Update: This blog was written in 2019, before the launch of Google Workspace. All pricing here is incorrect; however, we're keeping it up as a marker in time. If you're looking for accurate pricing, go here, and if you're looking for how Google transitioned from G Suite to Workspace, go here.

G Suite has many strengths - Security, Collaboration, Flexibility, Scale, and plenty of others - but one undeniable strength is cost. Every company we switch to G Suite has saved significant sums on software licencing. The amazing thing is that ever since it launched over a dozen years ago, Google has never implemented a G Suite price increase - despite adding many, many features in that period. Very few products or services of any kind could say that. But, the day has come - finally, a small increase is arriving. Google will be raising its prices for the G Suite Basic and G Suite Business tiers for the first time since that launch way back in 2006.

G Suite Evolution

These increases are to reflect the huge amount of new features that have been added to the cloud service, such as video conferencing in Hangouts Meet, team messaging in Hangouts Chat, increased storage amounts and other security and productivity tools and services. You can see the addition of services over the years in the graphic below.

G Suite Price Increase

G Suite Basic prices will increase from £3.30 to £4.60 per user per month, while G Suite Business will increase from £6.60 to £9.20 per user per month. The G Suite Enterprise tier will not be affected by these increases and will continue to be billed at £20 per user per month.

G Suite pricing has always been kept simple (offering 3 different options; Basic, Business and Enterprise), compared to Office 365 which offers many different pricing tiers and can often be quite difficult for organisations to get the best value for money.

The G Suite price increase is worldwide and will come into effect on the second of April. We feel that the increase is a very fair reflection on the value that customers receive through new features and functionality. Google states that the addition of artificial intelligence and machine learning has tripled the value delivered in G Suite, so an increase of around only 20% is very reasonable.

Important Notes

• If your organisation is currently on an annual contract, the new pricing will be applied from your renewal date.
• Price increases are applied globally, with adjustments for certain regions.
• If you have an agreed contract in place, this will be honoured.

For illustration purposes, a small business with 5 users of G Suite Basic will see their annual costs go from £198 to £276. A medium sized business with 100 users on G Suite Business would see their total annual costs go from £7,920 to  £11,040.

Recommended Action

If you’re currently on a monthly G Suite payment plan, we recommend contacting your Google Cloud Partner, or us via [email protected], to update your subscription to an annual plan. This will allow you to lock in the existing pricing for an entire year before being affected by the price increase.

This is a very straightforward process which simply involves generating a G Suite transfer token from your admin console, and we can handle the rest for you.

Missed the deadline?

If you're reading this after 02/04//2019, that means the pricing has already increased. However, we can often access and provide custom deals to new Cobry customers who make annual G Suite commitments. Get in touch via [email protected] to find out more.

Upgrading?

If you are considering upgrading from Basic to Business or Business to Enterprise, we can also often provide special deals to make the step up in price more manageable, just get in touch via [email protected].

Contact

If you would like to find out more about the upcoming price revision and how it may affect your domain if you’re on a custom deal, or you just want to find out more about G Suite before making the move to the cloud, you can get in touch with us at [email protected] and we would be delighted to have a chat.

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