Google Workplace (Formerly G Suite) Pricing: How Much is it and What’s Included in Each Plan?

We’re all familiar with Google, but if you’re a business user, you’ve probably also come across Google Workplace at some stage, though you probably knew it by its former name: G Suite.

What is Google Workplace, exactly?

Google Workplace is Google’s range of cloud-based office productivity tools. It initially only included Gmail, Docs, and Sheets, but in recent years, Google has also added tools like Google Drive and Hangouts (among many others).

Typically, Google Workplace was seen as the cheaper option for business productivity tools, especially in relation to its biggest rival, Microsoft Office 365 (read our detailed review of the Office 365 suite here).

This has made it popular with millions of small-to-medium businesses worldwide. Higher-level plans offering advanced archiving, security and administrative features have also made it an attractive choice for larger enterprises.

But a recent price rise (the first in Google Workplace’s history) has left many potential new customers wondering: is Google Workplace still an affordable option? What exactly do you get in return, and is the new pricing justified?

Find out as we take you through everything you need to know about the new Google Workplace pricing, to help you make a decision.

Google Workplace Pricing: How much does it cost?

Google Workplace offers three main plans: Basic, which costs $6/user/month and comes with 30GB of Google Drive storage; Business, which costs $12/user/month and provides unlimited storage and extra security and admin controls; and Enterprise, with unlimited storage and advanced controls, which costs $25/user/month.

This represents an increase of $1/user/month from the original pricing for the Basic plan, and $2/user/month on the Business plan.

This might be manageable if you’re a smaller business with just a handful of users.

But it could sting a little if you’re a mid-large sized business, running your entire team’s email, storage and productivity tools out of Google Workplace.

Still, you might find it’s worth it, if what you’re getting for that price meets your business’s requirements. So let’s take a look at what tools and features you get access to on each Google Workplace plan.

What’s Included in Each Google Workplace Plan

Each plan will give you access to your own email account and all the Google Workplace productivity and collaboration tools. The main differences lie in storage allowance, security features, and the level of administrative control you have over the products.

	Google Workplace Basic	Google Workplace Business	Google Workplace Enterprise
Price	$6/user/month	$12/user/month	$25/user/month
Professional email (using your own domain)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Google Workplace Products (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Hangouts, Forms, Sites)	Yes	Yes	Yes
File storage	30GB	Unlimited*	Unlimited*
24/7 support	Yes	Yes	Yes
App Maker	No	Yes	Yes
Max. number of Hangouts participants	25	50	100
Ability to record and save Hangouts meetings	No	No	Yes
Live streaming on Hangouts	No	No	Yes
Cloud Search (advanced enterprise-wide search through Gmail, Drive, Docs etc)	No	Yes	Yes
Advanced enterprise controls (data loss prevention, security center, security key management etc)	No	No	Yes
Alerts for changes to Drive documents	No	Yes	Yes
Google Vault security (archiving for mail and chat messages, export features etc)	No	Yes	Yes
Ability to set rules for device management	No	No	Yes

* Unlimited storage on the Business plan is available if you have 5 or more users; otherwise, you'll get 1TB of storage per user

Which Google Workplace Plan Should You Choose?

Google Workplace Basic

This plan would be a good option if:

• You’re a freelancer, solopreneur or small business owner who manages a small team (i.e. less than 5 employees)
• You want an email address on your own domain
• You want to run your office tools out of Google (e.g. as opposed to Microsoft Office)
• You don’t work with large file formats and don’t need a huge amount of space to store files and emails
• You don’t need archiving for your emails and chat messages, or advanced admin and security controls

However, if you have a bigger team and/or don’t think the 30GB of personal storage will cut it, then it’s worth considering one of the higher plans.

Google Workplace Business

The $6/user/month price difference between Google Workplace Basic and Business means that the Business plan may not be a realistic option for some businesses. However, we’d recommend this plan if:

• You manage a medium-to-large sized team
• You want access to all the features of Google Workplace Basic, but also want email and message archiving (Google Vault)
• You don’t want to worry about running out of storage space for your files (provided you have 5+ users – otherwise, you'll have the 1TB storage limit)
• Easily syncing and sharing files across teams/the company is important to you
• You plan to use Google Hangouts for video conferencing and would have less than 50 participants on any call
• You don’t need advanced admin and security controls (e.g. data loss prevention, security key management)

Of course, if you need even greater control and more advanced security features, then Enterprise would be the way to go.

Google Workplace Enterprise

Again, there’s a huge price jump between the Business and Enterprise plans – from $12/user/month to $25/user/month.

This is ideal for businesses and enterprises that need the features offered by Google Workplace Business, but also:

• Have larger teams, and therefore require greater admin and security controls over their Google Workplace apps
• Need advanced security features such as device management rules, security key management and data loss prevention
• Aside from having access to email archiving via Google Vault, need to be able to integrate with third-party archiving tools like Barracuda or Mailstore
• Plan to use Google Hangouts for video conferencing or live streaming, and would have up to 100 participants on any call

The good thing is that you can purchase different plans for different users within your business. For example, if you only want Enterprise for some of your users, you don’t have to commit your entire team to it. This could help you reduce your monthly cost significantly.

There are also special plans available for schools (Google Workplace for Education and Google Workplace Enterprise for Education), and nonprofits (Google Workplace for Nonprofits, which is free of charge).

Plans can be billed monthly or annually. Discounts may also apply to annual plans, but generally only if you sign up through a Google representative (for example, on the Business plan, discounts aren't available if you sign up online).

Google Workplace Pricing: Final thoughts

After taking this all in, you might be wondering, is Google Workplace worth it?

Well, there are a few things to consider here. Firstly, even with the new pricing, Google Workplace Basic and Business are still more affordable than comparable plans for Microsoft Office 365.

Plus, you’re looking at a fairly complete suite of office productivity applications and email, plus some generous storage allowances (especially on Google Workplace Business).

As you’ve seen, there are a range of plans catering to different budgets and requirements, meaning that you have a good chance of finding one that’s right for you.

Sure, we wouldn’t recommend it if you were only looking for an email hosting solution for your business (there are other providers that are much cheaper, e.g. Namecheap).

But in our view, you get a decent amount for what you’re paying – enough to be able to comfortably run many of your business’s key functions through Google Workplace. And if your budget allows (and you have 5 or more users), it’s definitely worth upgrading to Google Workplace Business in order to get unlimited storage so you don’t have to worry about running out at some point.

> Try Google Workplace

 

Still have questions about Google Workplace? Or want to share your experience with it? Leave us a comment below.

 

Updates: 

15 Oct 2020 – The name was updated from ‘G Suite' to ‘Google Workplace'