What Google Workspace Business Starter costs for a team of 1–25
At five people, Google Workspace Business Starter costs $35 a month — $420 a year. For the first twelve months: the vendor calls this an introductory rate and does not publish what follows it.
The cost at your headcount
Figures are the annual-billing rate. “Billed seats” is what appears on the invoice, which is not always the number of people you have.
| People | Billed seats | Per month | Per year | Per person/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | $7 | $84 | $7 |
| 3 | 3 | $21 | $252 | $7 |
| 5 | 5 | $35 | $420 | $7 |
| 10 | 10 | $70 | $840 | $7 |
| 25 | 25 | $175 | $2,100 | $7 |
This is an introductory price, by the vendor's own admission
Google marks this rate: "Offer available to new Google Workspace customers only. This introductory price is only available for the first 20 users added, for 12 months. Standard pricing will apply to all users after 12 months." Google does not publish the rate that applies after those 12 months.
So the figures above are what you pay in year one, not what you pay in year two. We will not print a number for year two that we have not read from Google, so the practical advice is the boring one: get the post-introductory rate in writing before you commit, and set a calendar reminder for month ten.
What the table above does not capture
30 GB pooled storage per person, 100-participant meetings, no meeting recording. Annual-commitment rate; Google states a 1-year commitment saves 16% against flexible billing. The $8.40 flexible rate was verified 2026-07-30 and is not currently shown on the public pricing page.
How Google Workspace Business Starter is priced, and what that does as you grow
Straight per-user billing at $7 per user per month. Cost tracks headcount exactly, so every hire adds the same amount and there is no cliff to plan around — the simplest model to budget, and the one that gets expensive last in small teams and first in large ones.
Monthly billing costs 20% more
$7 per user on annual billing, $8.40 month-to-month. At five people that is $35 a month against $42 — $84 a year for the privilege of being able to stop.
Monthly billing buys the option to leave. On a tool you have already decided to keep, that option is one you are paying 20% for and will not exercise. On a tool you are still evaluating, it is worth every cent — which is why the decision belongs after a subscription audit, not before one.
The plan stops at 300
Google Workspace Business Starter cannot be bought for a team of 301. This is not a price rise — it is the plan becoming unavailable .
A ceiling deserves more planning than a price. Changing plan means re-provisioning everyone at a moment you did not choose, so if your headcount plan crosses 300 inside a year, make the move while it is unhurried rather than when the ceiling makes it for you.
Where it sits against the email & office alternatives
At five people, Google Workspace Business Starter is the cheapest of the email & office plans we track.
| Product | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace Business Starter | $7 | $21 | $35 | $70 | $175 |
| Google Workspace Business Standard | $14 | $42 | $70 | $140 | $350 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $7 | $21 | $35 | $70 | $175 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot | $23.50 | $70.50 | $117.50 | $235 | $587.50 |
Against every email & office product we track, the cheaper of the two does not change anywhere between one and twenty-five people — the ordering you see at five is the ordering you get at twenty-five. Price is therefore not the variable that should decide this one.
What happens if you leave
Gmail, Calendar and Meet stop immediately; you have 51 days to change your mind.
Google states you "lose access to core Google Workspace services, such as Gmail, Calendar, Meet, and more" straight away. You can resubscribe within 51 days; after that you wait until the cancellation finishes at 84 days. You choose between letting users keep their data as unmanaged consumer accounts — shared drives and organisational data are deleted either way — or deleting users’ data, removed within 90 days. You may also still be charged for usage since your last payment.
The free tier
14-day trial
What this page does not tell you
Price is the easiest thing to verify and the least likely to decide whether a tool was a good idea. This page says nothing about whether your team will actually adopt it, how quickly you can remove someone's access when they leave, whether your data comes out in a usable shape, or what support is like when something breaks at month end. Those cost more than the gaps above when they go wrong, and none of them are visible on a pricing page — ours or the vendor's.
We have not run a hands-on lab test of Google Workspace Business Starter. When we do, it will be dated and logged in the test log, and this page will link to it. Until then, treat everything here as what it is: verified arithmetic on a published price.
Sources and corrections
Rate read from https://workspace.google.com/pricing on , re-checked weekly. Changes we find are published in the price-change log. If a figure here is wrong, tell us — corrections are logged publicly on the corrections page.
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Get told when this price changes
We re-check Google weekly. When the rate, the seat minimum or the free tier moves, subscribers hear about it with the date and the source.