Is G Suite Free? Not Quite – But Here’s Why You Need It
Google is rocking the commercial world with the new suite of business apps. But, before going any deeper – is G Suite free, and what is it exactly?
Simply put, G Suite is a set of Google apps 100% online, created to improve your business productivity. It’s not free, and it’s not (too) expensive either!
To give you an idea, just think about G Suite as the Google version of Microsoft Office, but in the cloud, and with custom professional email included.
Firstly, let’s answer this…
What’s The Difference Between Gmail and G Suite?
So why should I buy a G Suite subscription if I already have my Gmail address?
Besides, can’t I access all G Suite apps for free with my Google account?
Those are the two most frequently asked questions BTW…
If you are just starting your business, you might think that the free Google apps work perfect for you. But what about when it’s time to get serious about your business?
The thing is, even if you are the only employee in your company, you need – at least – a custom corporate email to professionally introduce yourself to the business world.
Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.
— Confucius
What G Suite actually offers is the combination of all the Google apps for business, ie; Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Slides, and so on; with a custom professional email, and a lot of other (amazing) business services not included within a free Google account.
Sign up here using my link and get a free 14-day trial. Message me to get an exclusive discount when you try G Suite for your business… 🙂
The G Suite Benefits
All this might sound fantastic. But you might ask…
Which of these freakin’ awesome services are going to blow my productivity through the roof?
Don’t worry my friend! Down below, I’ll show you, one by one, the features that really make the difference. 🤩
Custom Professional Email
Ever received an email from someone trying to get you to buy something?
Usually the first thing we look at is the email address. If the email looks anything like this – [email protected], into the spam bin it goes.
Why? Because if you don’t know the sender then you don’t know if this is a real company or not. And it definitely doesn’t look professional.
G Suite allows you to create a custom professional email with your business domain name.
Instead of using [email protected], you can use [email protected]. Your customers can see you take your business seriously and you’re not improvising.
The most important thing is that with a G Suite professional email you have full control of your employees’ passwords, messages docs, and files.
That means if someone leave the job, everything stays within the company and not with the person.
Unlimited Storage
The Basic G Suite subscription allows you up to 30 GB of storage, which is a huge amount for one person.
But, the Business and the Enterprise subscription plan comes with UNLIMITED storage space!
That’s an unimaginable amount of files you can keep for years and years, and years…
Teamwork
G Suite offers a set of business apps enhanced to promote teamwork.
These apps come with tools that allow you and your team to work together on the same files in real time, as they share their ideas and suggestions through the chat.
You can also leave comments, assign tasks and provide feedback in the docs, calendar, spreadsheets, and presentations made by your staff.
It’s the type of package that’ll crank your business into beast productivity mode! 💪
Data Security
I know it’s kind of scary to think about moving the important files of your business to the cloud, but don’t freak out! G Suite has shielded its security system.
Google apps suite has a 2-step verification method to log in. The first step is to verify the user identity with something they know, such as the password, and the second step is to use something they have, like an access code sent to their device.
This boosts your account protection from cyber-thieves!
Also, the Business and Enterprise package come with a lot of security services, such as, centralised management, data loss prevention, security practice recommendations, and Vault for Drive with which you can manage and protect your company files.
The most advanced features allows you to check out which emails don’t meet the authentication standards, classify the messages deemed to be spam or malware, and know which files are shared outside your business email.
Always remember – safety first!
Reaching the inbox isn’t your goal – engaging people is.
— Matt Blumberg
Full Control
When it comes to business, you always have to be in control!
The G Suite centralised administrator allows you to manage every single aspect of your account. You can add and remove users as needed, manage all devices and set up the security methods.
Also, G Suite comes with a work insight app that let you analyse work patterns and track the levels of collaboration in your team.
All these features are amazing, but what I like the most is how easy it is to control the suite.
You can add a user by following a few simple steps, and the charts on the control board are organised, so that you can easily understand what’s going on.
24/7 Customer Service
With the G Suite paid subscription the account administrator (the administrator only) will receive 24/7 support from a real agent via phone and email.
So that, if you have any issues, you can trust there will always be someone to help you solve it.
No matter the time, no matter the day! 🙂
G Suite Pricing: How Much Do You Have to Pay?
A lot of people ask is G Suite free so let me explain…
When someone asks me why should I get G Suite and not any other subscription service, I have just one word to resume everything: COST SAVING!
Well, OK, two words, but anyway…
G Suite not only has the best cost for value in the market, but also offers you different payment plans, budgets, and billing methods, so you can build the package that fits your business needs.
Any plan you choose has two billing methods. If you want to be billed annually, you have to pay for a full year of service without the option to remove users until renew contract.
The monthly plan, instead, allows you to add, and remove users as needed, and the next month the payment will go up or down accordingly.
Sign up here using my link and get a free 14-day trial. Message me to get an exclusive discount when you try G Suite for your business…
G Suite Basic
The G Suite Basic plan costs $6 per user monthly, which means $72 per user every year. That means with 5 users, you’ll pay $30 a month and $360 every year.
I recommend G Suite Basic for new business with less than 5 employees, solopreneurs, freelancers, and people who want to build a personal business.
It’s the best option if you or your team don’t work with a huge amount of files, but are still looking for more storage space and better account protection.
The G Suite Basic plan includes:
- A custom professional email.
- 30 GB of storage.
- 24/7 support.
- Security and administrative controls.
- The full set of Google apps for business (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Hangouts, Forms, Sites, Keeps, Currents, Meet, Chat, Apps Script.)
- Up to 25 Hangouts participants.
G Suite For Business
The G Suite Business plan costs $12 per user monthly, or $144 per user every year.
So for 20 users, as an example, you’ll pay $240 a month and $2,880 every year.
This plan is the perfect fit for small to medium-size companies that require storing a large amount of files and are looking for better administrative options to manage and archive their data, without the need for advanced security controls.
Click here to see the Business G Suite pricing details.
The G Suite Business Plan includes:
- A custom professional email.
- Unlimited storage space.
- 24/7 support.
- The full set of Google apps for business (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Hangouts, Forms, Sites, Keeps, Currents, Meet, Chat, Apps Script.)
- Security and administrative controls.
- App Maker.
- Up to 50 Hangouts participants.
- Alerts for changes to Drive documents.
- Vault app to archive chat and email messages.
G Suite Enterprise
The G Suite Enterprise plan costs $25 per user monthly, or $300 per user every year.
So for 100 users, as an example, you’ll pay $2,500 monthly and $30,000 per year.
This plan is aimed to large-team enterprises looking for advanced administrative and security controls to keep the huge amount of files, mails, and messages they handle safe.
It’s also the perfect choice for business needing to perform large video conferences.
Click here to find out more about G Suite Enterprise.
G Suite Enterprise includes:
- A custom professional email.
- Unlimited storage space.
- 24/7 support.
- The full set of Google apps for business (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Hangouts, Forms, Sites, Keeps, Currents, Meet, Chat, Apps Script.)
- Advanced security and administrative controls, such as security centre, security key management, data loss prevention, etc.
- App Maker.
- Up to 100 Hangouts participants.
- Hangouts Live Streaming.
- Hangouts meetings recording.
- Alerts for changes to Drive documents.
- Vault app to archive chat and email messages.
- Ability to set rules for device management.
How Can I Start Using G Suite?
Starting to use G Suite is the easiest thing!
The first thing you have to do is go to Google G Suite and press the start free trial button.
This will take you to the sign up page, where you have to provide some information about your business, like:
- The business name.
- Number of employees, including you.
- Country
- The administrator first, and last name (your first and last name).
- Current email address
Then you have to say whether:
- You have a domain
- You want to buy a domain.
- You prefer a free .page domain.
If you have your business domain name, then just type it and the next step is to set up your username and password. After this is completed, you’ve created your G Suite account!
To complete the process, you’ll have to confirm that you own the domain, by using one of the four verification methods that G Suite applies:
- Creating a TXT record (If you can edit your domain’s records.)
- Creating a CNAME record (If you can edit your domain’s records.)
- Adding a meta tag (If you can edit your website’s home page.)
- Uploading an HTML file (If you can upload files to your website.)
Now, it’s time to choose your plan and billing method.
At this point you can access a promo code to get 20% discount on your subscription.
Sign up here using my link and get a free 14-day trial. Message me to get an exclusive discount when you try G Suite for your business…
That’s it! Let’s start using your suite. 🤩
Remember that when you sign up, you have a free 14-day trial that won’t be charged to the payment method you chose until the trial ends.
G Suite vs Office 365
So you’ve decided that you need these (cool) tools for your business, but now the problem is that there are two giants of the tech industry offering very similar tools and services, and you don’t know which one to pick.
Actually, it’s not that easy to tell you which one is better than the other, as both of them offer high-quality products with affordable prices. 🙂
But I’ll show the features that makes me choose G Suite over Office 365.
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
— Simon Sinek
First, the professional email and business apps are much easier to use with G Suite. They work perfectly well in both their web and mobile versions, unlike the Office mobile apps, which are somewhat user-unfriendly
Also, G Suite comes with a professional email in all its plans, different from Office 365, which for some reason, doesn’t include it within the business plan.
In that case, you’d have to get the Office Business Premium.
Another advantage of using G Suite is the unlimited storage space coming with the Business and Enterprise plan. The basic plan includes 30 GB, and you can always buy more space.
Office 365, meanwhile, includes 1 TB per user in all its plans, which is a huge storage space, but it’s not unlimited.
The G suite control panel is also much easier to use than Office. But where G Suite really shines is the ability to collaborate.
All the suite of apps allow you to leave comments and suggestions in your staff work; you can edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time, along with your team.
It also has the chat to share ideas while doing the job.
Office 365 has its own collaboration tools, but they are just not at the same level as G Suite.
G Suite for Education
When it comes to education, our dear friend Google is always looking for new ways to support educators and students around the world!
G Suite for Education provides schools with free digital educational tools to promote the creativity, collaboration and communication between teachers and students.
It also helps to streamline the task assignment, evaluation, grading, and feedback.
The suite includes Docs, Slides, Calendar, Forms, Gmail, Drive, Sites, Sheets, Hangouts Meet, Vault, and Classroom.
It’s available for free to all K–12 schools, higher-education institutions, and homeschools worldwide that meet the criteria.
Requirements for G Suite Education:
- Institutions must have a non-profit status.
- Institutions must be government-recognised, formally-accredited.
- Institutions must deliver nationally or internationally-approved certifications at primary, secondary, or third level.
- Homeschools must be verified by an appropriate state institution.
Not eligible institutions:
- Organisations funded by local or national government.
So back to our question again… is G Suite free? Well almost! The main thing is to ask is – how valuable is it going to be for you and your business?
Sign up here using my link and get a free 14-day trial.
BTW here is your G Suite promo code (for Australia):
Your G Suite promo code provides 20% off the first year on either the G Suite Basic plan and the G Suite Business plan.
Enjoy…