We often run workshops on process management and tools for increasing your company’s productivity and boosting your team performance through technology, that’s what we call “The Future of Work”. In this context, the Google Workspace environment has increasingly become a central pillar in the workflows we suggest. During these workshops we are asked increasingly often about the pricing of the Google Workspace platform, which might seem a bit daunting at first sight, but is actually pretty straightforward. In this post we try to sum it up while explaining what each plans means (for the sake of this post we’ll consider pricing in $ to keep it the currency as neutral as possible). Here they are.
Business Starter
This plan is generally aimed at small businesses and is considered the basic, entry-level, plan although the potential is groundbreaking when compared with old style technologies like MS Exchange servers or Even Microsoft 360. It includes a mail platform (based on the GMail technology with custom domain), along with the Google Drive platform and its productivity apps. Cloud storage is limited to 30 gigabytes per user (shared across drive and Gmail), but can be expanded on a per user basis. Then there is Google Meet, where video meetings are limited to up to a hundred participants. All other platforms that don’t consume much storage space (e.g. Calendar, Keep, Tasks, etc.) are also including in the plan. Billing is monthly and you can add and remove licenses at any time.
Business Standard
This plan adds enhanced security and administration controls. Your personal storage space increases to two terabytes per user. Google Meet sessions can have up to 150 participants and can be recorded and saved to Google drive. You also have access to team drives, which allow you to create groups of employees that can share documents with one another in a closed space.
Business Plus
This plan adds archiving and e-discovery features while your email and personal storage space increases up to five terabytes per user. The limit on participants in Google Meet sessions goes up to 250 (with attendance tracking). It also features enhanced management and security controls. Vault, as well as advanced endpoint management, are included. This is for large organizations which need the top level of security and central control over users.
Enterprise
This is the top plan and it features enhanced security features such as Slash mime encryption, support for hardware-based security keys as well as unlimited personal storage. In addition, organizations can lock down shared files, scan, email and images to detect leaks on sensitive data. And, finally, you also get access to app sheet, which allows you to build apps without code. This plan is clearly targeted to large scale enterprises with a focus on security and data leak prevention.
In conclusion, most small and medium businesses will find all their needs are met with the Business Starter plan, where the personal storage will eventually become the bottleneck, but additional individual storage plans will allow for some useful flexibility while keeping an eye on the budget. Larger plans will become suitable when your additional storage licenses will add up to a cumulative cost that’s superior to a Business Standard plan, which will need to be run across the whole organisation because, while additional storage licenses are per user, the plan is domain wide (i.e. all users must be on the same plan).
Find out more about how we can help you reshape your company’s processes by leveraging the full Google Workspace potential: