Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for a Small Office

For a small office, Google Workspace is the simpler choice when your team works in a browser and wants email, documents and meetings with little administration. Microsoft 365 fits when your team lives in desktop Word and Excel files, or when you want Windows, Mac and phone management and stronger protection in one subscription. Both do the job. What decides whether your office is safe is not the logo: it is who configures the accounts, who holds the admin login and what happens to your data when something goes wrong. Below are the plans side by side as the vendors described them in June 2026, a worked cost example, a decision in order, and the jobs that stay yours either way.

These are the vendors' own descriptions, as captured in June 2026.

Google Workspace sells Business Starter, Standard and Plus, each for up to 300 users.

• Starter lists custom business email, 30 GB of pooled storage per person and video meetings of 100 participants.
• Standard lists 2 TB of storage and meetings of 150 participants.
• Plus lists 5 TB, meetings of 500 participants, Vault to retain, archive and search data, and advanced endpoint management. The comparison table lists fundamental endpoint management on Starter and Standard.
• 2-step verification appears in the comparison table on all four tiers, Enterprise included.

Microsoft 365 sells Business Basic, Standard and Premium, each for up to 300 users, with 1 TB of cloud storage per user on all three.

• Basic includes the web and mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It does not include the desktop apps.
• Standard includes the desktop, web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Premium adds, in Microsoft's words, “advanced device management, threat protection to defend against phishing and cyber attacks, and information protection”, and policy-based identity and access management where Basic and Standard list the core version.

The line that matters most for many offices is the desktop apps. If an accountant sends you Excel files with macros, or your team works in large Word documents, a plan without the desktop apps will frustrate you within a week.

Both vendors bill per user per month, so the arithmetic is the same: price per user, times headcount, times twelve, plus VAT as required by law. Here is an illustration with the US-dollar list prices shown on the vendors' pages in June 2026, for ten users. Your price will differ by market, billing term and reseller, and Google's page showed an introductory discount for new customers that we leave out.

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard, 12.50 dollars per user per month paid yearly: 1,500 dollars a year. Google Workspace Business Standard, 14 dollars: 1,680 dollars a year.
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium, 22 dollars: 2,640 dollars a year. Google Workspace Business Plus, 22 dollars: 2,640 dollars a year.

At the entry level the two are close, and at the top level they are the same price, so the choice is about fit and about what you must configure, not about the bill. Ask for a quote in your own currency from a reseller, since a partner can also bill in shekels and handle the setup.

Answer these in order.

1. What files does your team open all day? Heavy Excel models, complex Word documents and desktop-only tools point to Microsoft 365 Standard or Premium. Mostly email, shared documents and meetings in a browser point to Google Workspace.
2. What devices do you use? If most people have Windows laptops and you want them managed centrally, Premium's device management is a strong reason. A mixed office of Macs, phones and Chromebooks is a natural fit for Google. If you are still replacing Windows 10 machines, see Windows 10 support ended first, since the new computers decide a lot.
3. What does your accountant, client or contract expect? Some customers ask which suite you use and how you control access. Your accountant may need Excel files in a specific format. Ask before you pick.
4. How hard is the move? Changing suites means moving email, calendars and files. Microsoft's own migration page says an IMAP email migration moves only the items in mail folders, and that contacts, calendar items and tasks cannot be migrated with IMAP, so a user has to move them manually. Plan for calendars and contacts, not only for mail. A suite you already half use is cheaper to stay on.
5. Who will administer it? Pick the one your IT person or provider already knows well.

This is the part buyers miss. Microsoft's shared-responsibility documentation (page updated 5 May 2026) says: “For all cloud deployment types, you own your data and identities.” Its responsibility table lists customer data, configurations and settings, and identities and users as the customer's in every model, and it names Microsoft 365 as a software-as-a-service example. The same logic applies to Google Workspace.

In practice that means four jobs that are yours whichever suite you buy:

• Multifactor authentication for every account, starting with the admin accounts. Microsoft's security defaults page (updated 21 July 2025) says new tenants get security defaults at creation, with a 24-hour grace period before they are enforced. The defaults require all users to register for multifactor authentication and require administrators to use it. On Google, check that 2-step verification is turned on for the whole organisation, not only available.
• A backup of your mail and files, kept outside the suite. A deleted or encrypted file is your problem, not the vendor's. We explain how to make one that restores in backups that actually restore.
• One admin account held by the business, not by a former employee or a freelancer. If the person who set it up leaves with the password, you cannot manage your own accounts.
• Offboarding and onboarding steps, so a person who leaves loses access the same day. Google's admin help says that if someone leaves, you can transfer the files they own to someone else, so decide the receiver before the person goes, not after.

Setting up email and Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, configured and secured, is part of our office IT service, priced as a fixed monthly fee per office and scoped on a free intro call. See IT and infrastructure, or book a free intro call and tell us how many people you have and what they use today. Our free website scan also checks the email-authentication records for your domain, which matter whichever suite sends your mail.

• Compare Google Workspace pricing and plans, page as captured by Common Crawl on 18 June 2026. Vendor page, quoted for what the vendor lists.
• Microsoft 365 for business, Microsoft, page as captured by Common Crawl on 12 June 2026. Vendor page, quoted for what the vendor lists.
• Shared responsibility in the cloud, Microsoft Learn, page updated 5 May 2026, as captured by Common Crawl on 8 June 2026.
• Security defaults in Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Learn, page updated 21 July 2025, as captured by Common Crawl on 11 June 2026.
• Ways to migrate multiple email accounts to Microsoft 365, Microsoft Learn, page updated 15 March 2024, as captured by Common Crawl on 20 April 2026.
• Transfer Drive files to a new owner as an admin, Google Workspace Admin Help, as captured by Common Crawl on 16 January 2026.