If you’re paying for Google Workspace’s premium features, you’re not going to like the web giant’s latest announcement. Indeed, the Mountain View company has unveiled the price increase that will hit all users and companies who have subscribed to the Flex offer.
In June 2021, Google made a big change in the way Workspace works, its office suite which includes its Gmail, Meet, Drive and Calendar applications. Finally, the latter became free for ordinary mortals. So now you can enjoy all the benefits of Google’s business apps at no extra cost. Of course, however, the firm has not removed all monetization options.
Indeed, it is still possible today to subscribe to a subscription of €9.99 per month which offers additional benefits and features, such as access to a reservation service or advanced emailing campaigns. On February 16, Google announced that this subscription will undergo a sharp price increase, all over the world. And French users will particularly feel it passing.
Google dramatically increases the price of the Workspace subscription
In the United States, the sentence is already painful. In total, the increase will be equal to 20%. Thus, the Starter, Standard and Plus offers, which currently cost $6, $12 and $18, will respectively increase to $7.20, $14.40 and $21.60 per month. But that is for the United States. In France, the bill will be even higher.
On the same subject — Gmail: how to activate the Google Workspace interface for free on the web version
If Google has not yet given exact prices for European markets, a spokesperson for the firm confirmed with our colleagues at TechRadar thatan 11% increase will be applied in addition to the 20% increase for countries in the euro zonein order to “maintain alignment of exchange rates against the US dollar”. For now, this increase only concerns companies that have subscribed to the Flex offer, which adapts according to the number of employees using the suite.
As expected, this price increase hides a marketing strategy from Google. Indeed, the manufacturer takes care to specify thatby switching to an annual subscription before March 14, 2023, the monthly price remains similar to the current one. A way like any other to encourage its users to commit to the long term. Finally, note that companies with less than 10 employees will not be affected by this price increase before the January 14, 2024.
Source : Google
