Google Workspace Pricing & Plans Explained

Are you wondering how to navigate the Google Workspace pricing plans?

If so, you might also need a little clarification about what the Google email service for business does, what it’s called, and how it can help your business. 

Google Workspace is the name for Google’s suite of business email solutions. You might know it better by its former name: G Suite. 

In the fall of 2020, Google renamed G Suite to Google Workplace and added additional features to the old G Suite product. Google added a third pricing tier called Google Business Plus and renamed the previous two tiers. 

The Basic plan’s new name became Business Starter. The Business version of G Suite became the Business Standard plan under the new Google Workspace umbrella. 

Google Workplace offers business email addresses and other tools such as Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Meet Video, Hangouts, and Google Drive. 

Google hopes the rebranding campaign to change the name to Google Workspace will help it compete more effectively with its major competitor Microsoft 365.

Now that I have the brief history lesson out of the way, let’s help you understand more about Google business email and what you should know about the Google Workspace cost.  

Google Workspace Plans

Typically, the main reason business owners and entrepreneurs come to Google Workspace (formerly called G Suite) is to access the business email service. 

This service lets you obtain email addresses tied to your website’s domain name. Instead of employees using emails such as [email protected], for example, you can give them email addresses such as [email protected].

The Google Business email pricing for Workspace is relatively straightforward and easy to understand. Four total plans exist:

• Business Starter
• Business Standard
• Business Plus
• Enterprise

The first three plans include a set cost that charges a business a certain amount per user per month. The Google Workspace Enterprise plan offers a customized approach to your business email needs. You’ll receive a quote after discussing your unique situation with the Google sales team. 

Google gives you a 14-day trial period so you can feel comfortable selecting a plan, using it for two weeks, and then making a final decision on whether your chosen plan fits your business.

Let’s look at how the Google Business email pricing plans break down so you can decide which one works for your company.

Business Starter Plan

The Business Starter Plan costs $6 per user per month. This is a $1 per user per month increase over the amount charged with the old G Suite service.

With the Business Starter Plan, you need to consider that:

• You get one of the core aspects of Google Workspace, which is business email accounts for your solopreneur business, eCommerce store, or each of your employees.
• You can hold video meetings with up to 100 participants. 
• Your video meeting account doesn’t allow for breakout rooms.
• The account provides 30GB of cloud storage per user.
• You and your team have access to Slides, Sheets, and Docs
• You can use a built-in survey builder and website builder. 
• The plan offers 2-step verification for greater security and management.

Business Standard Plan

The Business Standard Plan costs $12 per user per month. This represents a $2 per user per month increase that occurred after the change from G Suite to Google Workspace.

With the Business Standard Plan, you need to consider that:

• It includes the business email feature.
• The file space allocated to each user increases dramatically from 30GB to 2TB.
• Your participant threshold for video meetings increases to 150 maximum participants.
• You can record your video meetings (recordings get saved to Google Drive). 
• During video meetings, you and your team can use breakout rooms, hand raising, and polling features.
• You can use the cloud search feature to search through your Doc, Drive, Gmail, and other areas of your Google account.
• You’ll receive alerts when anyone in the organization changes a Google Doc.

Business Plus Plan

The Business Plus Plan costs $18 per user per month. This is the newest plan that Google added in after the switch to the new Google Workspace product. 

With the Google Business Email Business Plus Plan, you need to consider that:

• This plan adds Google Vault features to the business email feature. With Vault, you can use eDiscovery to search for data within Drive files, Gmail messages, Chat messages, and other locations. Then, you can export that data for further analysis.
• You can hold and record video meetings for up to 250 attendees. 
• Attendance tracking during video meetings becomes available.
• You get 5TB of storage per user.
• You still can’t live stream using Meet Video (this opens up to Enterprise users).

Enterprise Plan

The Google Workspace Enterprise Plan provides an unlimited amount of storage space based on your needs. Pricing is based on the specific requirements of your organization. Contact Google for a quote.

With the Enterprise Plan, you need to consider that:

• You get S/MIME encryption added to the Business Plus Plan’s features (business emails and Google Vault). You can encrypt the emails sent out from your organization.
• The participant maximum for video meetings and recordings remains at 250 participants. 
• You can use noise-cancellation technology in video meetings.
• You can conduct live-streaming events. 
• Google will provide you with unlimited storage space based on your specific needs. 
• The standard support offered for the first three plans gets upgraded to Enhanced Support.
• You get advanced enterprise controls to help with data loss prevention and extra security.
• You can set rules for managing devices.

Google Workspace Features

It’s helpful to get a bird’s eye view of what’s generally involved with a Google Workspace account. 

If you can understand some of the features that go beyond setting up a professional email account for you and/or your employees, then it’s easier to comprehend the overall benefits of paying for the Google Workspace plan that includes your preferred feature details. 

Like the G Suite features offered before the Google Workspace rebranding project, you get much more than a business email. Here’s a list of some of the other included features and programs:

• Drive
• Gmail
• Calendar
• Meet
• Sheets
• Docs
• Chat
• Currents
• Forms
• Sites
• Keep
• Slides

Security features include Work Insights, Vault, Endpoint, and Admin.

Google Workspace helps medium to large organizations communicate more effectively during daily operations. For example, you can communicate with coworkers inside Slides, Sheets, or Docs by using the “@mention” functionality. The Chat features let you communicate with others while workers set up and develop documents. 

Your Gmail version inside Google Workspace is ad-free. This helps keep everyone more focused on the important tasks at hand. When conducting video calls, you can even add in external participants without the need for extra plugins. 

The connected Calendar allows coworkers, remote workers, and anyone else involved in the organization to post meetings and vacation notifications for everyone to see at a glance. 

Let’s now look at a simple Google Business email pricing breakdown and help you decide which Google Workspace plan works best for you. 

How Much Does Google Workspace Cost?

Google Business email pricing isn’t complicated. You pay the following amounts per month for each user:

• Business Starter Plan – $6
• Business Standard Plan – $12
• Business Plus Plan – $18
• Enterprise Plan – Custom quote

Unfortunately, there are no options for pre-paid discounts.

Which Google Workspace Plan Works Best for You?

Let me explain how to decide which plan might work best for you. That way, you can compare the Google Workspace cost to the benefits received for your organization. 

Business Starter Plan

The Business Starter Plan works well for:

• Freelancers
• Solopreneurs
• Online store owners
• Small business owners with five or fewer employees

Use this plan when:

• You need to set up a business address on your own domain ([email protected] instead of [email protected]). It’s even more seamless when you use Google Domains (see review).
• You don’t require huge amounts of file space. You need a cloud-based way to store emails and files without clogging up your computer’s available space.
• You don’t want to run your office tools suite with a Google competitor, such as Microsoft 365
• You don’t require advanced security and admin controls.
• You don’t need to archive chat or email messages.

Business Standard Plan

You need to weigh the doubled price ($12/user/month instead of $6/user/month) against your organization’s email, video conferencing, and storage space requirements. Depending on the organization, the Business Standard Plan might seem unrealistic. For others, it’s the perfect fit. 

The Business Standard Plan works well for medium to large organizations.

Use this plan when:

• You don’t want to run up against storage space problems. There’s a big difference between 30GB of storage space offered by the Business Starter Plan and the 2TB of storage space that this plan gives you. 
• You want the added Google Vault features added into the Business Starter Plan’s features. One of the main benefits of Google Vault is the chat and email message archiving feature.
• You plan to conduct video meetings often and you need to record those sessions for review or to hand off to clients. Remember that the cap is 150 participants on the Business Standard Plan. 
• You need to share files across teams. 
• You’re not looking for advanced security and admin controls, such as security key management, data loss prevention, and other such features.

If you do need more advanced security functionality and greater control over what happens within your organization, then that’s when you should look seriously at the Business Plus Plan. 

Business Plus Plan

When you factor in this option’s $18 per user per month cost, the Business Plus Plan works well for large businesses. 

Use this plan when:

• You require much larger storage space and the 5TB of storage sounds attractive to you. 
• You need greater admin controls and want to make use of this plan’s advanced security features. 
• You need room to bring more than 150 participants onto video conference calls. This plan increases the participant number to 250 per session.

Enterprise Plan

This is a quality plan for any business that needs the features included in the Google Workspace Business Plan in addition to a more customized approach. 

Use this plan when:

• You require extra security protocols. The plan offers more features when you’re concerned about data loss prevention, security key management, device management rules, and other security-related issues. 
• You need to integrate third-party tools into the Google Workspace environment. Examples might include using Mailstore or Barracuda.
• You’re managing large teams and you need improved security and admin controls over what they do within the Google Workspace environment.

The Enterprise Plan offers interesting personalization based on your company’s needs. For example, you don’t have to set up all your employees on the Enterprise plan. Google gives you the ability to put certain users on Enterprise while keeping other employees or remote workers on a lower-priced plan, such as the Business Plus or Business Standard plan. 

You can pay for Enterprise either on an annual or monthly basis. If you sign up for your Google Workspace Enterprise Plan through a Google representative, then you may discover that they have discounts they’re allowed to apply to your overall costs. 

Unique plans are available if you’re not a for-profit business. For example, if you’re a nonprofit organization, then Google offers their Google Workspace for Nonprofits Plan free of charge. Schools can look into the Google Workspace Enterprise for Education or Google Workspace for Education plans.

Google Workspace Alternative

The most popular and best alternative to Google Workspace comes from Microsoft, named Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 (once called Office 365) is a similar suite of tools. Its roots harken to the days of desktop software, and you still have the option to install software locally on your Windows or macOS computer.

Google Workspace excels at online and sharing between teammates.

I personally use both as I prefer Microsoft Excel over Google Sheets. For creating blog posts for any website, I still prefer Google Docs since it allows sharing with any online collaboration.

Next Steps

After comparing each Google Workspace plan’s benefits and costs, which Google Business email pricing plan seems to work best for your needs?

Whether you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, online store owner, or running a medium to large corporation, you should find a Google Workspace plan that fits what you do. 

What is your next step? Select your plan and dive into using the abundance of features.