Update (28 January 2022 12PM IST): On a support page, Google said it’s developing a tool to “move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option.” You can also upgrade your subscription to a paid option with a 50% discount on the first year’s fees.
If you own a business, your administrator can use the Google Takeout tool to move to a new Google account with your data intact.
Google has done it again. After killing free unlimited storage on Google Photos last year, it has announced that G Suite will become a paid-only feature.
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As 9to5Google reported, all free G Suite users will be automatically upgraded to a premium plan from May 1. If the company doesn’t have your payment details, you need to update your account by July 1 — or face a shutdown. You can learn more about this on this support page.
G Suite’s free offering was godsend for bloggers or small-time website owners who could just own a domain name, and use email (and other services) for no cost.
Now that dream is ending, what are your options? Well, we’ve rounded them up for you.
Pay Google
If you like Google and its services, you can simply pay — it’s not even particularly expensive. G Suite pricing starts from $6 a month per user, and you’ll get a custom domain email, 30GB cloud storage, and 100 participant video meetings. You can check out the costs here.
GSuite pricing
G Suite pricing
Microsoft
The Seattle-based tech giant can offer you a slightly cheaper solution at $5 a month. This will get you access to a 50GB inbox with an option to use your own domain name for it. Plus, you’ll get web and mobile versions of Office apps, and 1TB OneDrive storage.
Zoho
If you’re looking for something free, Zoho’s email service is the closest you can get. It offers email hosting for a single domain for no cost, but comes with 5GB/user and 25MB attachment limits.
Zoho’s paid email plans start from as low as $1 per month. If you’re looking for a suite of solution, including video conferencing, office software, and communication tools, the company’s workplace pack will cost you $4 per user each month.
Zoho workplace solution is a cheaper alternative to Gsuite
Zoho workplace solution is a cheaper alternative to G Suite
Rackspace
This US-based company offers email hosting for custom domains for a starting price of $2.99 per month. However, for $3.99 per month, you can get 30GB of storage and ActiveSync across all the apps.
You can check out the plans here.
Other cheap email hosting services
Namespace: Costs less than $1 per month for a single email box
GoDaddy: The domain hosting service also provides professional email services at the starting price of $1.99.
Bluehost: This service lets you pick a domain name and packs five email accounts with that for $2.95 per month for the first year
Tutanota: This Germany-based service is offering email domain hosting for €1 ($1.13) per month for an annual plan
People are mad at Google for good reason
Unsurprisingly, people are mad. But it’s probably not for the reason you think. The issue that’s cropping up most isn’t about cost, rather the fact Google is providing no way to migrate G Suite users to a personal Gmail account. Here are a selection of tweets about the issue:
If had my primary email’s life hanging by a thread, I’d react in the same way.
Hopefully, Google listens to users and bashes out a solution before July 1. But given its track record, I am not optimistic.