Google has announced a price increase for all Workspace business plans, effective immediately for new customers and starting March 17, 2025, for existing subscribers. As Singapore SMB executives prepare for this change, here’s what you need to understand about the new pricing structure and what it means for your business.
Previous vs. New Pricing
Google’s latest price adjustment represents approximately a 15% increase across all tiers. Here’s how the pricing has changed:
Previous Pricing (Annual Commitment, per user/month):
- Business Starter: S$8.00
- Business Standard: S$16.00
- Business Plus: S$25.00
The New Pricing Structure
Annual Commitment (per user/month):
- Business Starter: S$9.40
- Business Standard: S$18.80
- Business Plus: S$29.40
Monthly Commitment (20% higher than annual commitment pricing):
- Business Starter: S$11.28
- Business Standard: S$22.56
- Business Plus: S$35.28
What’s Not Changing
The price increase doesn’t affect:
- Workspace for Education subscriptions
- Workspace for Nonprofits subscriptions
- Frontline, Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Workspace Individual subscriptions
- Personal Google accounts, including accounts with Google One AI Premium
What Google Says You’re Getting
According to Google, the primary justification for this price increase is the inclusion of Gemini AI features across all business tiers. These AI capabilities are being rolled out now for Business customers, with Enterprise customers gaining access from January 29.
The Reality for Singapore SMBs
While Google presents this as a value-add, there are several practical considerations for Singapore businesses:
Is Gemini AI Worth the Price?
It seems Google is using AI as justification for raising prices, but how many average users will actually use these features in the next year? For many SMBs, especially those using Workspace primarily for email and basic document collaboration, the AI features may go largely unused while you pay the premium.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft has been similarly aggressive with its AI push via Microsoft Co-Pilot. Given the industry-wide focus on AI integration, it’s likely only a matter of time before Microsoft follows with their own price increases. This appears to be the new normal for productivity suites—using AI features to justify higher subscription costs regardless of whether most users benefit from these capabilities in the near term.
Storage Limitations Remain Unchanged
Despite the price increase, the Business Starter tier still comes with just 30GB of storage per user. In 2025, with the growing size of documents, presentations, and email attachments, 30GB is incredibly limiting for businesses. A typical small business user can fill this space quickly just through regular email use over a year or two.
What’s particularly frustrating is the disproportional jump in storage between tiers. Moving from Business Starter (30GB) to Business Standard (2TB) represents a massive 66x increase in storage. This creates an awkward middle ground where many businesses need more than 30GB but significantly less than 2TB, yet must pay for the higher tier simply for adequate storage.
Budgeting Implications
For a 10-person company on Business Starter with an annual commitment, this represents an annual increase from S$960 to S$1,128—an additional S$168 per year. While not enormous, it’s an expense that comes with questionable added value for many businesses.
Strategic Options for Singapore SMBs
- Review Your Actual Usage: Before March 17, assess how your team uses Workspace. If your business subscription still includes those ex-employee’s accounts, it’s time to remove them or trim the number of subscribed accounts. Also, if you’re primarily using email and basic docs, consider if the new features justify the cost.
- Consider Tier Changes: The gap between the Starter and Standard tiers has remained proportional. Standard offers 2TB of storage per user—a significant upgrade from the 30GB on Starter.
- Review Plan Structure: If you’re caught in the storage gap between Starter and Standard, consider if strategically upgrading some users while keeping others on Starter might be more cost effective than upgrading everyone.
- Optimize Your Google Drive: If storage is your main concern, implement a company policy for Google Drive usage, regularly clean up unnecessary files, and consider external storage solutions for large files.
Final Thoughts
Price increases are inevitable in SaaS services, but they should come with meaningful improvements to core functionality. While Gemini AI might be impressive technology, for many Singapore SMBs, basic improvements like more balanced storage allocation across tiers would have been more immediately valuable than AI features that may take time to integrate into daily workflows.
Google Workspace remains one of the best productivity suites available, with excellent email hosting, real-time collaboration, and seamless integration across apps. The ecosystem’s strength still makes it a top choice for most businesses despite the price increase.
As Singapore businesses continue to digitize and grow, the focus should be on optimizing your current Workspace setup to get maximum value from your subscription. Sometimes, addressing the fundamentals—like better storage management—can yield more immediate benefits than exploring new features.
How is your business handling the Google Workspace price increase? Are you planning to explore the new Gemini AI features, or would you have preferred improvements to other aspects of the service? Share your thoughts with me!
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