Google Workspace increasing prices from April 11, 2023(workspace.google.com)
workspace.google.com
Google Workspace increasing prices from April 11, 2023
https://workspace.google.com/blog/product-announcements/pricing-updates-and-more-flexible-payment-options-google-workspace
144 comments
I guess it doesn't seem cheap compared to Microsoft 365. Google's $6 plan includes 30GB per user while Microsoft's includes 1TB per user. Google offers a $12 plan and Microsoft a $12.50 plan, but Microsoft's $12.50 plan includes Word/Excel/PowerPoint/etc. for desktop. If your business is going to be licensing those apps, it seems like a good deal compared to Google's subscription.
Maybe people just really prefer Gmail? I know people have negative feelings toward Microsoft Teams.
I guess with Google Workspace, I'm not quite sure how it's that different from what people are used to getting for free (other than with corporate permissions). Google's $6 plan doesn't really include much for storage and their $12 feels like Microsoft's $6 plan.
If Google is in a tough place, I'd argue it's because they anchored their pricing to free with their consumer offerings. You're not wrong that Workspaces provides a lot of value compared to a lot of subscriptions. At the same time, it's something people are accustomed to getting for free and the $6 plan doesn't really offer much on top of their free services. Microsoft is throwing storage at their low-tier plan - offering a clear differentiator from their free service. Microsoft is offering their Office suite for their mid-tier plan - something that is a $440 purchase or $12/mo over the course of 3 years; you're basically getting all the services for free for the price of Microsoft Office. Microsoft is offering lots of device management tools that businesses need in their high-tier plan.
You are totally right that Google's pricing is low for some definition of low. Lots of SaaS that does a lot less costs more. It's just that Microsoft seems to be throwing more value for your dollar at the problem. If you're going to be buying the Office suite for a lot of your employees, wouldn't it make more sense to buy Microsoft 365? Or are Google's services so superior that you'd rather pay twice? That's not a rhetorical question, it's just been a while since I've had a basis of comparison.
Ultimately, you're right. It's kinda silly for businesses to quibble over even $50/mo/user given that they might be paying their employees more than that per hour. But I think that people aren't always rational when it comes to pricing and Microsoft is likely counting on that with their offering.
Maybe people just really prefer Gmail? I know people have negative feelings toward Microsoft Teams.
I guess with Google Workspace, I'm not quite sure how it's that different from what people are used to getting for free (other than with corporate permissions). Google's $6 plan doesn't really include much for storage and their $12 feels like Microsoft's $6 plan.
If Google is in a tough place, I'd argue it's because they anchored their pricing to free with their consumer offerings. You're not wrong that Workspaces provides a lot of value compared to a lot of subscriptions. At the same time, it's something people are accustomed to getting for free and the $6 plan doesn't really offer much on top of their free services. Microsoft is throwing storage at their low-tier plan - offering a clear differentiator from their free service. Microsoft is offering their Office suite for their mid-tier plan - something that is a $440 purchase or $12/mo over the course of 3 years; you're basically getting all the services for free for the price of Microsoft Office. Microsoft is offering lots of device management tools that businesses need in their high-tier plan.
You are totally right that Google's pricing is low for some definition of low. Lots of SaaS that does a lot less costs more. It's just that Microsoft seems to be throwing more value for your dollar at the problem. If you're going to be buying the Office suite for a lot of your employees, wouldn't it make more sense to buy Microsoft 365? Or are Google's services so superior that you'd rather pay twice? That's not a rhetorical question, it's just been a while since I've had a basis of comparison.
Ultimately, you're right. It's kinda silly for businesses to quibble over even $50/mo/user given that they might be paying their employees more than that per hour. But I think that people aren't always rational when it comes to pricing and Microsoft is likely counting on that with their offering.
Why pay so much for a calendar scheduling service?
Probably because G Workspace is comically cheap.
The whole industry of calendar scheduling boggles my mind. It seems Google/Microsoft consider them small fish to fry, but Calendly is a multi-billion dollar company
Calendly is useful for scheduling meetings with people outside of your company. For meetings inside of your company Outlook and Google Calendar already have built in scheduling tools to help find a time that works for everyone.
Even then Outlook does have FindTime and has a plugin system to let you use third party tools like Calendly. There's also a product called Microsoft Bookings that's more of a direct competitor to Calendly. But at the end of the day Calendly's revenue is estimated at around $100 million from what I could find online and that's a drop in the bucket for Microsoft or Google.
Even then Outlook does have FindTime and has a plugin system to let you use third party tools like Calendly. There's also a product called Microsoft Bookings that's more of a direct competitor to Calendly. But at the end of the day Calendly's revenue is estimated at around $100 million from what I could find online and that's a drop in the bucket for Microsoft or Google.
Genuinely curious question: So why doesn’t Google or MS offer a built in Calendly functionality? Think of how your calendar auto populates with Zoom details if you schedule a Zoom meeting in Outlook. Simply because they consider it a market not with competing in vs a product feature? This has to have had come up in a product discussion somewhere in these orgs.
Edit: someone mentioned in thread that Gsuite supports this natively now, so I suppose my question is more MS focused.
Edit: someone mentioned in thread that Gsuite supports this natively now, so I suppose my question is more MS focused.
MS has a few similar tools.
MS Bookings is pretty similar, but last I checked was more work to setup for an individual than Calendly.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/sched...
Their mobile app has a Send Availability function, which I can’t find in the desktop apps at all.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-send-my-...
And there’s also the ability to insert your calendar into an email from the desktop app. This is more coarse grained than the mobile app feature, and it basically sticks a table with your availability for some time period in an email.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/send-an-outlook-c...
I use Calendly
MS Bookings is pretty similar, but last I checked was more work to setup for an individual than Calendly.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/sched...
Their mobile app has a Send Availability function, which I can’t find in the desktop apps at all.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-send-my-...
And there’s also the ability to insert your calendar into an email from the desktop app. This is more coarse grained than the mobile app feature, and it basically sticks a table with your availability for some time period in an email.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/send-an-outlook-c...
I use Calendly
Google Workspace has this feature. It's mentioned in the post.
fyi gsuite now supports calendly-like scheduling for paid subscribers. Works great.
Calendly is the industry standard and works better than Google's which is weirdly implemented. Calendly as a company shouldn't exit really, Google should have had it wrapped up.
Value of easy scheduling of my time is worth the money of the extra vendor.
Value of easy scheduling of my time is worth the money of the extra vendor.
For monthly, saas, products why would the price increase “to reflect value added to our products” since it’s a recurring fee it should always pay for new features to be added.
It’s sad to see the “digital magic economies” of software slowly transform to normal commodity slow price increases to support brands and locked in markets.
I guess it will be a race to suck between Office and Google.
I hope an innovator comes along and provides a software layer on top of cloud storage like Dropbox (that isn’t tied to a particular storage like Dropbox is). Software should cost $100/year for your entire life.
It’s sad to see the “digital magic economies” of software slowly transform to normal commodity slow price increases to support brands and locked in markets.
I guess it will be a race to suck between Office and Google.
I hope an innovator comes along and provides a software layer on top of cloud storage like Dropbox (that isn’t tied to a particular storage like Dropbox is). Software should cost $100/year for your entire life.
> For monthly, saas, products why would the price increase “to reflect value added to our products” since it’s a recurring fee it should always pay for new features to be added.
Without commenting on the specific of Google Workspace, in general, this makes sense if you’ve added a bunch of additional value.
In fact, ironically, Slack’s antitrust complaint against MS re: Teams is precisely the fact that they bundled all this additional functionality in without charging extra for it.
Without commenting on the specific of Google Workspace, in general, this makes sense if you’ve added a bunch of additional value.
In fact, ironically, Slack’s antitrust complaint against MS re: Teams is precisely the fact that they bundled all this additional functionality in without charging extra for it.
I think what your parent is saying (at least how I read it) is in the context of comparing it to boxed software. I buy MS Word 1995 for $100. Then they release added value and box it up as MS Word 1998 for $100. Then they release added value and box it up as MS Word 2000 for $100.
Now we pay $10/mo. If you average it out, it's not too different than just paying for the added value as it grows.
And worse, if I cancel I don't keep to keep using it without the added value. So I'm painted in a corner. It's objectively worse in that sense.
Now we pay $10/mo. If you average it out, it's not too different than just paying for the added value as it grows.
And worse, if I cancel I don't keep to keep using it without the added value. So I'm painted in a corner. It's objectively worse in that sense.
You also pay for hosting of that software service (availability, security, etc.).
There should be a host component and a build component. Unless they increase the rate of development (they didn’t) it shouldn’t be a reason for a price increase.
This seems like they are using a marketing plan from the boxed software days to justify a price increase today. I wonder if there’s a 90s Microsoft person who was tasked with a back strategy after Google decided they wanted higher profits or slower growth or some reason that has nothing to do with reflecting value.
This seems like they are using a marketing plan from the boxed software days to justify a price increase today. I wonder if there’s a 90s Microsoft person who was tasked with a back strategy after Google decided they wanted higher profits or slower growth or some reason that has nothing to do with reflecting value.
And that’s fair.. but worth pointing out I bought Diablo 2 Resurrected which I almost exclusively play online. Unless they release an expansion then I’m done paying them money.
I think there’s some places where SaaS makes a lot of sense. And storage costs and high data transfer volume…. It makes sense.
There’s a balance. Modern software leans too heavily to subscriptions though.
I think there’s some places where SaaS makes a lot of sense. And storage costs and high data transfer volume…. It makes sense.
There’s a balance. Modern software leans too heavily to subscriptions though.
Thread A: I hate ads. Can’t I just pay for web sites?
Thread B: WTF, I have to pay for a web site?
Thread B: WTF, I have to pay for a web site?
Weird, so different people want different things?
It is time for me to evaluate my custom domain email service. I had the original/free Google workspace with custom email domain. In 2021, they charged me $6/month to keep that option afloat. To be honest, I think $6/month is a bit expensive for just email usage. I don't even use any other stuff coming with Suite. My question for this group: how do I get out of this without losing my email domain?
You could sign up for fastmail and point your domains DNS records there. It's $5/mo and they make it easy to import your existing emails from gmail. I switched to them when Google stopped offering free workspace accounts. It's been great so far.
I also switched to fastmail with my own domain and also have had a great experience with it. It was super simple to import my data over from google and it's all still there and searchable.
For me it wasn't really anything to do with the cost, just a token decision to opt out of the google hegemony over email to some degree. Been well over a year at this point and I don't miss gmail at all.
For me it wasn't really anything to do with the cost, just a token decision to opt out of the google hegemony over email to some degree. Been well over a year at this point and I don't miss gmail at all.
One thing that people are surprised by when I tell them is;
Apple iCloud+ will let you have up to five custom domains, with up to three personalised email addresses per domain for just 0.79p (UK)
If you are just looking for email, that's shockingly good value. You do get iCloud Docs with that too, but that product offering is a bit naff and iOS/iPadOS/macOS only.
If you are using Apple products, it's very good value for money.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212514
Apple iCloud+ will let you have up to five custom domains, with up to three personalised email addresses per domain for just 0.79p (UK)
If you are just looking for email, that's shockingly good value. You do get iCloud Docs with that too, but that product offering is a bit naff and iOS/iPadOS/macOS only.
If you are using Apple products, it's very good value for money.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212514
I’m on iCloud+ too with customized email domain setup for each of my family.
On Linux I would just go to icloud.com to access my Apple email, notes, etc. I wish there was an easier solution but iCloud access on Linux sucks.
On Linux I would just go to icloud.com to access my Apple email, notes, etc. I wish there was an easier solution but iCloud access on Linux sucks.
> On Linux I would just go to icloud.com to access my Apple email, notes, etc.
I can understand the point about Notes being accessible only from a browser, but why isn’t IMAP an option to access email on Linux?
I can understand the point about Notes being accessible only from a browser, but why isn’t IMAP an option to access email on Linux?
Thunderbird has a severe syncing issue with iCloud email. I missed several emails because of this issue.
> Apple iCloud+ will let you have up to five custom domains, with up to three personalised email addresses per domain for just 0.79p (UK)
I migrated from Google Workspace when Apple added custom domain support. The email migration itself was simple — I used `imapsync` and followed the instructions below. It's been several months since the move, and I can report that it all "just works".
https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces...
I migrated from Google Workspace when Apple added custom domain support. The email migration itself was simple — I used `imapsync` and followed the instructions below. It's been several months since the move, and I can report that it all "just works".
https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces...
Or just buy some used iPhone for pennies, and you are good to go. Works from Outlook, Browser, Apple Mail, other email software, etc.
Zoho is a good option if it's just you and you want a custom domain for your email. Used them for a few years without needing to pay. Moved over to proton mail (paid) for my email now, it comes with cloud storage, calandar, and VPN too. You also get simpleLogin included, a mail forwarding service for your custom domain names so you can make burner email addresses if you want.
I migrate my family to zohos family plan when all the crap started with the free google plan. Been about a year and no complaints. Zohos spam filters are much better too imho.
Did you try pasting an image into an email yet in Proton?
It was possible to opt into a continued free plan for legacy free G Suite users. Not sure if you lost that option by upgrading to a paid plan.
I've had the same free Google Apps account with forwarding for me and couple friends on my custom domain. We didn't use the mail boxes themselves, only forwarded email from the custom address to our free mailboxes. When they moved me to a paid plan, I researched multiple options to keep forwarding for multiple users and ended up getting a forwardemail.net service for 3 EUR/mo.
Are you aware that for small groups and individuals workspace can still be free? I was upset they were going to charge me as well but they carved this out last minute - https://support.google.com/google-workspace-individual/answe...
I migrated to Midagu and am very happy with it. It has a nice logical volume strata pricing model which works perfect for a small company like us.
Granted we're a bootstrapped business so our economics are important to me. Workspaces was just too expensive for the service provided. Microsoft Office was cheaper back in it's hayday.
Granted we're a bootstrapped business so our economics are important to me. Workspaces was just too expensive for the service provided. Microsoft Office was cheaper back in it's hayday.
Gmail (the free consumer facing one) can configure custom domains right? Does that not address your need? https://themeisle.com/blog/use-gmail-with-your-own-domain-na...
The article that you linked shows how to "Allow Gmail to receive emails using POP3". That is to say, your mail should already be hosted elsewhere, and you'd be using the Gmail web app as a client for your email hosted on a different server.
Don't recall setup email server, but did purchase domain and setup DNS record that point to google mail server such as gmr-smtp-in.l.google.com. This might be a better link from Google https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251241?hl=en&visi....
Yes, Google Domains allowing for email forwarding sounds like a reasonable feature.
But when it comes to sending mail, the support pages say:
> While these directions let you send emails from a custom email alias at your domain, email recipients can still find your personal Gmail address if they inspect the email headers.
To me, this is no replacement for a mailbox on my own domain.
> While these directions let you send emails from a custom email alias at your domain, email recipients can still find your personal Gmail address if they inspect the email headers.
To me, this is no replacement for a mailbox on my own domain.
Pay another provider to host it (I assume you own the DNS domain). Running your own is also an option but honestly if you don't have knowledge to set it up right now it's probably not all that great option.
We switched from Google to Zoho Workspace last year once they threatened to stop support to the "legacy" users. Comparable service and much less expensive.
Zoho is great, if you only need email and basics. O365 and GSuite are still unmatched as a package though. Still think O365 is the best deal (for SMBs+), though it's a bit more.
> if you only need email and basics
It is worth noting one of the features you give up is any sense of security or privacy what so ever. Not in the "omg google is spying on me" paranoia sense, but in the real Zoho hires the absolute cheapest developers in the world to build everything sense.
I've literally stopped reporting bugs to them because they can't grasp the flaws I am trying to point out.
It is worth noting one of the features you give up is any sense of security or privacy what so ever. Not in the "omg google is spying on me" paranoia sense, but in the real Zoho hires the absolute cheapest developers in the world to build everything sense.
I've literally stopped reporting bugs to them because they can't grasp the flaws I am trying to point out.
Care to list some of the bugs?
Publishing unpatched bugs is unethical, so no.
If the developer refuses to fix the bugs, and if those bugs pose a risk to other users, there is a strong argument to make that public posting of those bugs is the ethical thing to do.
Sev0 security issues aren't secret just because people who mean well don't talk about them, any sufficiently high valued target is going to have well funded threat actors working to find vulnerabilities. By publicly disclosing the issues, you let other customers know their data is threatened, and then customers can work together to force vendors to fix issues.
Sev0 security issues aren't secret just because people who mean well don't talk about them, any sufficiently high valued target is going to have well funded threat actors working to find vulnerabilities. By publicly disclosing the issues, you let other customers know their data is threatened, and then customers can work together to force vendors to fix issues.
I'm well aware. I have enough other data points that I don't think public disclosure meaningfully makes the platform more secure.
A little bit of PR buzz and customer complaints can get a handful of issues fixed, but this is a bit more systemic.
A little bit of PR buzz and customer complaints can get a handful of issues fixed, but this is a bit more systemic.
Google's office tools are much nicer than Microsoft's web ones. I'd say they even give the desktop versions a run for their money.
And Meet is amazing. The only video conferencing system I've used that actually works reliably. I recently moved from a company using Zoom to one using Meet and the difference is insane. Makes a step difference to the quality of remote work.
I presume they can do it because Google owns their own global network and they can use high QoS on it for Meet data.
And Meet is amazing. The only video conferencing system I've used that actually works reliably. I recently moved from a company using Zoom to one using Meet and the difference is insane. Makes a step difference to the quality of remote work.
I presume they can do it because Google owns their own global network and they can use high QoS on it for Meet data.
That's so interesting. We have Workspace at work but we have bought Zoom licenses for several us because we find Meet to be a much worse experience. We're now considering buying Zoom licenses for everyone at the company.
I also find Google Sheets to be inferior to Excel, and we have Office licenses for myself and a few others that use spreadsheets.
The only thing I think is good with Workspace is Gmail and Calendar. Everything else is kind of meh.
I also find Google Sheets to be inferior to Excel, and we have Office licenses for myself and a few others that use spreadsheets.
The only thing I think is good with Workspace is Gmail and Calendar. Everything else is kind of meh.
How did you find Meet to be worse? They're broadly similar in terms of UI and features (but Meet is definitely slicker). The main difference I've found is that Zoom cuts out way more than Meet. In fairness when it does cut out it has a nicer recovery mechanism - it replays what the person said at like 3x speed so you usually still get to hear what they said. Meet doesn't do that. But Meet is still way better because it very rarely cuts out in the first place, whereas Zoom is just the classic "sorry could you repeat that" video conferencing experience that everyone expects.
As someone who has worked under both in an enterprise environment, I am going to have to strongly disagree. Google's office tools are great if you aren't doing anything worth much of anything, as soon as you need to do something complex it turns into complete garbage. Every company I've worked for that used GSuite has had to also buy Office licenses because Google Docs and Sheets simply couldn't keep up. Google Docs also has a notorious reputation to screw up PDFs and DOCX file formatting.
I used to have Google Hangouts/Meet problems all the time, but it was fine, I've never cared for Zoom in general. Google's slide deck program is fine, but that's largely just because...who cares about slides? Most people aren't paying much attention to them, and they are just meeting filler.
I do prefer Gmail's interface to Outlook's though. Outlook tries to do too much. It's definitely better than it used to be, but there are some very crucial annoyances.
I used to have Google Hangouts/Meet problems all the time, but it was fine, I've never cared for Zoom in general. Google's slide deck program is fine, but that's largely just because...who cares about slides? Most people aren't paying much attention to them, and they are just meeting filler.
I do prefer Gmail's interface to Outlook's though. Outlook tries to do too much. It's definitely better than it used to be, but there are some very crucial annoyances.
I like Microsoft is a better value as you also get desktop versions of word and excel that are better than the browser based versions. This is particular helpful with outlook.
I use Zoho for email along with https://workspace.google.com/essentials/
Works beautifully
I do miss Gmail, but it's easy to workaround it
Works beautifully
I do miss Gmail, but it's easy to workaround it
That hasn't been my experience with ZOHO at all. I used their free service first and then stepped up. Their tools are not great and they really love to sell you multiple licenses to get the basic stuff going. I'm sure people have different needs but I won't be using them again.
I use Zoho for my personal domains and in a lot of ways I prefer it over Google Workspace and MS365. It feels... pragmatic.
I have the most experience with MS365. It's slow and so much configuration is asynchronous that sometimes I feel like I'm dialing in for a non-deterministic adventure.
I have the most experience with MS365. It's slow and so much configuration is asynchronous that sometimes I feel like I'm dialing in for a non-deterministic adventure.
+1 for Zoho. They offer a all the services needed at a very convenient pricing.
The pricing is good, but the experience for mail is poor.
I move from Zoho to Fastmail a year later and it’s a much slicker experience.
(Just mail, I didn’t use any of Zoho’s collaborative tools.)
I move from Zoho to Fastmail a year later and it’s a much slicker experience.
(Just mail, I didn’t use any of Zoho’s collaborative tools.)
What are your pain points? I've been using at low volume and while it's not as flashy as gmail, using with something as Thunderbird for the heavy lifting is not too bad.
[deleted]
And because of this HN thread I will now be looking into Zoho to see if it's viable for me to migrate to.
- https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/zoho-hack-em...
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/red-cross-traces-hack-back-to-...
- https://cybernews.com/news/fintech-breach-following-critical...
- https://therecord.media/hackers-exploiting-vulnerability-aff...
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/red-cross-traces-hack-back-to-...
- https://cybernews.com/news/fintech-breach-following-critical...
- https://therecord.media/hackers-exploiting-vulnerability-aff...
Exactly. Zoho offers a slick UI but has a pretty bad record of keeping their products stable and secure.
My company was forced to move from our previous G Suite plan to Google Workspace. In order to keep the same monthly price, we went with Business Starter.
Now each user can only share a Google Doc with 5 non-Google users per month. This limitation seems entirely artificial and designed entirely to push people onto more expensive plans.
Now each user can only share a Google Doc with 5 non-Google users per month. This limitation seems entirely artificial and designed entirely to push people onto more expensive plans.
Similar here. We are starting to consider 0365 since, depending on what features you use, it can be a less expensive for more functionality.
$20/mo still isn't bad for unlimited storage. Do any other providers come close to this price point?
I wish I could prepay for the next 10 years to lock in at this price.
How much does a petabyte of redundant hard drive storage cost? Yeah.. will probably still be more than $2,500 USD in 10 years.
I wish I could prepay for the next 10 years to lock in at this price.
How much does a petabyte of redundant hard drive storage cost? Yeah.. will probably still be more than $2,500 USD in 10 years.
I don't think there's an option to even pay for one year right now. It at least was the case last year when they pulled the plug on free tier and I had reluctantly give them credit card information for essentially a one person company.
Workspace and Personal accounts use different payment systems. Last I checked the personal account storage payments were through Google Wallet.
For Workspace accounts there probably isn't an option for end-users to pay for a year ahead. For resellers like me, we used to get discounts a few years ago if we had clients go on annual contracts. They removed those discounts so we steered the majority of clients to flex plans.
If that wasn't enough of a motivation to go flex, whatever clown MBA's run this division of Google decided it would be fun to create a new certification system for resellers over the past couple years. We didn't complete the 12 hours or so of Powerpoints and exams so while I can provision new customers if I have an annual contracted customer smack the resource limits I can't actually upgrade their license unless I rage at Google Partner connect to override and do it for me. Leaving customers on flex gives us the ability to upgrade and downgrade at will. It's literally the only company I've ever dealt with that makes it this hard to upgrade to a higher paid contract, they just leave money on the table. There's absolutely no incentive for a small reseller like me to upsell an annual contract that chains my hands, this notice that the discounts are coming back is such a joke.
For Workspace accounts there probably isn't an option for end-users to pay for a year ahead. For resellers like me, we used to get discounts a few years ago if we had clients go on annual contracts. They removed those discounts so we steered the majority of clients to flex plans.
If that wasn't enough of a motivation to go flex, whatever clown MBA's run this division of Google decided it would be fun to create a new certification system for resellers over the past couple years. We didn't complete the 12 hours or so of Powerpoints and exams so while I can provision new customers if I have an annual contracted customer smack the resource limits I can't actually upgrade their license unless I rage at Google Partner connect to override and do it for me. Leaving customers on flex gives us the ability to upgrade and downgrade at will. It's literally the only company I've ever dealt with that makes it this hard to upgrade to a higher paid contract, they just leave money on the table. There's absolutely no incentive for a small reseller like me to upsell an annual contract that chains my hands, this notice that the discounts are coming back is such a joke.
They've just added an annual plan (announced in this post).
It’s not unlimited storage though? It used to be but my understanding is that they started enforcing the storage limits late last year.
Unlimited storage is still available for subscriptions that have been kept active since it was officially a thing.
Hmm, unfortunate if they discontinued it. Maybe my account was grandfathered in.
Not sure what subscription you're on but the highest tier still has "as much storage as you need" or similar wording. I assume they've moved away from the unlimited wording because it was abused.
Yes that's right, I'm on the "highest max plan", because it became necessary to keep the data flowing. Thanks for helping me remember.
R.I.P. $7/mo unlimited storage plan.
R.I.P. $7/mo unlimited storage plan.
I have 80TB on a $20 a month account. Hope they don’t either kick me off or bump it too much.
Word on the street is they offered it because their DCs are so overprovisioned on storage that it doesn't really matter. Time will reveal whether or not this is true.
As a sidenote, I'm disappointed by how slowly HDD capacity has been increasing the last few years.
100MB -> 1GB: 10x Was amazing
5GB -> 20GB: 4x Amazing
40GB -> 250GB: Hell yeah!
...
Nowadays the rate of increase is way down. 10TB -> 20TB: 0.5x meh. In the next 5 years we _might_ get a 30TB drive? Yawn.
As a sidenote, I'm disappointed by how slowly HDD capacity has been increasing the last few years.
100MB -> 1GB: 10x Was amazing
5GB -> 20GB: 4x Amazing
40GB -> 250GB: Hell yeah!
...
Nowadays the rate of increase is way down. 10TB -> 20TB: 0.5x meh. In the next 5 years we _might_ get a 30TB drive? Yawn.
[deleted]
It looks like you need to pay for a full year upfront to keep the legacy pricing. The month to month payment plans are seeing a price increase.
> Third, we are increasing the price of Google Workspace Enterprise Standard to reflect the value we’ve added to the edition [..] for large enterprises.
But, they can't tell us by how much?
But, they can't tell us by how much?
Up 20%:
Starter: $6 -> $7.20
Standard: $12 -> $14.40
Plus: $18 -> $21.60
They are also introducing an annual payment option where you can pay the old per-month prices ($6, $12, $18).
Starter: $6 -> $7.20
Standard: $12 -> $14.40
Plus: $18 -> $21.60
They are also introducing an annual payment option where you can pay the old per-month prices ($6, $12, $18).
Let's not forget that just 3.5 years ago, prices were increase by 20% then as well.
Starter: $5 -> $6
Standard: $10 -> $12
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/new-pricing-f...
This nets to ~45% price increase in just 3.5 years.
Starter: $5 -> $6
Standard: $10 -> $12
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/new-pricing-f...
This nets to ~45% price increase in just 3.5 years.
Interestingly the new prices match inflation since April 2019 pretty closely ($6 then is $7.02 now, and the price is changing to $7.20).
That's exactly what I was thinking. $5 to $7.20 in four years isn't ideal, but seems like so many other essential goods and services have increased at a much higher rate over that period of time.
When you move to an annual plan and then need to upgrade you will get charged a close out fee in addition to the extra plan cost. Yes, Google is charging you for the privilege of investing further in their platform.
Google Partners have been able to provide annual plans for years.
they had an annual plan previously
then dumped it, effectively raising the price
now they've raised the price again and have and brought the annual plan back as a "discount"
(no doubt the annual plan will disappear again as another stealth price increase)
then dumped it, effectively raising the price
now they've raised the price again and have and brought the annual plan back as a "discount"
(no doubt the annual plan will disappear again as another stealth price increase)
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Makes me wonder, at what point will people start self hosting again, instead of getting dragged around by large companies like Google and Microsoft? I manage my own email server for myself and family. That, plus Next cloud gives me everything I'd need from Google/etc. Plus I host a few extra sites and services that GSuite/365 can't replicate. I'm fairly confident I could scale to a few hundred users if I took it seriously. Even more if I had someone else as a backup. The reliance on vendors and sass products for everything kinda baffles me.
Thanks for the submission, we are resellers and the email they sent out was vague and didn't include a price sheet. We are very used to getting shit on at this point.
Last week they stressed us out emailing us about a few users reaching resource limits and rather than name the customers they just sent a CSV with some Google internal customer_id we aren't privy to. A day later they corrected it using another faceless id that is at least on our billing statements.
Last week they stressed us out emailing us about a few users reaching resource limits and rather than name the customers they just sent a CSV with some Google internal customer_id we aren't privy to. A day later they corrected it using another faceless id that is at least on our billing statements.
I tried moving away from Workspace to Offi^H^H^HMicrosoft 365 last month. I chose 365 since my wife primarily uses a Surface and Microsoft products, which would make it easy for us to collaborate.
It looks like an excellent solution for SMBs or larger who have a dedicated admin that can tend to it.
For a nobody like me, it was a hot goddamned mess. Death by a few big cuts and thousands of small ones.
These are the things that bothered me most, in no particular order:
- Microsoft has a migration service to move email, calendars, and contacts into 365 from Workspace! Wanna find it? Good luck! It's buried (IMO) deep into the onboarding documentation. Finding it was not obvious at all.
- The migration service also didn't work! I had a few years of emails and calendars in my Workspace. It would frequently error out due to API timeouts, even while transferring. While I was eventually able to get (most of?) my emails into 365, I had to import my calendar and contacts manually. (I wasn't confident that 365 got _all_ of my emails either.)
- 365 and Google don't map contact fields one for one. As a result, while I had all of my contacts on my devices, their numbers were missing. Fixing this took longer than I wanted it to.
- "OneDrive" for Business is a complete joke compared to Google Drive. Microsoft's offering is "here's a 30GB SharePoint installation". This was particularly troublesome for me given that my wife and I have a shared folder on Google Drive and an equivalent on OneSharePoint wasn't immediately obvious.
- There are 750 billion different Admin panels! You can configure everything in your Workspace tenant from admin.google.com. On 365? You'll need to use admin.exchange for your mail, Azure (!!!) for your authentication, portal.office.com for some other stuff, etc.
- 365 enables passwordless auth through Authenticator, which is a good thing, but this also disables IMAP login, which is not good.
- Due to Microsoft pushing admins to use PowerShell more often several years ago, there are many configuration options that cannot be done by UI. You need to do it via PowerShell. While this isn't a problem for me (PowerShell used to be my primary language years and years ago), this is a problem when I want to make a change that took less than five minutes to do on Workspace.
- In the year of Our Lord 2023, Microsoft thinks it's appropriate to give Microsoft 365 users at 50GB inbox by default. 50! GIGABYTES!
- Exchange's anti-spam filtering is outrageously aggressive! This was the final straw for me. A lot of really important email would get sent to Junk (which has an auto-delete policy by default!) I had to check my Junk folder every day, something I haven't needed to do in years on Google Workspace. I'm sure there's a setting deep within admin.exchange to tune this, but it was not obvious when I looked.
So while I'm not a huge fan of paying Google $12/month ($20/mo now), it's still the best solution for people like me who want more than what Gmail and Calendar can provide but not an entire enterprisey solution.
It looks like an excellent solution for SMBs or larger who have a dedicated admin that can tend to it.
For a nobody like me, it was a hot goddamned mess. Death by a few big cuts and thousands of small ones.
These are the things that bothered me most, in no particular order:
- Microsoft has a migration service to move email, calendars, and contacts into 365 from Workspace! Wanna find it? Good luck! It's buried (IMO) deep into the onboarding documentation. Finding it was not obvious at all.
- The migration service also didn't work! I had a few years of emails and calendars in my Workspace. It would frequently error out due to API timeouts, even while transferring. While I was eventually able to get (most of?) my emails into 365, I had to import my calendar and contacts manually. (I wasn't confident that 365 got _all_ of my emails either.)
- 365 and Google don't map contact fields one for one. As a result, while I had all of my contacts on my devices, their numbers were missing. Fixing this took longer than I wanted it to.
- "OneDrive" for Business is a complete joke compared to Google Drive. Microsoft's offering is "here's a 30GB SharePoint installation". This was particularly troublesome for me given that my wife and I have a shared folder on Google Drive and an equivalent on OneSharePoint wasn't immediately obvious.
- There are 750 billion different Admin panels! You can configure everything in your Workspace tenant from admin.google.com. On 365? You'll need to use admin.exchange for your mail, Azure (!!!) for your authentication, portal.office.com for some other stuff, etc.
- 365 enables passwordless auth through Authenticator, which is a good thing, but this also disables IMAP login, which is not good.
- Due to Microsoft pushing admins to use PowerShell more often several years ago, there are many configuration options that cannot be done by UI. You need to do it via PowerShell. While this isn't a problem for me (PowerShell used to be my primary language years and years ago), this is a problem when I want to make a change that took less than five minutes to do on Workspace.
- In the year of Our Lord 2023, Microsoft thinks it's appropriate to give Microsoft 365 users at 50GB inbox by default. 50! GIGABYTES!
- Exchange's anti-spam filtering is outrageously aggressive! This was the final straw for me. A lot of really important email would get sent to Junk (which has an auto-delete policy by default!) I had to check my Junk folder every day, something I haven't needed to do in years on Google Workspace. I'm sure there's a setting deep within admin.exchange to tune this, but it was not obvious when I looked.
So while I'm not a huge fan of paying Google $12/month ($20/mo now), it's still the best solution for people like me who want more than what Gmail and Calendar can provide but not an entire enterprisey solution.
> The migration service also didn't work! I had a few years of emails and calendars in my Workspace.
Migrating mail into MS365 is a terrible experience. I've set up over 30 tenants and migrated mail for them and there's no good tooling. Both the Microsoft options and all the 3rd party options I've tried do an extremely poor job or error handling and reconciliation.
Microsoft's IMAP sync is so bad at reconciliation that IMO it's reasonable to call the data integrity rating a lie. I've dealt with some really small mailboxes where you could almost grok the data just by skimming it and the (number of message) counts for imported mail were flat out wrong.
With the amount of money they charge per user per month you'd think there would be some incentive to create migration tooling that isn't hot trash, but maybe that's just me.
Migrating mail into MS365 is a terrible experience. I've set up over 30 tenants and migrated mail for them and there's no good tooling. Both the Microsoft options and all the 3rd party options I've tried do an extremely poor job or error handling and reconciliation.
Microsoft's IMAP sync is so bad at reconciliation that IMO it's reasonable to call the data integrity rating a lie. I've dealt with some really small mailboxes where you could almost grok the data just by skimming it and the (number of message) counts for imported mail were flat out wrong.
With the amount of money they charge per user per month you'd think there would be some incentive to create migration tooling that isn't hot trash, but maybe that's just me.
> I tried moving away from Workspace to Offi^H^H^HMicrosoft 365 last month.
What’s OMicrosoft 365?
What’s OMicrosoft 365?
the sound you make after Azure AD goes down again and leaves your email inaccessible
>- "OneDrive" for Business is a complete joke compared to Google Drive. Microsoft's offering is "here's a 30GB SharePoint installation". This was particularly troublesome for me given that my wife and I have a shared folder on Google Drive and an equivalent on OneSharePoint wasn't immediately obvious.
What?
All the end-user tools are on office.com
For OneDrive, yes the backend is Sharepoint, but a normal user won’t need to go there.
What?
All the end-user tools are on office.com
For OneDrive, yes the backend is Sharepoint, but a normal user won’t need to go there.
Is 50GB bad? Google Workspace is 30GB, shared across Gmail and Google Drive.
What’s wrong with a 50gb inbox? That’s what I get from Fastmail, and I’m not even scratching the surface.
Something else to keep in mind when using Google Apps is Google will charge you a close out fee if youre on an annual plan and want to upgrade. Most customers find themselves wanting to do this upon reaching max mailbox size and it cant be done from the admin panel.
I just went to Zoho after the "legacy" policy. It's just doesnt worth it. I need just an imap email service with custom domain name.
What are you going to do, move to a different service? Switching out your cloud hosted office suite is probably a non starter for most companies.
Moving from GSuite to M365 is a fairly popular move. Consulting companies build around this service.
Much much MUCH easier said than done, especially if you've co-mingled your Google for Apps/G-Suite/Workspace account with other Google services.
Migrating contacts and calendars is easy, thanks to open standards (unless you're migrating in bulk)
Migrating email and validating the migration is a HUGE pain and takes forever.
Data from any other Google service is basically unusable anywhere else. Yes, you can export it via Google Takeout, but they are all but proprietary.
Migrating contacts and calendars is easy, thanks to open standards (unless you're migrating in bulk)
Migrating email and validating the migration is a HUGE pain and takes forever.
Data from any other Google service is basically unusable anywhere else. Yes, you can export it via Google Takeout, but they are all but proprietary.
>Migrating contacts and calendars is easy, thanks to open standards (unless you're migrating in bulk)
Ehhhhh, Workspace has a half-assed EAS implementation that works until it doesn't (just had a client where it stopped exporting all his phone numbers, the data was still in Google but their EAS just wasn't outputting it). It's hardly an open standard but theoretically works for Outlook users migrating to Exchange.
Going anywhere else with an Outlook desktop user that actually follows the open standards (CardDav/CalDav) is extreme pain because Outlook lacks native support, so you need to use a plugin that will pull the data but not present it in the same way. The earlier mentioned client I moved to Fastmail and I still haven't figured out how to get his 'contact folders' to show and sync in Outlook without heavily customizing the views. Otherwise works in Android with DavX and iOS natively.
Ehhhhh, Workspace has a half-assed EAS implementation that works until it doesn't (just had a client where it stopped exporting all his phone numbers, the data was still in Google but their EAS just wasn't outputting it). It's hardly an open standard but theoretically works for Outlook users migrating to Exchange.
Going anywhere else with an Outlook desktop user that actually follows the open standards (CardDav/CalDav) is extreme pain because Outlook lacks native support, so you need to use a plugin that will pull the data but not present it in the same way. The earlier mentioned client I moved to Fastmail and I still haven't figured out how to get his 'contact folders' to show and sync in Outlook without heavily customizing the views. Otherwise works in Android with DavX and iOS natively.
> you can export it via Google Takeout
If it works. I tried to use Takeout to split an 18GB archive into chunks last month. After waiting all night for Takeout to prepare the download for me... it gave me a single 18GB archive to download.
If it works. I tried to use Takeout to split an 18GB archive into chunks last month. After waiting all night for Takeout to prepare the download for me... it gave me a single 18GB archive to download.
I've seen more movement in the opposite direction, from M365 to Google.
Mostly from companies who chose Microsoft before G Suite became popular for business.
But maybe it's industry-dependent?
In any case, you definitely need consultants because it's a pain no matter which direction you're going. Not a decision to take lightly, and you're not going to switch again for another 15 years.
Mostly from companies who chose Microsoft before G Suite became popular for business.
But maybe it's industry-dependent?
In any case, you definitely need consultants because it's a pain no matter which direction you're going. Not a decision to take lightly, and you're not going to switch again for another 15 years.
I generally see Google -> M365 given the severe poor suitability of Google Workspace for enterprise businesses. And given those businesses often need to run Windows & Office regardless, sticking to Google makes even less sense.
>What are you going to do, move to a different service?
Probably yes for a few of my clients. They're only using the email and calendars, and only via applications (Mac/iOS Mail/Calendar, Outlook, or TB). Two of them started on the free one. Primarily staying with GSuite has been a matter of inertia and ensuring delivery, all the other stuff is worthless. This will probably be motivation to make the move this time. Other companies might have kept and "basics only tier", but I just don't think Google is serious about anything but ads when it comes to money. Even their subscription stuff seems frequently poorly supported, though perhaps it's better for the biggest players.
I'm very thankful I always pushed hard against webmail, had registrar/DNS independent and so on. It's added friction in some cases but means switching is pretty transparent. Lots don't have that luxury of course, but it's been nice here.
Probably yes for a few of my clients. They're only using the email and calendars, and only via applications (Mac/iOS Mail/Calendar, Outlook, or TB). Two of them started on the free one. Primarily staying with GSuite has been a matter of inertia and ensuring delivery, all the other stuff is worthless. This will probably be motivation to make the move this time. Other companies might have kept and "basics only tier", but I just don't think Google is serious about anything but ads when it comes to money. Even their subscription stuff seems frequently poorly supported, though perhaps it's better for the biggest players.
I'm very thankful I always pushed hard against webmail, had registrar/DNS independent and so on. It's added friction in some cases but means switching is pretty transparent. Lots don't have that luxury of course, but it's been nice here.
I just finally switched from a personal account to Workspace so I was a little concerned. Thankfully the price increase is minimal (and will be 0 since I can just pay annually).
> Switching out your cloud hosted office suite is probably a non starter for most companies.
I was recently at a startup that did this. Honestly, it was pretty simple.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/moveto...
I was recently at a startup that did this. Honestly, it was pretty simple.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/moveto...
Enterprises have long term contracts with deep discounts on official pricing and locked in pricing on many services.
The lock-in is true. But it's still worrying.
It's a straight up nightmare to move email providers. Especially if you have an office environment built around GDocs, Gmail and trying to get people to move to Office365.
Email is by far the easiest of those things. Docs & workflows aren’t as standard so it’s not just an import but also changing how you work.
The Cloud is the new File Format lock-in!
Yes. But not over a 20% increase.
Oh darn. Anyone have any insight as to how much the "Enterprise" levels increasing assuming base cost no negotiated discounts?
Steve Holt!
Inflation? Monopoly?
Lock in
There's no lock in here. People are free to switch to one of the many competing services. It's not a monopoly under any reasonable definition of the term. Of course switching is going to have inertia, but that's not lock in. Lock in is when you are contractually obligated not to change, or if the monopoly is shutting down all competing services (perhaps by acquisition) so that there are no alternatives. For a good example of this type of lock in, just look at Ticketmaster.
> There's no lock in here. People are free to switch to one of the many competing services.
There is significant lock-in with email because:
1 - Email migration sucks and if you're a big org, this process can/will be complicated, expensive and carry potential down time for end-users.
2 - The bigger you are, the less willing you are to go through with #1 without a really, really ridiculously good reason
Migration is so painful some companies are still emailing from unpatched Exchange 2007 servers under the IT guy's desk.
There is significant lock-in with email because:
1 - Email migration sucks and if you're a big org, this process can/will be complicated, expensive and carry potential down time for end-users.
2 - The bigger you are, the less willing you are to go through with #1 without a really, really ridiculously good reason
Migration is so painful some companies are still emailing from unpatched Exchange 2007 servers under the IT guy's desk.
1 - That isn’t lock in. That’s like saying you’re locked in to your month to month rental apartment because you have to move so much furniture, and that has a hassle and cost associated with it.
No, you seem to be confusing "vendor lock-in" with "monopoly". The above isn't what is meant by "vendor lock-in". Here's a good explanation by Cloudflare:
> Vendor lock-in refers to a situation where the cost of switching to a different vendor is so high that the customer is essentially stuck with the original vendor. Because of financial pressures, an insufficient workforce, or the need to avoid interruptions to business operations, the customer is "locked in" to what may be an inferior product or service.
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cloud/what-is-vendor-loc...
A practical example of vendor lock-in is an elderly aunt with mine who has an email address from her ISP. She isn't "contractually obligated" to continue using that email, nor the ISP. The ISP certainly doesn't have a monopoly on email. But the effort to switch from an email that she's been using for 15 years is very high for someone with weak tech skills. I'm probably in a similar situation with Gmail, as it's the primary contact by which most people know me. I can't take my Gmail address and port it; I have to create a new email and get people to update their address books.
> Vendor lock-in refers to a situation where the cost of switching to a different vendor is so high that the customer is essentially stuck with the original vendor. Because of financial pressures, an insufficient workforce, or the need to avoid interruptions to business operations, the customer is "locked in" to what may be an inferior product or service.
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cloud/what-is-vendor-loc...
A practical example of vendor lock-in is an elderly aunt with mine who has an email address from her ISP. She isn't "contractually obligated" to continue using that email, nor the ISP. The ISP certainly doesn't have a monopoly on email. But the effort to switch from an email that she's been using for 15 years is very high for someone with weak tech skills. I'm probably in a similar situation with Gmail, as it's the primary contact by which most people know me. I can't take my Gmail address and port it; I have to create a new email and get people to update their address books.
Well, whatever you want to call it, it's not monopoly, it's not illegal, and it's not even necessarily intended; it's just the nature of things that switching incurs costs. By this definition I too am "locked in" to my apartment, because even though my signed lease only runs through next year, if I want to leave I have to incur all the costs and hassles of moving.
But I don't really feel "locked in" to the apartment. Maybe it needs a better, more accurate phrase. "Switching friction"? That more accurately describes the situation than "lock in".
But I don't really feel "locked in" to the apartment. Maybe it needs a better, more accurate phrase. "Switching friction"? That more accurately describes the situation than "lock in".
No refunds. So it's literally lock-in for a year.
https://support.google.com/google-workspace-individual/answe... (for individual) https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2736362?hl=en (for Drive) - I don't see it for Admin but it's probably the same.
Here's one for Google Workspace Admin: "The Annual Plan charges you for the exact number of licenses you signed up for through a yearly commitment." The "commitment" makes it sound non-refundable. https://support.google.com/a/answer/1230658?hl=en
https://support.google.com/google-workspace-individual/answe... (for individual) https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2736362?hl=en (for Drive) - I don't see it for Admin but it's probably the same.
Here's one for Google Workspace Admin: "The Annual Plan charges you for the exact number of licenses you signed up for through a yearly commitment." The "commitment" makes it sound non-refundable. https://support.google.com/a/answer/1230658?hl=en
If you contract for services for a year, and pay for that year up front at a discounted rate, why would you expect a refund if you unilaterally terminate the contract partway through? Just wait until the contract is up to switch services. You already paid for those months! If you're not sure you want to use the service for a full year then opt for the month-to-month contract.
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if they could only make their chat worthwhile this would be reasonable pricing. but as long as the decision is to pay for google workspace and slack, or else microsoft including teams, then microsoft seems like a better deal. i know teams gets a lot of hate, but it's at least usable.
What's missing from Google chat for you?
IMHO Google Chat is utter trash.
I don't think normal people will be using a PWA for chat on desktop computers and like it. The lack of an option for a normal clean native client on desktops is astounding to me. reference) https://support.google.com/chat/answer/9455386?hl=en
I don't think normal people will be using a PWA for chat on desktop computers and like it. The lack of an option for a normal clean native client on desktops is astounding to me. reference) https://support.google.com/chat/answer/9455386?hl=en
I'm done, first they force all previously grandfathered accounts to pay and now they are increasing the price less than a few months later.
Additionally if a legacy user that had extra storage accidentally lets the renewal lapse you can not repurchase it, you are forced to upgrade all users to a higher tier at a ridiculous cost.
I'm giving Tutanota a try and use other self hosted services for photos and drive.
Additionally if a legacy user that had extra storage accidentally lets the renewal lapse you can not repurchase it, you are forced to upgrade all users to a higher tier at a ridiculous cost.
I'm giving Tutanota a try and use other self hosted services for photos and drive.
I pay more per month to the calendar scheduling SaaS provider I use than I do to Google - who provide the calendar plus email, drive, docs, meet, etc.
An important lesson here for founders is price anchoring. Google is in a tough place because the prices are anchored to historically low amounts - they're increasing them by $1/m because that's about all they can do and the talk of 'all the next value' is their best attempt to break out of that anchor. If they were to bring this suite to the market today, I bet it would start at the $20/m mark.