Price Hike for G Suite

Google has been strengthening the capabilities of cutting edge office productivity suite in recent times, now the G Suite customers will see their first ever cost increase for the cloud services they are using.

Google is increasing the price of its G Suite offering for the first time. The increase concerns two editions of this suite of productivity cloud tools. G Suite Basic Subscription Tariff increases by $1 per user/month (from $5 to $6). The G Suite Business Edition cost increases by $2 per user/month (from $10 to $12). This change comes as the new head of Google Cloud comes into office.

The increase in the other regions will be adjusted according to the local currency and the market, says Google. The new pricing comes into effect on April 2nd, 2019. On the other hand, no price change affects the most complete edition, the G Suite Enterprise Edition ($25 per user/month).

The move comes as Thomas Kurian, a former senior Oracle executive, officially took the helm of Google Cloud in 2019. Thomas Kurian replaced Diane Greene, who ran Google's cloud business since December 2015. To justify this increase, Google explains that over the last ten years, G Suite has grown to provide more products: "The only thing that has not changed is the price."

The price increase will give Google additional revenue and is apparently more in line with Microsoft’s offering of Office 365. Microsoft Office 365 pricing structure starts at $5 per month and goes up to $12.50 for annual commitment and $6-$15 for a monthly commitment.

Why Google is raising price:

Google claims in the past it has brought dozens of new G Suite services including cloud search for enterprise-grade search capabilities, Hangouts Meet for the video conferencing, Hangout Chat for team messaging as well as the enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in all its products.

Regardless of making so many additional features, this is the first time that Google is raising the price. The technology leader has several good reasons for the increase, as its cloud-based productivity suite has really been seeing impressive enhancements lately and continues to evolve in features as well as app offerings.

A few things to note :

• Those customers who are in an annual contract will get charged new pricing when G Suite renews.

• The prices will be applicable globally with local market adjustment for certain regions.

• Current contracts will remain as it is.

Customers who avail G suite services through a reseller or partner, will be informed directly by the respective Google reseller or partner.