I'll be honest, I am a bit lost and haven't been following things closely. I received the pooled storage email and logged into both admin centres for the first time in a long time to check things out.

I have two domains:

1. I am using for my personal emails (with several domain aliases setup as well). This one has 1,100 licences. It is on the Legacy plan. I have purchased additional storage for this (I have many photos stored on here)

2. The other is an old sole-business contact, that is trickling over. It is apparently on the Free Business Starter (I don't remember changing this) and has 300 licenses.

And many questions:

• It appears as though the Business Starter is the better plan to be on. Is there any way to switch to this?

• How will the 'pooled storage' changes impact me? Should I create additional user accounts now, to be best prepared for the change?

• Will I be able to stop paying for storage on my main account soon???

Anything else to be aware of to make full use of this? I use it daily, but haven't really logged into the admin centre very often in the last 10 years.

Which is better for a small business (4 total employees in mental health industry): Google Workspace or Microsoft 365? Currently, we have the Business Starter ($6 per user) and were thinking of upgrading to Business Standard ($12 per user).

I think the most important thing is deciding on using either Google Shared Drive or Microsoft Share Point. I need to be able to allow only certain users into certain folders since we have to comply with HIPAA. For example, I want a folder for one client and only 2 of our employees can have access to this folder since they are assigned to this client. I don't want any other employees to be able to access this folder.

Thanks in advance!

I've recently started my own business and paid for my own domain. I am trying to use google workspace, but the only options I see are "google workspace essentials" for $8 and "google enterprise essentials" for $15. Workspace essentials doesn't give me gmail, which is all I really need. I've searched online and it tells me that there should be a "business starter" option for $7, with gmail included, but I can't see it. I tried to contact support, but in order to talk to a human, I need to upgrade to essentials and pay $15 a month- how ridiculous. I also read something about google not letting you switch plans after a free trial or while you're in the middle of another billing period. I am currently paying for the essentials- because I thought it would include gmail.

Has anyone had issues with not being able to subscribe to the basic business starter pack? I am losing my mind.

I'm on the G Suite legacy free edition for my personal family domain, and opted out of the transition to Workspace. Looking at it again now, is there any downside to transferring? As I see it, I get more storage space and more users (I'm currently limited to 10, and some of the nieces and nephews want their own vanity email addresses now). I'm just wanting to check if I'm missing a downside before I press the button.

Edit: 
For the benefit of those who might ask the same question in the future, I summarised my conclusions in a comment below. 
I went ahead with the transition, and it was very simple and painless. I now have capacity for new users, and the total pooled storage space is 30gb * number of users, so I have ample. 

Hi, I am on Google Business Starter (migrated from gsuite legacy).

I have total storage of approx 720gb. There has been a banner for several months now on the account saying that pooled storage will soon be enabled.

According to this site storage will be equal to 30gb x number of users for business starter.

However in practive there is one user with 270gb limit ; that got stretched to 275 when reaching and exceeding the 270 for a couple of days; and other users limits seem totally random.

So how does this actually work ? Why is storage not being pooled ? Why do limits increase with 5gb everytime the limit is breached; but it's impossible to actually set higher limits (override doesn't work).

I have a GSuite legacy account for my one-man business that I set up years ago. I'm finally working on my business full-time and thought I'd upgrade to Google Workspace Business Starter. But no matter what I try, the subscription form is demanding that I have at least 3 users.

All the documentation I have read say that it should support 1-300 users.

Is this a new requirement? Or is it because my GSuite account can't be upgraded for just one user?

Hi! I hope someone would be able to help us. We are planning to migrate from Dropbox to Google Workspace. We're a team of 5 at the moment and we have over 600GB of files. In our past few meetings, we have discussed about whether to (1) stick with our current Business Starter plan and get a 10TB additional storage for a one-time $300 fee or (2) upgrade to Business Standard with 2TB per user.

With Starter + additional 10TB, we get 10.15TB in total but I'm not sure how the 10TB is going to be shared across all users. Is anyone able to allocate any portion from the 10.15TB of storage?

If we go with Standard, I understand that we get more features such as more Gemini features, 150 participants cap for Google Meet (which I don't think we'll be using anytime soon), NotebookLM Plus, etc.

During our meetings, we use Fathom (AI notetaker) to give a summary, takeaways, task lists, and more from our meeting. Fathom will send those information to each participant via email. Plus, I think Fathom also stores some files locally in the owner's computer drive. Does NotebookLM Plus do that as well? Fathom actus as another participant during calls. If we can replace Fathom with NotebookLM Plus, that would really be great.

I have to set up workspace so I can use a custom domain for my OAuth support email. Upon setting up, I was only offered Business Plus, no other option. Read around that I have to just start the trial with that plan, then downgrade. Went to Billing to change plan, and it doesn't offer any plan below business plus?

Hello All!

I have my own domain name. Many years ago I set up a single email address in Gmail using that domain name ([email protected]) and it was free for all the years until recently, when Google started charging me for this; I now pay about $7.20/month. This email is now administered via a "Google Workspace Business Starter" account. I am the only user, there is only 1 email address using my domain name, and I use it for personal stuff (I am not running a business).

Is there any way for me to do my emailing through Gmail and not pay for this email address that uses my domain name?

I tried going to "upgrade or downgrade" in my Google Workspace admin panel, but there is no option for anything free. I don't want to pay $7.20/month for the rest of my life. I also can't fathom not using the email address that is on my own domain name because it would be a massive hassle to change the literally hundreds of things I have connected to it, and get everyone I've ever know to stop using it; I don't even know how I would sort all that out even if I felt it was worth it.

I understand that there are free ways to use Gmail. Is this an option for me if I want to retain my [email protected] email?

Thanks in advance to anyone who tries to help. I am pretty lost here.

As in the GWS plan comparisons it stated you could perform marketing emails for all of the editions. I was under the impression that you could mail merge and design your own layouts etc. it appears that actually isn't the case though. What a joke that is! It's actually all I really wanted GWS for.

Is there a way around this? Any 3rd party apps I could use? Thanks

It seems many are finding success now after all hope seemed futile weeks prior. Just wanted to quick share my own experience.

I missed the June 27, 2022 deadline to signify personal use of one of my legacy g-suite accounts. It was tied to a domain and inherited free from a web host many years ago. Attempting to visit that link after that point said it was unavailable.

I then upgraded to Business Workspace, which was offered at a discounted rate where it'd be free until October, then $3/month for so long and then $6/month after that.

After that I again attempted to indicate personal use but it still said not available. I let it sit and kind of forgot about it for some time, but made the effort once more tonight and was successful.

You may try directly visiting: https://admin.google.com/u/1/ac/billing/legacytransition and after logging in as an admin see if you have the blue button available to acknowledge personal use. Otherwise more detailed steps are below:

1. Under ADMIN account and control panel, select Billing - Subscriptions and make sure it indicates you are on Workspace or Workspace Business Starter. Mine took some amount of days to migrate after manually switching.

2. Click the HELP icon in top-right, select Contact Support - Questions about G Suite Legacy Free Edition - I used G Suite Legacy free edition for personal use.

3. An agreement will appear to confirm you used it for personal use (and with the disclaimer that they may once again decide at any point to remove more features), click YES.

4. Click the blue button "I used G-Suite Legacy Free for Personal Use."

5. Sign-in under your Admin account.

6. Click the blue button on the new page that appears, again to confirm personal use.

If successful, you will see: "Your account already has the no-cost option."

Now when you check billing, you should see Google Workspace Business Starter with 300 licenses available, and it will indicate "Free Plan" and "Free Edition (No Charges)"

If you check your Payment Accounts and had a credit card on file, it should say it is "not in use" anymore for the plan, meaning you're good to go!

Hello ,

I'm currently working as an admin at my new workplace. We're relatively an expanding business and slowly trying to migrate everything to cloud/online.

My boss has purchased GSuite Basic (flexible) long before I join the company.

My question is it better to upgrade to the new Google Workspace Business or just to stay on the current plan?

And also, do we still have time limit on Google Meet if we use GSuite Basic? because every time I open admin console they always ask me to few upgrade options.

Thank you :)

I'm trying to set up Google Workspace again for my domain. I know that Business Starter (136Rs/ user/month in India) still exists - Google hasn't discontinued it, it's on their official pricing page.

But when I try to sign up with my domain, I only get Business Standard (540Rs), Business Plus, and Enterprise options. No Starter. If I proceed, I'm forced into a Standard free trial, and I can't access the Admin Console fully without adding billing.

Any ideas on how to choose starter plan?

We are currently a team of 8 using GSuite basic and are happy with its functionality. The only "non-basic" part is that we are using Shared Drive from out sister organization that is on the higher plan. Should I switch to Workspace Business Starter that costs the same?

I'm assuming, Google will add newer functionality to workspace before GSuite (if that happens at all.) My only concern is that I don't lose access to the Shared Drive if I upgrade.

I unexpectedly received an email today with the subject above, but I didn't cancel anything. Is this an error that is related to Squarespace taking over my Google Workspace subscription?

---

Checking `admin.google.com/u/2/ac/billing/subscriptions` nothing appears cancelled:

```
Google Workspace Business Starter | Active | 1 assigned | Reseller pricing squarespace | Reseller pricing
```

Checking `account.squarespace.com/domains` nothing appears cancelled. It shows as active and ready to auto-renew next month.

---

[Sidenote: Google Domains and the caching integration tied to Google Cloud is the only reason why I chose Google Cloud, so I am very upset about the Squarespace deal. I feel like it's just a matter of time before my architecture breaks and I have to migrate to AWS/O365. Emails like this are making me think that I should be proactive about that switch before things hit the fan.]

I've had Google Workspace since 2006 for my personal domain. Last year they started charging which is fine, great service, but they took away One Storage which was 100GB for $2/month now and the equivalent is Business Standard Storage for $14/month. I have 2 users in the whole suite and close to 55 gigs of photos and documents.

My usage is Gmail, Drive, Photos, Voice and my Google Home stuff like Nest Hub.

Currently I have Google Workspace Business Starter so I'm looking for cheaper options since it's personal use and Google is nerfing my storage.

I do digital marketing for local businesses and have always used my old private Google account to create Docs & Sheets, store small files in Drive and access my clients' accounts for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console. I would now like to separate this account and create a new Google account that I can use for my business activities. If this new account for business just had the basic features from the free personal Google Account, that would be enough for me.

If I now simply search for Google Workspace and visit the website and look at the packages on the “Prices” page, the cheapest “Google Workspace Business Starter” package is available for around €6 per month. That should work, but I don't need any of the “extra features” and if possible, I would like a free account. After further searching, I came across the “Google Workspace Essentials Starter”, which I don't think you can find on the website directly. In principle, it seems to meet my requirements, but I wonder if there's a catch? And why isn't it advertised on the site?

Does anyone here know their way around the Google Workspace cosmos and can enlighten me? Would it be better (or have advantages) for my purposes to simply pay the money and take the smallest Google Workspace Business plan? Or would that be overkill and with the Google Workspace Essentials Starter I'm not doing anything wrong for my intended use?

Note: Google instructions showed how to migrate to business starter, then it has a box that offers the option for non-commercial free business starter. So I had a domain with the free legacy account. I took a chance and upgraded to business starter monthly just now and then I clicked the link to downgrade to business starter free. I can confirm it worked! I now have business starter free with 300 users and 30gb each. YMMV. I will do this with my 2 other domains on free legacy.

Update: I just converted my three domains from legacy free to business starter free. All domains now have 30gb space and 300 users.

I had a Google Workspace that was originally on Google Workspace Essentials Starter. I want to switch it to Google Workspace Business Starter. All of the Google support docs walk you through the steps, but there's no way for me to switch from essentials to business.

I tried upgrading my Essential Starter to Essentials Enterprise. When I did that, I could see the option to select Business Starter. However, there was a notice that I could not switch because I was on an active plan.

If I downgrade back to Essentials Starter, I will now be in a spot where I can't see Business Starter. I'm stuck in Google purgatory.

How do I get my essentials starter account switched to a business starter? Do I need to start the whole process over?

Thanks

update: Spoke with Google SMB rep directly after mixed results of conversations with resellers. The answer is : You can not BLEND or get partial licences from GWS unless you have 20 accounts. They suggested get 4x starter and keep the current google one storage setup that I have.

Thank you all for your comments and messages.

original post ----

Hi all,

I'm on a budget and I need to move my accounts from a CPANEL setup to google workspace. I have big mailboxes and 77GB of "shared" data in a google one drive.

Current Mailboxes:

1. 19gb

2. 13 gb

3. 6 gb

4. 4 gb

If I did this it would be $15.6 x1 , $7.8x3 -= $468/year

or $7.8 x4 = 374.40 for the emails then stay with the 100gb storage ...if we go this route is there shared storage?

Then we have our shared drive (77GB) paying $27.99 / year and just saw I could upgrade to 200gb for $39.99 a year for 200GB (which could be my new solution.... possibly) or 2TB for $140/year

(we will be at 119GB ) if we wen't with business starter with all 4 accounts. I'm concerned we will quickly run out of space.