G Suite, aka Google Workspace explained with Benefits and Pricing.

Google WorkSpace, formerly known as G Suite, has been an absolute lifesaver, especially for businesses that have shifted to the remote working environment. Here, collaboration, ease of access, and efficiency must be up to a certain level.

Google offers a full-featured set of services beneficial for businesses, enterprises, and nonprofits. This set of services is called G-Suite. This simple guide will explore what products are included in G-Suite and how much they will cost you.

One of the strengths of G Suite is its flexibility in terms of pricing. There is always something that fits in your budget. The suite offers three plans for its users to choose from, and besides them, there are a lot of freebies, too, if you are just starting.

What is G Suite?

G Suite is a set of Google’s products that cater to businesses. It is a collection of services that empower businesses to connect, create, access, and control, as in Google’s own words.

How can you connect?

With the following Google Products:

• Custom Business Email with Gmail
• Calendar
• Hangouts chat
• Hangouts Meet
• Hangouts Meet Hardware

How can you create?

With the following Google Products:

• Docs
• Sheets
• Forms
• Slides
• Sites
• App Maker
• Keep
• Jamboard

How can you access it?

With the following Google Products:

• Drive
• Google Cloud Search

How can you control it?

With the following Google Products:

• Admin
• Vault
• Mobile Device Management

The collection of all these products is called G Suite.

What is the right G Suite plan for me?

G Suite offers three plan tiers: Basic, Business, and Enterprise.

With the Basic Plan, you can access all the core features like Gmail, Sheets, Docs, and Slides. 

The Basic Plan costs around $6 per user per month and comes with 30GB of Google Drive storage, which is not a lot if you are a business, but it’s okay if you are starting out.

However, you can always upgrade to the Business Plan if you hit the storage limit.

The Business Plan costs twice as much as the Basic – $12 per user per month. One of the best things is that it comes with unlimited storage, making it the most popular G Suite plan.

Lastly, with the Enterprise plan, the users get unlimited storage and some of the most advanced controls the former two plants lack. It costs $25 per user per month, almost twice as much as the Business Plan.

Features that are common to all the G Suite plan tiers:

• An ad-free experience
• 99.9% Uptime guarantee
• Access to applications like Sheets, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Gmail, Drawing, Keep, and more
• Access to a vast library of add-ons
• Access G Suite apps on your phone
• Ability to access and edit MS Office files
• Access to a centralized admin console
• The ability to work offline
• Password monitoring and strength control
• The ability to enforce user-managed security keys
• 24/7 customer support online and by phone
• The ability to whitelist apps

The most significant benefits of G Workspace for your business

Domain-based email

G Suite enables your business to have an email address based on your domain. It looks very professional. With it, all employees inside your organization will get a professional email address, and your organization will own these email accounts.

The email address [email protected] looks more professional than [email protected]. If you are running a small business, having custom email addresses in your domain is very important. 

Furthermore, having your domain name will help you promote your company and build trust with existing and new customers. Another advantage is when an employee wishes to leave your organization. 

You can quickly gain access to the employee’s email in G Suite. Once the employee leaves, they will lose access to their email account and the attached files, but they will remain safe with the company.

Shared Calendar

Google Calendar will help you with your efficiency by offering to manage your tasks, stick to your schedule, stay sorted by scheduling calls, and set project deadlines and reminders.

You can even get the tasks and events emailed to you every morning. The best feature of Calendar is that it allows you to create multiple calendars. You can share different calendars with different teams within your organization.

Users can also create group calendars for teams to notify about important events; only those with whom you share the Calendar can see them. Users can also easily hide or show calendars and switch between views by selecting the drop-down menu.

Users also get an option to create a calendar that can be made publicly available so that the customers can know what event an organization has scheduled.

Support 24/7

Users receive 24/7 support from G Suite’s service providers through phone, live chat, and email. Google puts its users front and center and is reputed for providing good customer support. 

Hence, you can be confident that Google can help you with problems and queries using the G Suite.

Only G Suite admins can access the support section, and phone support in English is provided 24/7 throughout the year. 

Whenever you face a problem, dial a number, and a person on the other end is ready to help you with a relevant solution.

Increased storage space

Users get ample storage space, which they can use to retain lots of email and large files like images and documents.

Users get up to 30 GB of storage with the G Suite Basic plan. But, if you go a tier or two higher, you will get unlimited storage with the Business and Enterprise plan.

‍Organizations with less than 5 users can avail the benefits of using 1TB of storage space.

One of the most significant benefits of Google Drive is its traceability feature, which allows users to access any files in their system by just entering one single word in the search box.

As G Suite is a cloud-based solution, users can access their stored data from anywhere around the globe, anytime. 

Multiple email addresses

By creating email aliases, G Suite allows employees to create multiple email addresses. Users can add up to 30 email aliases for an employee’s email address.

With G Suite, users can have one primary domain; if needed, they can also choose another domain of their choice as the domain alias. These aliases help the users keep their inboxes organized, and they can still receive emails without disclosing their identities.

If a user is running multiple businesses and managing different brands under an organization, they may have separate domains for each business endeavor.

Users can add up to 20 aliases to their G Suite account. Each employee at an organization will receive a primary email address at the primary domain. Employees can send and receive emails from both the primary domain and domain aliases at no extra cost.

Improved team collaboration

G Suite enables the team members to collaborate on the same document in real-time. Be it Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, or G Suite, have you covered every area collaboration-wise?

This increases the employee’s productivity and the overall quality of the work being tackled. Managers can also comment on and edit specific document areas, leaving behind actionable advice or suggestions.

Users can also set relevant access rules, such as whether other people in the organization can edit, comment on, or view a document. For example, writers can comment on each other’s work, which enables them to receive the necessary feedback.

However, coders, on the other hand, could view that document, unlike other writers. G Suite is a cloud-based solution. All the changes made are recorded in the version history, and an older version of a document can be viewed at any time.

Also read: Google Cloud Platform 

Users can also collaborate seamlessly with people outside the organization. Also, users can always use third-party apps like ContactBook to enhance their contact-sharing capabilities.

ContactBook enables users to share their contacts with their teammates seamlessly. All that needs to be done is to link your Google account to ContactBook using Google Sync. Many more features are associated with this specific feature and all the others we saw above.

Offline capabilities

G Suite is powerful because it lets you access its solutions offline, like Drive, Gmail, and Calendar. This makes it easy for the user to work on essential files without waiting for a stable internet connection when outside.

‍ However, users and administrators must first enable offline access through the Google Admin Console dashboard. If you want offline access to your files, you must first allow offline access in your Google Drive settings.

You get all the flexibility like creating, editing, and commenting in the offline mode. Your work will automatically get synced to the cloud once you reconnect with the internet.

Similarly, Gmail users can read, draft, and search specific email messages offline. However, they must first enable the offline mode in the settings, as we also saw above.

New inboxes are automatically updated once your online connection is established.

Access control

G Suite allows the admin to give specific users access to the organization’s data. Admins can set access capabilities based on metrics like the user’s identity, location, IP address, device used, and security status.

Admins also control the users by letting them access the data only with the organization-owned device or IP address.

Access control lets the users detect suspicious device activity like unwanted logins, phishing, and unauthorized access to data. Appropriate measures can be taken in that case to restore the security.

Access control lets you quickly detect suspicious device activity, suspicious logins, phishing, and unauthorized access to data stored in the Drive.

Video conferencing

Google Meet, the online video conferencing solution, offers users all the essential features for hosting video meetings, conferences, and webinars.

It includes notable features like screen sharing, recording, and joining a video conference by phone. The meeting hosts can also easily share spreadsheets, files, documents, and digital presentations with attendees.

As a host, you need to send a link to the invitees of your meeting, and once the meeting begins, the host can also view the number and names of people who have joined the meeting.

‍Hosts can also invite people to the meeting by creating events in the Google Calendar. It can be done by adding the invitees’ email addresses and then pasting the meeting link.

If an invitee to the meeting cannot join via the video feed, they can still join the meeting through the phone.

The best thing is that it is free!

Conclusion

G Suite is a versatile combination of cloud-based collaboration and productivity tools that benefit the diverse needs of businesses and individuals. 

Its seamless integration of applications like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, and more fosters efficient communication and collaboration. The benefits of G Suite include enhanced productivity, real-time collaboration, secure data storage, and efficiently streamlined workflows.

The pricing structure offers flexibility with various plans to accommodate different budgets and user requirements. Whether for small businesses, large corporations, or personal use, G Suite is a valuable solution for using advanced cloud-based tools to drive innovation, communication, and overall organizational efficiency.

I hope this guide on G Suite and its benefits and pricing helped you somehow. Let us know by commenting below on your favorite G Suite, aka Google Workspace cloud-based service.

FAQs

Is Google Workspace better than G Suite?

Google Workspace is the newer name of G Suite itself. It comes with a few new features, but there are no significant functional differences overall. So, they are different names for the same thing.

Are there any discounts for educational or nonprofit organizations?

Yes, Google Workspace, aka G Suite, offers special pricing and features for educational institutions and nonprofit organizations. Eligible organizations can readily apply for discounted or free licenses.

What happens to my data if I cancel my G Suite subscription?

You can download your data from Google services like Drive and Gmail if you cancel your G Suite subscription. It’s essential to make sure that you back up any valuable information before canceling your subscription to ensure you retain access to your data.

How is my individual or business data secured in G Suite?

G Suite employs robust security measures, including data encryption, two-factor authentication, and advanced threat detection. Google’s infrastructure is designed from the foundation to protect against data breaches and unauthorized access. Google is also reputed for its security.