Essentials editions

This page is for using a Google Workspace Essentials edition with your domain. If you don’t have a domain, you can instead sign up for an Essentials edition using an email address. Learn more

With a Google Workspace Essentials edition for your domain, you get many of the features of other editions of Google Workspace but without the cost of services that you might not need, such as Gmail. You have 2 options:

Enterprise Essentials—Collaboration and video conferencing with advanced features, pooled storage, and enterprise-grade security and management
Enterprise Essentials Plus—More advanced security and compliance controls for greater productivity and collaboration, with 5 TB of pooled storage per user

If you need Gmail, sign up instead for a Google Workspace Business edition.

Check your eligibility

You can sign up for an Essentials edition only if you’re new to Google Workspace. If you have a subscription to a different Google Workspace edition, you can’t switch to or add an Essentials edition. You can, however, switch from one Essentials edition to a different one.

Using an Essentials edition with your email

You can use Enterprise Essentials or Enterprise Essentials Plus with your domain or with only a business email address. This article describes the features that you can use if you verify your domain. Learn about features available using only an email address.

Enterprise Essentials

With the Enterprise Essentials edition, you get a set of collaboration and video conferencing tools including Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Meet, and Google Chat. It offers your organization advanced policy controls, pooled storage, and enterprise-grade security and management.

To get Enterprise Essentials, sign up for the Essentials Starter edition and then upgrade to Enterprise Essentials using your Google Admin console. Optionally, verify your domain to unlock the full feature set listed here. For details, go to Set up Essentials for your domain.

You can also buy Enterprise Essentials through a Google Sales representative or local reseller.

Switch to the Enterprise Essentials edition

When you use Enterprise Essentials with your domain, you get:

Meet, Drive, and other collaboration tools for your domain

Drive for cloud storage
Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides for content creation
Chat for efficient group and direct messaging
Meet for secure meetings
Google Tasks for tracking your tasks on your computer or phone
Google Calendar for easy scheduling and sharing of meetings and other events, and reminders
Pooled cloud storage for all users in your organization

Administrative controls

Account (identity) management features, such as the ability to create user accounts and manage user profiles
Advanced security features, such as admin-managed 2-Step Verification and password monitoring and enforcement
On and off controls for core services
On and off controls for additional services, such as YouTube, Google Photos, and Google Play
Additional policy controls, such as sharing and feature settings, for these core services:
- Drive and Docs
- Chat
- Meet
- Google Groups
- Google Sites

For other core services, you don’t get additional policy controls, such as sharing and feature settings.

Enterprise Essentials Plus

The Enterprise Essentials Plus edition includes everything in Enterprise Essentials except for Calendar, plus more advanced security and compliance controls for greater productivity and collaboration, with 5 TB of pooled storage per user and AppSheet Core for building applications without coding.

To get Enterprise Essentials Plus, sign up for the Essentials Starter edition and then upgrade to Enterprise Essentials Plus using your Admin console. Or, if you have Enterprise Essentials, upgrade to Enterprise Essentials Plus in your Admin console. Optionally, verify your domain to unlock the full feature set listed here. For details, go to Set up Essentials for your domain.

You can also buy Enterprise Essentials Plus through a Google Sales representative or local reseller.

Switch to the Enterprise Essentials Plus edition

When you use Enterprise Essentials Plus with your domain, you get:

Security & compliance controls	Implement advanced admin features, such as data regions, Security center, and access transparency. Learn more
Connected Sheets BigQuery data connector	Access, analyze, visualize, and share billions of rows of data from your spreadsheet. Learn more
Work Insights	Give decision-makers access to data-driven insights on adoption, productivity, and cross-team collaboration. Learn more
Data loss prevention (DLP)	Define rules that protect privacy and prevent users from sharing sensitive content in Drive with people outside of your organization. Learn more
Trust rules	View, edit, or delete trust rules. Learn more
Cloud Identity Premium	Access enterprise security, app management, and automated device management. Learn more
Context-Aware Access	Create granular access-control policies based on attributes, such as user identity, location, device security status, and IP address. Learn more
Client-side encryption	Let users add another layer of encryption to Drive files, emails, and more. Learn more

Essentials

Google no longer offers the Essentials edition to new customers. This edition includes a subset of the features available in Enterprise Essentials or Enterprise Essentials Plus. It also differs in its billing and storage options. For details, go to How Essentials billing works.

Next steps

Set up Essentials for your domain

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