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I have 6 user accounts that I have been using with Google Workspace for over 10 years, but now Google is charging per user, and it is expensive. I have 4 kids and host a family domain. They also use Gmail, and I forward their family email to their Gmail account.

I'm looking for a good alternative, and I am afraid to host the mail server myself since email seems to be the biggest hack and the ability to get screwed if someone gets access to the email account and like Google security like 2mfa. But the cost now per month per user is not suitable. I did buy the domain through GoDaddy. Should I go back to them to host the email?

A little while ago I use to mass cold email and used a pretty simply stack.
Created multiple subdomain on my hosting account and used GHL to to send the emails, apparently this was bad since reading this subreddit.

But I read everyone saying they are using google workspace, which is $6 per email account, and then using multiple domain and say 3 emails per domain. Am I missing something?
10 domains at $10 each per year.
Then 10 workspace accounts each with 3 emails - around $180 per month?

I ask, as this doesn't appear very saleable, as this is before you add all the other tech needed as well.

Is this correct, you are all paying like $6 per email inbox

Hi All,

We're in the process of doing a 3 year renewal for our Google Workspace licensing. Currently we're looking at a 77% increase in Workspace Enterprise Plus Licensing, and a 86% increase in Workspace Enterprise Standard. This feels insane! Is everyone else dealing with the same thing?

I registered my 3 letter DNS domain over 25 years ago and had my cool email address since then.  I got it parked at number of ISPs and for the last 10 or so years at the G-suite - cost ~$10/year for DNS domain hosting.  Then came android phone with Google pictures backup. The whole family got their Google ids in my domain and slowly each account needed more then 5GB of disk and we got 100GB each for $1.98/month.  That amount of space was good for decades of snapping pictures.  I anticipated issues and started evicting all family members out of my domain to gmail.com accounts. I left with the last user this year with its own 100GB limit consuming 50GB and my account with about the same in my 100GB.  Then came the email to google workspace admin that our 100GB plans are forcibly discontinued and my two users in the workspace have 30GB each and we are 10GB over the limit. Options - buy Google workspace business standard for $12/user/month with yearly commitment = 12/12/2=$288.  So far my cost was $1.98/m and suddenly I had to pay $288 next month.  Emailed workspace support to see what happens if I do not pay - the answer - you loose your email address, your family looses their email addresses,  you all loose you pictures and email history. Options: First pictures with Google takeout - tried that and downloads went at about 100kB/s - that is 2 weeks of uninterrupted transfer - not doable.  Email migration - more or less possible after finding new email hosting and moving all folders by-hand in IMAP client.  Now explain all that to your generation-Z users.

Just received an email from Google to say the cost of the subscription has gone up again. The justification is AI and additional functions that we have no use for.

We are a small business with about 20 accounts several of which we only use for the email address. It would be great if Google offered cheaper versions of the subscription for email only or accounts that didn't require storage.

Has anyone here transferred from Google to an alternative or found a way to reduce the cost of the Google subscription?

Thanks

1. I have recently retired and shut my 3 business websites at Hostgator and am letting my ownership of 2 associated domains lapse because I no longer need them.

2. I have maintained ownership of the 3rd domain simply to continue using my "professional" email address [email protected] . because that's the only email address 90% of my contacts have used to reach me for the last 20+ years. But Hostgator charges $118/year (more) to host this domain, even without a website ... plus they're constantly pulling tricks with add-ons and up-selling that are beyond my feeble understanding.

3. The Hostgator rep suggested setting up a Google Workspace Individual account and moving my single email account [email protected] there.

Will this work? Is this a good solution for a retired professional who needs to continue using a single old email account but no longer needs full website hosting?

Thanks for your advice (Explain To Me Like I'm 68yo)

I’m a plumber, and I’m tired of paying more and more every year for email. $130/year for one email is ridiculous, but I want to still keep a professional business email. It helps with new clients. Just curious if there are any good cheaper options.

I'm getting messages from Google Workspace that the prices are going up in February. I cannot tell if I opt to go annual instead of flexible, if I have to prepay the entire amount for the year, upfront. It appears these are only accounts that I managed before the legacy migration fiasco. Anyone have any insight if the legacy accounts that were migrated to paid WorkSpace accounts are doing this also, and if so, when? I have some clients that were paying ZERO before, not paying in the 3 figures per month for email and I'll just have to bump their email up a lot more but for the accounts with one or two email addresses, I could probably swing the upfront fee.

This is a joke. I don't need Gemini, but they're enforcing it on all plans and charging $2/month or more whether you like it or not. Google announced a price increase for monthly plans in 2023, and now this in the new year of 2025! Expect more increase in coming years!

Sorry for the naive question. I have a growing business (currently 5 employees quickly scaling to about 20) and I want to set up email addresses for each employee using our domain name via Google workspace. Do they not offer a package of email addresses? All I see is the $6/month per user plan which seems like it will get expensive very quickly as I add employees. Am I missing something or is this just the price that I should be expecting. TIA!

I am trying to sign up for the $6/user a month "Business Starter" plan on Google Workspace but when I go through the sign up process, the end price ends up to be $7.20/user per month. This is in the U.S.

Because of this, I was curious what others are paying? Is anyone actually able to pay $6 a month?

I went through the steps of setting up a business email and first I registered a domain, but then after setting it all I was prompted to start a business account for something like $26 a month. I just started the free trial but am I signed up for something I don't need? I also only need one user for this email but my company is a few people. I literally only need email with the work domain

We keep getting emails that look legit and say our customer's subscription price will change on or after March 25th.

I'm aware of the (BS) Gemini related price increase but we don't have any customers.

There's an attached .csv but I'm hesitant to click it because, you know, we don't have any customers.

Any idea why we're getting these?

So Workspace has been nagging our users to death about buying Gemini. I finally find a way to turn it off. We just do not want it and do not want to pay for it! What does Google do?

I got an email this morning that the price of workspace is going up and here's the bonus, we get Gemini forced down our throats. You cannot get people to buy it, so you force it on your faithful users in an attempt to recover your investment costs? I dont want it.

Sadly, I went to Microsoft for the first time in a long time to look at their pricing models and Workspace is now priced higher than Microsoft and I still have to jump through hoops to open up excel documents sent by business partners and customers.

I do love Workspace but this really irks me.

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.

I've run into a confusing situation with Google Workspace setup and pricing. Here's what happened:

1. I already have my domain and email through GoDaddy

2. Created a Google Workspace account and successfully linked it to my GoDaddy domain (verified and all)

3. After setup, I was moved to the payment page showing only the Business Standard plan

4. There was no option to switch to the cheaper Basic plan - the customization options were missing

5. I closed the tab without completing payment

**My Question:** Can I just continue using my custom domain email through Gmail without paying for Workspace? I don't need any of the other Workspace features - I just want to use my business domain for a more professional email appearance.

Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a way to switch to a cheaper plan, or am I stuck with Business Standard if I want to use it?

Any help would be appreciated!