Create a Family Plan for low cost Google Workspace

[johanna]

I have a custom domain name for my family members as e-mail, and I have used the G Suite. Now that it is shutting down as legacy, I suggest that Google Workspace would create a family plan for up to ten members that is low cost, as it really makes zero sense for me to upgrade to Google Workspace that is meant for business. Other services offer low cost family domains. Why doesn't Google think of offering it like Apple does or Microsoft does?

Google should really consider adding a low cost annual plan for families only with custom domain. For example, I have no need to have a website now nor ever. I just like to have the custom domain e-mail addresses for the few family members.

Google, show us that you are here for helping us, who are not businesses, or not for profits, we are just families! This is a great development idea! Run with it, and create something cool, like Google is known to do!

P.S. Upgrading to Google Workspace, even with the temporary discount, is an expensive option. No one wants to move from free to an expensive. I can find cheap offers for taking my custom e-mails. I would be happy to stay with Google if they can create a cost effective plan for families!

[kim_nilsson]

People new to this thread, don't post about G Suite Legacy, or Essentials, as neither is relevant.

No new people can start using Legacy, and Essentials doesn't have Gmail with custom domain, which is the entire point of this request.

There is still a valid customer base for a low-cost Family plan for Workspace, including custom domain for Gmail, but also, of course, the ability to use Family plans for other services, like Google One and YouTube Premium Family.

THAT would be a family plan that would sell like hotcakes.

And, before you respond, NO, the current Workspace plans are not price competitive. They are all too expensive for non-businesses.

[Raphael12345]

I would happily pay up to $20/month just to have a family custom domain and basic user management with all the normal "google personal" features as opposed to being shoved into their enterprise product which limits all the features needed for a family.

[Xriuk]

I don't see why such thing is not an option. It seems weird to pay 5+€/month just to get custom domains plus what? 30gb only of storage per user?

[solarcoaster]

Echoing the points raised by @johanna, @DRW, @kim_nilsson, etc., etc.

I have Workspace and a custom domain through Google. My family uses Google because we love the platform: email, photos, Keep notes, YouTube, calendar, SSO, all of it. Everything is centrally managed. However, we don't require a business solution.

Google Family is what best fits our needs... but we can't use a custom domain?! How cool would it be to get all of the benefits of Google Family with email addresses like dad@surname.com, mom@surname.com, child@surname.com, etc., etc.?

We really, really want the best of both worlds: a Family plan with a custom domain. We would gladly pay for such a service, and reading the comments above (and on other forums like reddit), it seems like there's an appetite for this feature. Give the people what they want!

[bobthekelpie]

So it took me a little bit of effort but I managed to get a custom domain working for Gmail... so that emails are sent/received by user@domain.name but I use Gmail to manage...

I configured it through a third party (free) email forwarder called Forward Email.

It wasn't too difficult to set up. Happy to provide more details if anyone wants them. Seems to be a decent workaround in the absence of a pure (and affordable) Google solution.

[jmelerine]

I saw this option spoken of several times in my search. But I have been afraid to try and make a custom website through some random 3rd party, in fear that if that website suddenly went under...like would I lose access to my Gmail account associated with that domain? If you truly think you have a reliable way to do this, and could provide more info to someone only partially-technology-literate, I would be very grateful.  (Honestly I don't even know how this forum works...I checked the notify by email if someone replies so guess we will see?)

[bobthekelpie]

The website in the middle (Forward Email) is used to handle transfers of your email... but day-to-day, you're using Gmail as usual. So from that perspective, it's fine once it is set up. Either way, you certainly wouldn't lose access to Gmail as it kind of works alongside your Gmail account, rather than taking it over.

In terms of whether it's beyond what you're comfortable working with, I guess that's something for you to think about!

Maybe have a look here and see if it's something you think you can do... then I can provide a little more detail if you're keen. 🙂

[bunchofreeds]

No great solution for us yet it seems.

My requirements are a google centric family experience with my own domain name. I'd like Google Family basically with my own domain, so I can share purchased storage, use google home (fully), share photos and calendars between family members. We use Android Devices, phones, home IoT, google TV, GMAIL, family photos, docs, sheets. TOTALLY happy to pay for this as a family plan.

We don't need Google Workspace which we have moved to unfortunately and are now paying for. It works obviously but is extremely expensive and fails miserably for anything non business like google home or families stuff.

I can sign up for a free google account using my own domain name, but this requires I have my email elsewhere. As soon as I add gmail it sets the gmail ID as primary and screws with outbound email so you can't send as your domain.

Closest I've found is to migrate all family members to free gmail accounts creating some crazy @gmail address for each member. Then add your own user@domain name to each account. Then you need to buy into some outbound email service like forwardemail.net so you can receive AND SEND email using that account. Upsides are you can login to each account using your user@domain and can invite users into your family and use Google One etc. Downsides are each account stubbornly uses the gmail address to identify the user after logging in (profile info top right), and of course you need some third party to send out your email using your domain at cost. I'd rather pay google for this and keep it simple.

Surely a Family plan is possible and would be quite profitable for Google. Is the concern you will get small businesses using this? Wouldn't the money you would get for this plan still be OK for these small users??

[Declan_Lennon]

Did something change in this regard as of August 21? The support article below states the following: 

After August 21, 2023, you can no longer identify as a personal user and revert to a no-cost

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2855120?hl=en

But strangely my Admin console (similar to most here we have a custom family email domain for 5 users, no need for all the Workspace extras) is now showing that we're on "Google Workspace Business Starter" with a Payment Plan listed as "Free Plan".

[kim_nilsson]

Yes, there were news about this all over the place, that 2023-08-21 was the last day for reverting old Legacy G Suite-turned-paid-Workspace back to free for personal use Workspace Starter.

[PhilippK]

Same problem here, I was fine with the workspace starter plan (already upgraded from the free account as we exceeded the 15GB per user limit), but it just got worse:
- 2 or 3 years ago Google Photos were not considered for total storage, now they are. 
- It was possible to buy Google One storage with a Workspace account, now the storage is not considered anymore.
I need to upgrade to standard, which is 86,4 USD per month! (for my family of 6)
Transitioning to Google One Family is affordable (99 USD per year for 2 TB and 5 users) but not feasible. All Google Photo shared albums would be gone as they can't be transferred. 
I'm feeling trapped in a system with nowhere to go.

[FargoUT]

That sucks. Google is driving away a lot of customers they should easily be retaining. They've moved on from consumers to enterprise customers (all while not providing very good enterprise products). I think Google's best days are behind it, and unfortunately they're making some terrible business decisions over the past few years that will alienate its user base.

I'm honestly considering switching back to Microsoft because, despite all the frustrations I have with Microsoft, they do seem to care about the consumer customer as much as the enterprise one.

[PhilippK]

True, I experienced a huge leap forward with Microsoft during the last 2 years. The search in Sharepoint wasn't usable 2 years ago but now works as good as within G Drive.
I basically have nowhere to go with my familiy setup because of Google Photos, that's not even a Workspace feature, but linked to by Workspace account and can't be exported.

[PhilippK]

Actually Google could just offer the Non-Profit rates for families.
I use the Workspace account to save memories (photos), share calendar and communicate - not to make a profit.

[kim_nilsson]

Non Profit would 25% of the price, and many would perhaps accept that.

$36/year per person for 2TB storage.

[FargoUT]

I think they would. That's a lot of storage. My Google One Family plan offers 2TB of shared space for 6 people, which is decent. It's $99/year. It's almost not worth the price just due to the sharing of the 2TB of space (Microsoft's similarly-priced family plan, by comparison, offers 1TB for each user).

[PhilippK]

I would also be happy if there is a flexible storage solution, it's a huge rise from 30GB (starter) to 2TB (standard) - and of course in price.
I have to pay $86,4 / month vs $99 / year which would suite me - I just can't do the transfer.

[jim114]

This sounds like a way to go; But some questions:

• Do you have a single email domain?
• How can we transfer Photos, documents etc.

[wrmerritt84]

Does anyone know if Google is seriously considering this? I have a family of 7 so Google Family doesn't work for us (it has a limit of 6 members). When I contacted support to inquire if the limit could be raised, even for a fee, they told me I should split up my family into two families. Yeah, like that's a real option. Let me just tell my wife and kids that we're going to split everyone up into two groups and some of them are gonna go with mom and some with me. 

I looked into Google Workspaces - the cheapest version is still $6 per person per month and all I really want is the ability to manage email addresses, calendars, restrict content (on android devices where the email addresses are used to login), restrict purchases (on those same devices), and share photos. Shared storage would be a nice-to-have so that I can manage backups of all the devices, but I could make it work with independent storage. I'm not sure if Google Workspace can do all those things or what it looks like so the cost is a pretty big leap to make without any confirmation.

Has anyone set up a Google Workspace to manage their large family? Or can anyone answer whether those features are available on Google Workspace?

[Raphael12345]

I wouldn't recommend Workspaces. You will have none of the family features and many consumer features are actively being disabled by google

[JoeChesak]

I am in the same situation.  I pay for 9 family accounts, all with my last name.  Two are out of space and managing that.  I am one of them using GooglePlay to pay for Google Drive.  But I would rather get rid of that and just upgrade to something I can afford.  But it's a big jump in price; too big.

[TrevorMacT]

Did anyone else get their storage nerfed? For 2 of my 5 users, I was paying separately for 1TB of storage and recently was migrated and now only have 150GB across all users, unless I upgrade. 

Just want a family plan, for email and basic services. Will pay for extra storage as needed. Can't pay $15 a person when it is not for a business. Very frustrating.

[kim_nilsson]

The removal of individual storage has been known and communicated a very long time. Workspace only increases storage based on number of accounts. 30 GB per account.

The only storage one can purchase for Workspace is 10 TB, which costs $300/month! Which is normally only relevant for fairly large businesses and not for individuals or families.

[guibw]

Yeah I'm on the same page. Until this month, my Google Drive 1TB Subscription was still active for my user. Suddenly, I have started receiving emails from The Google Workspace Team telling me I have exceeded my storage... which was now 584GB/240GB (240GB is the total from my 8 users/licenses).

I have tried contacting Google and their answer is that Google Drive subscriptions are no longer available fork Workspace.

So I have like 50 days to figure out what to do. I'm paying like $6/user for 30GB of storage only whereas Google One is $9 for 2TB of storage.
But obviously you can't purchase Google One storage for a Workspace account. And you can't have Google One with custom domain.

I feel trapped, because I've been with Google Apps/Workspace/Gsuite since the BETA, since it was free, so I have emails from 15+ years ago, photos, calendars, notes, etc.
No idea if it is possible to migrate them somewhere.
My workspace domain is for my family/friends, I can't upgrade to Standard just to have 2TB of storage. I don't use 90% of the Workspace tools as I am not a business.

[TrevorMacT]

Since I have a family 5 pack of MS Office, I am moving storage over to OneDrive, which provides 2TB per user for the single cost of $120 CDN a year. I will then downgrading to the cheapest Google plan for email and calendar. I also have 15 years worth of messages and events, as do my kids who have never used anything else for email. 

It's unfortunate that Google does not continue to see value in a plan for individuals or families, especially when I would be happy to pay for additional storage for accounts that need it.

I still have the email which stated "Host your domain on Google and it will be free forever." Here we are, at forever.

[jim114]

We started using Google as Google for Domains when it was encouraged to be done for any DNS Domain name. Previously we were running our own mail server and I was tired of the hassle of updating and breakdowns of hardware.

Your organization exceeded its ??? GB of Google Workspace storage.
The user with the most storage drive shows 490.84 or 1.03 TB USED and yet we gets a warning.

And our workspace showed 522.8 GB of shared 195 GB (268%) used.

In the past we purchased an additional 1 TB storage for $99.00 per year on google play which I see was canceled in Apr 22, 2023 (But not by us) Individual storage subscriptions are no longer available for purchase. Now, because Google changed to shared storage there appears to be no method to expand storage for one user.

Customers on G Suite Basic and Google Workspace Business Starter can add additional storage for individual users. This offering does NOT work for customers currently on editions with pooled storage. Learn more about pooled storage. Since Jun 23, 2012
All Workspace editions now appear to use Pooled Storage.

Increasing storage to 1 TB would be assigned to EVERY user and would cost $89.00/month/user ($445.00/Month) or $1,068.00/Year/peruser or $6,408.00/year for 6 users. (BTW the person I spoke to said I could buy for one user) or $6,300.00 more than we paid previously.

Or could go from Business Starter to Business Standard and it would cost $720.00 / year for 2 TB pooled storage per user. 12 TB total. This would DOUBLE the amount we are paying now would be 12 TB of pooled storage. Or more than $600 more than we paid previously.

Convert to Gmail Accounts

Even if I would Convert to gmail Accounts, Google provides no method to make the gmail accounts as owners of the documents or even to perform a “Takeout” and import them to a Gmail Account. 

I am currently looking for alternatives.

[civilian47]

I wonder if it is cost-effective for Google to alienate this small group of users who are asking for an option that is appropriate to our use (and non-business use) of the platform.

[esmiz]

Do you thing it is small? Microsoft and Apple have such plans... 

[civilian47]

I have no real idea - even more of a question whether it is worth alienating a large group...

[jim114]

It appears we could setup  Cloudflare Email Routing for an DNS Domain and have it forward to individual GMail Addresses.

Has anyone tried this?

Google 1 Family

• Option to add family Share your plan with up to Share with up to 5 others
  • So I buy Premium 2 TB and I can add 5 others to the same plan for no extra cost?
  • Not sure I understand? Can I pay one monthly fee? 
  • Can I share documents, photos etc with more than 5?
  • Premium includes 
    • 2 TB
    • Enhanced video calls on Meet Enjoy longer group video calls, call recording, and noise cancellation.
    • Live streaming on YouTube - Let people watch your Meet video call without joining.
    • Enhanced appointment scheduling on Calendar - Create multiple booking pages for different types of appointments, set up automatic email reminders, and connect multiple calendars to avoid conflicts.
• Not sure I understand? Can I pay one monthly fee? 
• Can I share documents, photos etc with more than 5?
• AND I get
• With Google 1 Family, users would be able to have Storage amounts of their choice up to 2 TB
• At 2 TB it would cost at most $9.99/month/user
  • Not sure if this can be made larger?
• Share your plan with up to 5 other people
• Not able to have common email address domain
• Import your photos & videos from iCloud to Google Photos
• Import your photos & videos from Facebook to Google Photos.
• BUT NOT Import your photos & videos from Workspace Google Photos?

Anyone add to Or correct this idea or have other options?

[guibw]

Yes, you can use Cloudflare to forward mail to your gmail account and have this gmail account with Google One for $9.99/2TB. You can them configure your gmail inbox to send mail as your custom domain as an alias.

As for the Family stuff, I'm not sure because I'm not sharing my account with anyone right now.

I was able to copy/move my Google Photos from my Workspace to my Google One/Gmail account following Method C on this page https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/google-photos-1/how-to-transfer-photos-from-one-google... and it worked flawlessly.