Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Price, Features & Which Is Best in 2020

Both Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) offer complete sets of productivity features for business use. At $6 per user, per month, Google Workspace is the best choice for businesses needing branded email, cloud storage options, and easy-to-use document creation software. Microsoft 365, at $5 per user, per month, is a better choice for businesses that regularly work with Word documents or advanced Excel spreadsheets.

• Google Workspace: Best for collaborative teams that want user-friendly tools at the best value.
• Microsoft 365: Best for small businesses that require the ability to regularly edit and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with people outside the organization.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 at a Glance

How We Evaluated Google Workspace & Microsoft 365

Both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are full-featured productivity suites that help you handle the things you do on a daily basis, like email, cloud storage, and creating and sharing documents. Based on these needs, we evaluated both solutions based on the following:

• Affordability
• Ease of use
• Browser-based functionality
• Mobile apps
• Collaboration features
• Administrative tools
• Cloud storage
• Customer support

Based on our comparison, Google Workspace is the best option for most small businesses. Google Workspace includes the features that startup and small businesses need while also offering the best value and combination of storage, ease of use, accessibility, and collaboration tools.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Pricing

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 service plans start at $6 per user, per month. The plans are comparable, although Google Workspace offers an overall better value with unlimited storage options in its $12 per user, per month top-tier Business plan. Microsoft 365 caps storage at 1TB on all plans. Both solutions bill customers monthly; however, Microsoft 365 offers a small discount to customers who pay annually.

Google Workspace Pricing

• Basic: $6 per user, per month; includes business email, 30GB of cloud storage, and Google’s suite of business productivity apps
• Business: $12 per user, per month; adds cloud search, unlimited cloud storage, and archiving vault
• Free trial: 14 days

Microsoft 365 Pricing

• Microsoft 365 Basic: $6 per user, per month; includes cloud storage, OneDrive, and web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Microsoft 365 Apps: $10 per user, per month; includes Office apps across devices and cloud file storage
• Microsoft 365 Standard: $15 per user, per month; adds business email, online meetings, and chat
• Free trial: 30 days (Standard and Premium plans only)

Takeaway: Although both services offer similar features for approximately the same price, Google Workspace is the clear winner here. Business email, arguably one of the most valuable features for small businesses, is available with all Google Workspace’s service plans. However, access to business email with Microsoft’s solution is not available with its Basic plan.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Features

Both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 offer similar features, including cloud storage, business email, and mobile apps. The biggest difference between the two is that business email is available with Google Workspace’s entry-level plan, while Microsoft 365 only offers it with its mid-range plan and higher.

Google Workspace Tiered Features

Microsoft 365 Tiered Features

Takeaway: The winner here is almost too close to call. Both offer robust security and compliance features, team collaboration tools, mobile apps, and generous online storage with similarly priced service plans. Microsoft 365’s mileage tracking and online appointment scheduling are nice features to have, but Google Workspace gains a slight edge overall by offering business email with all service plans, whereas Microsoft 365 does not.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Ease of Use

Both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 have the benefit of being familiar to most users. Google Workspace has the familiar look and feel of Gmail, while Microsoft 365 builds on the software that many users have known for years. If you’ve never used either, Google Workspace is a bit less intimidating and more intuitive to get started.

Google Workspace Ease of Use

Google typically chooses function over form, which sometimes means that its design isn’t quite as pleasing to the eye as Microsoft’s applications. However, the positive trade-off is that Google Workspace’s features work seamlessly behind the scenes. For example, documents created in Google Docs are automatically saved in your Google Drive. You don’t even have to name it first. It also constantly autosaves your work in the background so your files are always up to date.

Google Workspace also tends to focus on the core activities that users need most, which means it doesn’t suffer from feature bloat as much as Microsoft 365. Google Workspace apps don’t have some of the advanced features you’ll find in Microsoft Word or Excel, but it more than makes up for it with a clean, simple interface that just makes sense.

Microsoft 365 Ease of Use

Office has certainly come a long way, but there’s no question that it tries to be everything to everyone. Microsoft packs in every feature it can think of, sometimes at the expense of the user experience. This is especially true of the desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The browser and mobile app versions, on the other hand, are far simpler in design and focus more on putting the most important tools within reach.

Takeaway: If you and your employees are more familiar with the user interface of one of these solutions over the other, then that’s the investment to make. However, if Google and Microsoft apps are both unfamiliar, Google Workspace has a slightly lower learning curve than Microsoft 365.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Business Email

Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook are considered two of the leading business email providers available today. Most users are primarily interested in how easily they can set up their branded business email (yourname@yourbusiness.com instead of @gmail.com), how much email storage they have, and the maximum file size limit you can attach to an email.

Google Workspace Business Email

Google Workspace provides 30GB of storage and allows you to easily set up your email on your business’ web domain while taking advantage of all of the functionality of Gmail. Gmail allows attachments up to 25MB, though you can share files larger than that directly from Google Drive. You can send up to 2,000 emails per day and receive over 86,000 daily. Learn more about setting up your business email with our Gmail for business setup guide.

Microsoft 365 Business Email

Microsoft’s business email client, Outlook, has a send limit of 5,000 per day and a 50GB storage limit on each of their business plans. This limit is separate from your overall cloud storage, which means your email attachments aren’t taking up space in OneDrive. On the other hand, if email storage space is important, unlike Google Workspace, you aren’t able to use your full cloud storage (1TB) for email.

Takeaway: Google Workspace’s business email management options give it the advantage over Microsoft 365. Email storage is shared with your overall Google Drive storage limit, which means that for teams that regularly email large files, the Business plan is definitely a better option than Microsoft 365, which limits your email storage to 50GB.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Apps

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both include software for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Both offer browser-based versions, as well as iOS and Android apps. However, only Microsoft 365 offers desktop versions of its software to its Business and Business Premium customers.

Google Workspace Apps: Docs, Sheets & Slides

All of Google Workspace’s apps for document creation, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, are browser-based with mobile app versions. Unfortunately, there are no desktop versions, meaning you generally need to be connected to the internet to create and edit files. However, each has the option to mark files for offline access, allowing you to continue working on a file even if you lose your internet connection, updating your changes the next time you connect to the internet.

Microsoft 365 Apps: Word, Excel & PowerPoint

Microsoft 365’s document creation apps, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, are available as desktop software, browser-based apps, and mobile apps. Like Google Workspace, new documents, changes, and edits made offline are automatically saved and synced to the cloud once you’re back online.

Takeaway: Microsoft 365 has a slight edge over Google Workspace in the apps department simply due to its ubiquitousness. Having been around for over 30 years, most people have at least a passing familiarity with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint’s features and user interface.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Collaboration

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are built around team collaboration. However, both companies employ their own unique approach to facilitating teamwork. Neither is necessarily better than the other. It boils down to what a company expects from its collaboration tools.

Google Workspace Collaboration

Google Workspace makes collaboration dead-simple. In fact, one of the strongest aspects of Google’s productivity software is that multiple people can work on the same document, spreadsheet, or slide deck at the same time, without having to save files, email links to each other, and keep track of versions. Revisions happen in real-time while giving you the ability to see what changes have been made and accept or reject them.

Microsoft 365 Collaboration

Microsoft 365’s collaboration advantage lies in its widespread usage throughout the business world. Sales agents and teams can send a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation to clients outside the organization with the confidence they can be opened and read at the other end. It also offers more advanced features than Google Workspace, such as built-in artificial intelligence services to help users create more polished documents.

Takeaway: The deciding factor on which solution is the better collaboration choice lies in how the tools will be used. Companies that mainly work together on in-house projects will find Google Workspace more than sufficient to get the job done. Teams that frequently collaborate with people outside the organization will benefit from Microsoft 365’s familiarity and prevalent use in the business world.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Customer Service

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both offer 24/7 phone and web support to their business clients. Each also offers access to robust self-help knowledge libraries and community support forums. Google and Microsoft both cater to businesses, and their customer service for these types of users is good.

Google Workspace Customer Service

Google gives Google Workspace administrators access to 24/7 phone, email, and chat support in 14 languages. For users, support is available through Google Help, their online knowledge base for self-help. Google is known for having helpful support agents and resolving issues quickly when you need a real person.

Microsoft 365 Customer Service

Microsoft 365 also provides live phone and email support to business customers. In addition, Microsoft has extensive training materials, including self-help guides, how-to videos, and a searchable knowledge base. Microsoft is known for paying attention to its business customers, and Microsoft 365 support is no different.

Takeaway: When it comes to deciding which company provides better customer service, it’s too close to call. Both have support teams available by phone and online around the clock, and also offer self-help documentation so users can troubleshoot issues themselves. In the customer service arena, the winner is a draw.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Customer Reviews

Google Workspace Customer Reviews

The most commonly mentioned reasons users love Google Workspace is the ease of collaboration and how intuitive the software is to use. Customers also say they enjoy how tightly integrated everything is, and how they are able to work anywhere and still have access to all of their files. One negative user’s mention is that the admin panel is less straightforward than it could be, and sometimes hard to navigate.

Microsoft 365 Customer Reviews

Microsoft 365 customers say that because the software is so widely used, it’s easy to create, share, and open documents created by other businesses or customers. They also like the advanced features found in the apps, like real-time editing suggestions. However, one area that users reviewed negatively is the amount of space the Microsoft 365 desktop apps take up on your computer.

Takeaway: Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 each have loyal fans and followings, which are borne out by generally positive online customer reviews.

When to Use Google Workspace

Google Workspace is the best option for small businesses that want to take advantage of creating branded email using Google’s Gmail service. It’s also best for users who regularly collaborate on in-house document creation and want to take advantage of the endless number of integrations between Google Drive and many of the project management tools, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and other apps that small businesses already use.

Visit Google Workspace

When to Use Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is the best option for small businesses that require the ability to regularly edit and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with people outside the organization. It’s also the only one of the two that has dedicated desktop versions of each productivity app.

Visit Microsoft 365

When to Use an Alternative: Zoho Workplace

Zoho Workplace is a cloud-based suite of apps that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and mail client with a forever-free plan for up to five users. Paid plans range from $1 to $6 per user, per month. Zoho Workplace is an affordable option for teams that want a productivity suite with robust team collaboration tools and integrates tightly with a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Bottom Line

For small businesses looking for an office productivity suite that provides branded business email, cloud storage, easy collaboration and sharing, and the ability to create and access all of your documents wherever you work, Google Workspace is the best choice. It’s intuitive and easy to use, so your team can usually be up and running the same day.

Google Workspace offers a free 14-day trial, with monthly billing after the trial ends. Sign up for a business account and get set up quickly by visiting Google Workspace.

Visit Google Workspace