I am with a startup MSP company. We started our Google Workspaces with the "Essentials Starter" (free) package to get everyone used to the platform since most of us all come from lifetime Microsoft product users lol. I would like to move our email from our junk hosted domain email system to Gmail with custom domain. From the looks of it, I need to upgrade our Essentials Starter to Business Starter so we can add a custom domain and Gmail to our Workspace. Well, everything I've read in their help section says to go to workspace admin > billing > subscriptions > choose Business Starter and upgrade to you.

The issue is our subscriptions only show we can upgrade to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials which is 10/users/per month. Which does not include Gmail services either. Only more storage etc.

Since we aren't a paid subscriber yet we cannot contact support. Anyone have any ideas on how we can upgrade?

Thanks! :)

The FAQ says if you have already upgraded to Google Workspace to contact support in order to be put on the waitlist. This however is not true as I tried this today. This is what support told me and I almost crapped my pants.

Google Workspace Support, Karen: For you to be able to be part of the wait list for Google Workspace Essentials Starter, you will have cancel the account and resign up for it as there's no direct way on switching your plan from Google Workspace Business Starter to Google Workspace Essentials Starter.

This is despite the fact that the FAQ on this page: https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217?product_name=UnuFlow&visit_id=637848886830446131-2250058766&rd=1&src=supportwidget0
says that if you already upgraded to Google Workspace to contact support. Then when I brought up the FAQ Help page, I was told this...

Google Workspace Support, Karen: That's right, according to that article you can transition to a no-cost option without the premium features of using Gmail with your custom domain but you subscribe to Google Workspace Business Starter already, and there's no way to directly switch your edition to Essential edition.

So anyone who upgraded early, they are now sticking us. I have another option for email which is why I wanted to look into the new no-cost option without Gmail, but it seems the help page is NOT correct and if we already upgraded, we are now stuck, which is no big deal as I told the support agent, I just don't like the fact that the help page says one thing and the agents are saying another.