Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both give a small business email on its own domain, cloud storage, documents, spreadsheets and video meetings. At the entry level they even cost the same. The real differences are desktop apps, storage and how your team likes to work.
The short verdict
Pick Google Workspace if your team works in the browser, shares documents often, and wants simple setup and real-time editing.
Pick Microsoft 365 if you or your clients rely on desktop Word, Excel and PowerPoint, you want 1TB of storage per person on every plan, or you want Teams for chat and meetings.
If your accountant, main clients or industry all send Excel and Word files, that is often the deciding point.
Prices and plans
All facts below come from each vendor's pricing page, in US dollars, as of October 2026.
- Business Starter: $7 per user a month with a 1-year commitment, or $8.40 on the flexible monthly plan. 30GB of pooled storage per user, video meetings up to 100 people, Gemini in Gmail.
- Business Standard: $14 per user a month with a 1-year commitment, or $16.80 flexible. 2TB per user, meetings up to 150 people with recording, Gemini in Docs, Meet and more, and appointment booking pages.
- Business Plus: $22 per user a month with a 1-year commitment, or $26.40 flexible. 5TB per user, meetings up to 500 people, and Vault for keeping and searching data.
- Enterprise: price on request.
All plans are billed monthly. Starter, Standard and Plus are for up to 300 users. At the time of writing, Google offered new customers 10% off Starter and Standard for 12 months, for the first 20 users. Google offers a 14-day trial.
- Business Basic: $7 per user a month, paid yearly. Web and mobile Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, business email, Teams, and 1TB of cloud storage per user.
- Business Standard with Copilot: $23.50 per user a month, paid yearly. Adds desktop apps on up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets and 5 phones per user, plus Copilot in the apps.
- Business Premium with Copilot: $32 per user a month, paid yearly. Adds device management and stronger security tools.
All three plans are for 1 to 300 users and include a 100GB mailbox per user. Microsoft offers a one-month free trial, which needs a credit card and becomes a paid plan unless you cancel. Microsoft also sells versions of these plans without Teams, so check which one you buy.
The differences that matter
Desktop apps
Google's apps run in the browser and on mobile. Microsoft 365 Business Basic is web and mobile only too. If you want the installed versions of Word and Excel, you need Business Standard or above. For a team that writes long contracts or builds complex spreadsheets, this matters most.
Storage
Microsoft gives 1TB of cloud storage per user on every business plan listed here. Google's Business Starter gives 30GB per user, pooled across the team. If you store videos, design files or years of client folders, Starter can fill up. Google's Standard plan jumps to 2TB per user.
Meetings
Google Meet is part of every Workspace plan. Starter allows 100 people but does not include recording. Standard adds recording. Microsoft's Business plans include Teams, with meetings up to 30 hours and up to 300 people. See Zoom vs Google Meet and Slack vs Microsoft Teams for more on each.
AI
Google includes Gemini in Gmail on Starter, and in Docs, Meet and more from Standard. Microsoft includes Copilot Chat on Business Basic, and Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the "with Copilot" plans. Some Copilot features are listed as metered, so check before you rely on them.
Price for a small team
For five people on a yearly commitment, at list price:
- Google Business Starter or Microsoft Business Basic: $35 a month.
- Google Business Standard: $70 a month.
- Microsoft Business Standard with Copilot: $117.50 a month.
How to decide
- Ask your main clients and your accountant which files they send you.
- Check how much storage your team uses today.
- Decide if you need meeting recordings on the entry plan.
- Try both with your own domain for one or two weeks.
Either way, setting up email on your own domain is the first step. The guide on how to set up a business email address walks through it. Once the team is on one system, how to manage a remote team covers the routines that make it work.