Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, will be familiar to many. It’s the productivity suite from the technology heavyweight that brought you software like the popular web browser Google Chrome and hardware like the Google Pixel 8 smartphone.
Google Workspace encompasses a variety of different tools, including an email service, cloud storage, a calendar, and many other collaboration tools. Altogether, this means Google Workspace is a business email provider that does a lot more than simply allow you to check your messages.
This is an email provider that allows businesses - large or small - to put their stamp on their account. By offering custom domain names for your employees it adds a level of professionalism that you can’t get by simply using a generic Gmail email address.
When you factor in all the benefits of signing up for a business Google Workspace account over and above simply using a personal Gmail one, this makes for a powerful tool that businesses across industries and geographies are likely to benefit from.
Google Workspace: Plans and pricing
Google Workspace has three basic pricing tiers: Business Starter, Business Standard, and Business Plus. These will set you back $6, $12, and $18 per user per month respectively. There’s also an Enterprise plan on offer but, as with many email providers, you’ll need to contact Google’s sales team directly to find out how much you’d pay for a subscription of this scale.
Our other review of Google Workspace, which looks specifically at how the platform functions in terms of its mobile device management (MDM), gives some indication about how much the Enterprise plan may cost you. According to this Google Workspace MDM review, subscribers at this level can expect to pay approximately $20 per user per month for Enterprise Standard and $30 per user per month for Enterprise Plus.
Features
Of course, deciding whether Google Workspace’s various pricing tiers work out to be good value for money depends heavily on the features available at each level. The Business Starter plan comes with custom and secure business email, 100-participant video meetings, 30GB pooled storage per user, security and management controls, and standard support. The offer of video conferencing support is a nice touch, particularly given how important hybrid work has become to many industries.
At the Business Standard level, subscribers also receive custom and secure business email, the number of permitted video participants rises to 150 and recording is available while the amount of cloud storage per user reaches 2TB. Business Plus customers, meanwhile will see storage increase to 5TB and the number of video participants go up to 500.
At all three pricing tiers, Gemini AI add-on is available, making Google’s cutting-edge AI tool accessible to all Workspace users. With Gemini, it becomes possible for users to leverage generative AI to create or modify their emails, documents, or spreadsheets without expending any manual resources. And given the financial and technological heft of a company like Google, expect more AI functionality to be incorporated into Workspace as time goes by.
We found that the best features on offer with Workpace were simply the company’s office productivity tools. Subscribers at every level receive access to Gmail, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Meet, Google Docs and more. If you’re already a heavy user of Google’s many business solutions, then it makes a lot of sense to make Google Workspace your primary email provider too.
Support
The support on offer for Google Workspace customers is on the whole very good but does differ depending on what pricing plan you’re signed up to. There’s an extensive help center available at all levels that comes with handy tips broken down by product, role or industry. Support also comes in two distinct flavors, for users or admins.
Google Workspace administrators can access a range of flexible customer care services, including multi-channel support, community assistance, and more general Google help. If you’re a subscriber to either the Business Starter, Business Standard, or Business Plus plans, you’ll only receive standard support, which is slightly disappointing. At both the Standard and Plus tiers, however, you do have the choice of opting for a paid upgrade to Enhanced Support.
Enhanced Support is included for free if you’re a subscriber to the Enterprise version of Google Workspace and comes with a one-hour response time for P1 cases, 24/7 care for P1 and P2 cases, and access to technical experts. Taking things up a notch further still, customers can sign up for Premium Support as a paid upgrade if their already an Enterprise customer. This reduces the guaranteed response time for P1 cases to just 15 minutes and grants users access to a Technical Account Manager and quarterly reviews with Google advisors. Should you be in charge of a larger firm and are looking for the most reliable support around, this may fit the bill.
Security
In terms of security, Google Workspace also performs extremely well. Two0Step Verification is included as standard at all pricing tiers, as is group-based policy controls, and an advanced protection program. You do see security become more robust as you move up the pricing levels and encryption is only mentioned explicitly at the Enterprise level in the form of S/MIME encryption. We had to dig a little deeper to discover that encryption is used for all data whether at rest or in transit.
Plus, you can be pretty comfortable that Google will take good care of your information and data. Google states that Gmail’s AI defenses block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing attempts and malware.
The competition
Google Workspace does a pretty good job of bettering much of the competition from online email providers, whether that’s Neo, Proton Mail or anyone else. However, if you want an email provider that offers just as much functionality offline as it does online, then you might be better off checking out the likes of Microsoft 365 or even Bluehost. Of course, you can access some of Google Workspace’s solutions when offline, but it does require a bit if forward planning.
Google Workspace: Final verdict
Google Workspace provides the high level of service we’ve come to expect from the technology giant. Its business email offering is one thing, but when this is added to the host of other productivity tools on offer, it means companies have an entire suite of reliable, collaborative business tools at their finger tips.
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