Nobody wins outright. Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 divides as follows: Google is better if your team lives inside shared documents, and Microsoft is better if you need serious desktop apps, offline access, and tighter security. Small teams usually go with Google. Bigger firms usually go with Microsoft.
- Google Workspace runs £5.90 to £18.40 per user monthly, ex VAT, on annual terms.
- Microsoft 365 costs £5.35 to £16.90 after the 1 July 2026 rise.
- Business Premium was the only mainstream Microsoft plan that didn’t budge.
- Gemini is free with Workspace. Copilot Chat is free too, but the premium Copilot costs about £24.70 extra.
- Google gives 30GB to 5TB per user. Microsoft hands everyone 1TB, up to 5TB on E3 and E5.
A Brief History
Office had no rivals once it saw off WordPerfect and Lotus SmartSuite in the late nineties. Then, in 2006, Google turned up with Docs & Spreadsheets, which became G Suite and then Workspace. Slow burn, but it worked: 10 million paying customers by 2023. Who leads now? NinjaOne puts Google on 50%. GeeksforGeeks has Microsoft ahead, 48.08% to 46.44%.
Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 Pricing for UK Businesses
| Tier | Google Workspace | Microsoft 365 |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Business Starter: £5.90E | Business Basic: ~£5.35 |
| Middle | Business Standard: £11.80 | Business Standard: ~£10.75 |
| Top SMB | Business Plus: £18.40E | Business Premium: £16.90 |
| Enterprise | Call Google’s Sales Team | E3 ~£33.50, E5 ~£51.45 |
These prices are per user, per month, excluding VAT, on annual terms. Refractiv lists the Google figures; TheLogic mapped the Microsoft rises, 5% on E5 up to 16% on Business Basic, and 25% to 33% on frontline plans. What did that buy? Mailboxes doubled to 100 GB, and time-of-click link checks reached cheaper tiers. Pay monthly rather than yearly, and you’ll add roughly 20%. Both cap small business plans at 300 users. Google’s free Essentials Starter skips Gmail, storage, support, and Gemini.
The Apps: One By One
Word wins on paper, and it isn’t close. Computerworld counted over 200 business templates in Word against fewer than 60 of any sort in Docs. Excel does 19 chart types, each with subtypes. Sheets manages seven, plus a handful of oddities. Excel has 100-plus budget templates. Sheets has three, two of them with the same annual budget in a different hat. PowerPoint handles animations, transitions, and rehearse timings, which track how long you waffle on each slide. Slides have nothing like it. Microsoft did kill PowerPoint’s QuickStarter, mind, pointing you at Copilot instead.
Not half as easy. Email is a proper split. Gmail is cleaner: it has Smart Compose, nudges for forgotten replies, and a snooze button. Outlook is fiddlier, but it’s far more powerful. Quick Steps automate tasks that Gmail can’t touch, and the calendar and contacts are integrated into the app, with the option to pull in Gmail as well. Its web version now mirrors the desktop one.
Where Google Properly Wins
Collaboration, and it’s not close. Sharing, permissions, and live chat are integrated into Docs, Sheets, and Slides. In Office, it still feels bolted on. In notes, Microsoft mainly covers viewing and editing, while Google adds comments and suggestions. Google’s Drive search also leaves OneDrive standing, and Cloud Search covers everything your company holds. Fair’s fair, though: browsing OneDrive in File Explorer beats poking about in Drive.
Meetings and Chat
Teams is the heavyweight: chat, calls, files, calendars, and shared workspaces in one place, wired into Outlook and SharePoint. Spanning counts 250-plus integrations. Calls take 300 people, and NinjaOne notes Teams stretches to 11,000 in a meeting and 20,000 for live events. Google spreads the job across Meet, Chat, and Spaces. Meet takes 100 on Starter, 150 on Standard, 500 on Plus, and 1,000 on Enterprise Plus. It’s simpler, but switching between three apps never feels tidy. After EU antitrust pressure, Microsoft unbundled Teams, so most plans are cheaper without it.
Storage and the Extras
Workspace gives 30GB, 2TB, or 5TB per user, depending on the tier. Microsoft gives 1TB across the board, 5TB on E3 and E5, and more on request if you have five-plus users. Microsoft adds SharePoint Online for intranet sites and OneDrive Files on Demand, so you pick what sits on the laptop. Google’s Shared Drives are useful team folders, not intranets. Both pile on extras. Microsoft has Access, OneNote, Forms, Planner, Power Automate, Clipchamp, Loop, Visio, Bookings, and Sway. Google counters with Forms, Sites, Keep, AppSheet, and Drawings. Keep it nowhere near OneNote. AppSheet, Access, and Clipchamp are the ones worth a look.
AI Tools
Gemini comes free with most workspace plans. It writes documents, summarises Gmail threads, builds tables and formulas in Sheets, takes Meet notes, translates captions, and runs NotebookLM. Workspace Flows and Gems automate jobs without a line of code. Microsoft now gives Copilot Chat away free in every business plan. The proper Microsoft 365 Copilot, with Agent Mode, Researcher and Copilot Pages, is a paid add-on at roughly £24.70 per user monthly in the UK. That gap used to be a key advantage for Google. Free Copilot Chat blunted it, but the clever stuff still sits behind a paywall.
Security and Support
Both encrypt everything, both meet GDPR and HIPAA, and both promise 99.9% uptime. Microsoft edges ahead with multi-factor authentication, Entra ID, Intune, Defender and Purview. Google offers two-step verification, endpoint management, DLP and its Advanced Protection Programme. One catch that the sales pitch skips is the shared responsibility model. Both secure the platform. Your data is your problem. Google runs 24/7 phone, email and chat, but only for admins; everyone else gets help articles. Microsoft has 24/7 support plus a huge partner network.
Which One Should You Choose?
Go to Google if collaboration is your whole working day, your team isn’t techy, or you want decent AI without another invoice. Go Microsoft if you need Office offline, heavy spreadsheets, SharePoint, or the security stack a regulated UK business demands. Running both? Don’t. Formatting breaks, comments vanish, and files scatter across two clouds.
FAQs
Is Google Workspace cheaper than Microsoft 365 in the UK?
Ans: At the bottom end, they’re neck and neck, £5.35 against £5.90. Google gets better value higher up, with far more storage per pound.
Can I use Word files in Google Workspace?
Ans: Yes, Drive opens and edits .docx files natively. But layouts wobble, embedded videos break and resolved comments often vanish on the way back.
Does Google Workspace work offline?
Ans: It does once someone switches it on. Admins enable offline Docs, Sheets and Slides through Chrome. Microsoft’s desktop apps work offline as soon as you install them.
Which has better video calls?
Ans: Teams, features, and headcount. Google Meet is easier to use and fine for most meetings, capping at between 100 and 1,000, depending on the plan.
Do I need separate backup software?
Ans: Yes. Neither vendor backs up your files for you. Deleted items and retention windows expire, so third-party backup is sensible.
Why did Microsoft 365 get pricier in July 2026?
Ans: Microsoft points to over 1,100 new features across security, Copilot and SharePoint. Rises ran 5% to 33%, business premium was frozen.
Sources & References:
- Computer World – The Word has over 200 business templates, and Docs has less than 60.
- Spanning – Microsoft’s Teams software has over 250 integrations.
- Ninja One – Teams stretches to 11,000 in a meeting and 20,000 for live events.
- Geeks for Geeks – Microsoft has 48.08% of paying customers right now.
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