to restore your most important files without subscribing. The best free data recovery software restores more of your missing files at no charge. Some are even uncapped.
Sometimes your lost data has great value and you’re willing to pay a premium to get it back. Stellar Data Recovery Premium is one of the most expensive solutions, but it restored all my HDD files and folders in both tests. It also recovered deleted photos in one of my SSD tests, a rare feat.
Customer support is excellent. Quick help from live agents can be reassuring when you’ve lost important files or precious memories in photos and videos.
Stellar Data Recovery Standard costs $40 less per year, yet it lacks the photo and video repair tools I needed. That means the added features of the Premium plan are worthwhile in challenging situations.
