Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace for Small Business: Same Price in 2026, So What Actually Differs?
Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace for small business is a comparison that changed completely in 2026 — because the prices are now identical. After Microsoft raised its business prices on 1 July 2026, both suites cost $7, $14 and $22 per user per month on an annual plan. The decision is no longer about money. It is about how your team actually works: desktop apps or a browser, Outlook or Gmail, and which AI assistant you end up paying for.
That price tie is new, and most of the comparison articles still ranking on this question were written before it happened. They quote Microsoft at $6 and $12.50, prices that no longer exist. This guide uses the current figures from both vendors’ pricing pages, checked in November 2026, and compares what each suite actually gives a small business at each tier.
The headline: identical prices in 2026
On an annual commitment, the two suites line up dollar for dollar at every tier.
| Tier | Microsoft 365 Business | Google Workspace |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Business Basic, $7 | Business Starter, $7 |
| Middle | Business Standard, $14 | Business Standard, $14 |
| Top | Business Premium, $22 | Business Plus, $22 |
| Month-to-month (flexible) | $8.40 / $16.80 / $26.40 | $8.40 / $16.80 / $26.40 |
Paying month to month instead of committing for a year costs 20 percent more on either side. Both suites cap their business plans at 300 users; past that point you move to enterprise plans priced by sales. For a team of ten, the entry tier costs $840 a year on either suite, the middle tier $1,680 and the top tier $2,640. The invoice is the same. Everything below is where the suites actually differ.
What changed: Microsoft’s July 2026 price rise
Microsoft published the new prices in December 2025 and they took effect on 1 July 2026. Business Basic rose from $6 to $7 per user per month, a 16 percent increase. Business Standard rose from $12.50 to $14, a 12 percent increase. Business Premium did not move at all and stayed at $22.
That last detail matters more than it looks. Before July, the gap between Standard and Premium was $9.50 a month. Now it is $8. Premium’s extra $8 buys the security stack — device management through Intune, Defender for Business, and Entra ID P1 for identity protection — that would cost roughly $18 a user a month bought separately. For a business that was already considering security add-ons, Premium quietly became the best-value tier in Microsoft’s line-up.
Existing Microsoft customers did not move to the new prices immediately. Microsoft applies the new rate at the next contract renewal, so a business that renewed in June 2026 keeps the old price until that term ends. Google, meanwhile, has not raised its business prices, and it folded its Gemini AI assistant into every business tier in January 2025 instead of selling it as a $20 add-on.
The apps: desktop power vs browser-first
This is the real fork in the road, and it has nothing to do with price.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium include the full desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, installed on up to five devices per user. Business Basic is web and mobile apps only — no desktop installs. If anyone on your team builds complex spreadsheets, formats client-facing Word documents, or works offline on a plane, the desktop apps are the reason to pick Microsoft. Excel’s desktop version still does things the web version cannot, from Power Query to full macro support, and Word’s desktop version handles long, heavily formatted documents without the layout shifts that browser editors introduce.
Google Workspace is browser-first by design. Docs, Sheets and Slides run in a tab, autosave constantly, and let several people edit the same document at once with almost no friction. There is nothing to install and nothing to update, which is why businesses with field staff, Chromebooks or a bring-your-own-device policy often prefer it. The trade-off is depth: Sheets is a capable spreadsheet, but it is not Excel, and a 200-row budget is fine while a 50,000-row model with pivot tables is not its home turf.
One practical test settles this for most teams. Open the three most complicated files your business actually uses — the client proposal, the pricing spreadsheet, the board deck — in both suites. If they survive the move to Google without losing formatting or formulas, the browser-first workflow is viable. If they break, Microsoft wins on the apps alone.
Email, calendar and meetings
Email is where habits run deepest, and both suites are genuinely good at it.
Microsoft gives you Outlook, with a 100 GB mailbox on every business tier after Microsoft raised the limit from 50 GB in its 2026 update. Google gives you Gmail with your own domain, and a mailbox that shares your plan’s pooled storage. Outlook’s strengths are its desktop client, shared mailboxes, and rules that can route and file mail with real precision. Gmail’s strengths are search, labels instead of folders, and an interface most people already know from personal use.
For meetings, Teams comes with every Microsoft 365 business plan, and Meet comes with every Google Workspace plan. Meet allows 100 participants on Starter, 150 on Standard and 500 on Plus, with recording and noise cancellation from Standard up. Teams meetings have no separate participant cap on the business plans that matters to a small team, and Teams doubles as a persistent chat workspace in a way Meet does not try to be. If your team already lives in chat channels, Teams is the stronger hub. If meetings are mostly scheduled calls with clients, Meet is simpler — guests join from a link with no app install and no account.
The remote-work angle matters here too: whichever suite you pick becomes the backbone of managing a remote team across time zones, because its calendar, chat and meeting tools set how overlap hours and async handoffs actually work day to day.
Storage: the quiet difference
Storage is the one place where the identical price tags hide a real gap at the entry tier.
Microsoft gives every user 1 TB of OneDrive storage on all three business plans, plus the 100 GB mailbox. Google gives 30 GB of pooled storage per user on Business Starter, 2 TB on Standard and 5 TB on Plus. Pooled means the storage is shared across the team rather than per person, which is flexible, but 30 GB per head is tight for a business that stores photos, video or design files. A five-person team on Google Starter has 150 GB between them; the same team on Microsoft Basic has 5 TB.
The gap closes at the middle tier, where Google’s 2 TB per user is more than most small businesses will ever fill. But if you plan to start on the cheapest tier and stay there, Microsoft’s storage is dramatically more generous. Check your current usage before deciding: a business sitting on 400 GB of shared files will outgrow Google Starter within a year and face either a tier upgrade or a separate storage bill.
AI: Gemini included, Copilot costs extra
This is the second-biggest difference after the apps, and it cuts in Google’s favour at the entry tier.
Google includes Gemini in every business plan. On Starter, Gemini works in Gmail and in the Gemini chat app. On Standard and Plus, it extends into Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet and Drive, with the more capable models. There is no separate AI subscription to buy.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a separate add-on, priced at $30 per user per month on top of the business plan. It works across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, drafting documents, summarising email threads and recapping meetings. It is powerful, and it is also more expensive than the entire Business Standard plan it sits on top of. A ten-person team on Business Standard pays $140 a month for the suite and another $300 a month if everyone gets Copilot.
Microsoft does include some AI features without Copilot — basic writing help and meeting recaps in Teams have improved — but the full Copilot experience is a paid extra, and that changes the maths. If AI assistance in documents and email is a priority, Google’s included Gemini makes the $14 Standard tier a much stronger deal than Microsoft’s $14 Standard tier plus a $30 add-on.
Security and admin controls
Both suites cover the basics: two-factor authentication, single sign-on, admin controls over who can share files externally, and audit logs. The difference shows up at the top tier.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium adds Intune for device management, Defender for Business for endpoint protection, and Entra ID P1 for conditional access — rules like requiring a managed device before company email opens. Buying those separately would cost roughly $18 a user a month, so the $8 step from Standard to Premium is, on paper, a bargain.
Google Workspace Business Plus adds Vault for retention and eDiscovery, advanced endpoint management, and Secure LDAP. It is a solid compliance package, and for a business that needs to retain email for legal reasons, Vault is genuinely useful. But it does not match Premium’s device and threat protection tool for tool. A business handling client data under a contract that demands endpoint protection will find Microsoft’s top tier easier to justify.
At the entry and middle tiers, the security story is closer. Both give you the essentials, and for most small businesses the deciding security factor is not the suite but whether two-factor authentication is actually turned on for every user.
Which one should your business pick?
Use this as a decision tree rather than a scorecard, because the right answer depends on your team’s habits, not on a feature count.
Pick Microsoft 365 if anyone on the team does serious work in Excel, needs desktop Outlook, or regularly exchanges polished Word and PowerPoint files with clients. Pick it too if security tooling matters and you can use the Premium tier’s Intune and Defender stack, or if your business already runs on Windows and Active Directory.
Pick Google Workspace if your team lives in a browser, works from Chromebooks or personal devices, and values simple sharing and real-time collaboration over desktop power. Pick it if AI assistance matters but you will not pay $30 a user a month extra for it, or if your team already uses Gmail personally and would rather not learn Outlook.
Either suite works fine for a typical ten-person business that mostly writes emails, holds video calls and shares documents. The switching cost is the real price of this decision: migrating email history, retraining staff and rebuilding templates takes weeks, so pick the one that fits how you work today, not the one with the longer feature list.
The bottom line
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace now cost exactly the same at every tier, so the price question is settled and the workflow question is everything. Microsoft wins on desktop apps, storage at the entry tier and the security stack in Premium. Google wins on browser-first collaboration, included AI, and simplicity. Most small businesses will be happy with either — but they will be happiest with the one that matches the software their team already reaches for every morning.
Frequently asked questions
Is Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace cheaper for a small business in 2026?
Neither. Both cost $7, $14 and $22 per user per month on an annual plan, and $8.40, $16.80 and $26.40 month to month. The total bill for the same number of users is identical.
Did Microsoft 365 prices go up in 2026?
Yes. On 1 July 2026, Business Basic rose from $6 to $7 and Business Standard from $12.50 to $14 per user per month. Business Premium stayed at $22. Existing customers move to the new price at their next renewal.
Does Google Workspace include AI?
Yes. Gemini is included in every Google Workspace business plan since January 2025. On Starter it works in Gmail and the Gemini app; on Standard and Plus it also works in Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet and Drive.
How much does Microsoft 365 Copilot cost?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a separate add-on at $30 per user per month, on top of the business plan. It is not included in Business Basic, Standard or Premium.
Can I switch from one suite to the other later?
Yes, but budget for it. Email migration tools move mail and calendars, but shared drives, permissions and document formatting need manual checking, and staff retraining takes weeks. It is a project, not an afternoon.
Sources (text only, no links in content): Microsoft 365 business pricing pages and July 2026 pricing update; Google Workspace pricing page and Admin Help payment plans, checked October–November 2026.
