Google Meet, Drive, and other collaboration tools for your domain
If you own or manage a domain, you can get:
- Google Meet for secure video meetings
- Google Chat for efficient group and direct messaging
- Google Drive for cloud storage
- Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides for content creation
- Jamboard for digital whiteboarding that works with Google Meet
- Administrative controls
In addition, you can get account (identity) management features, such as the ability to create user accounts and manage user profiles and password strength. With Essentials for your domain, you get many of the features of other editions of Google Workspace but without the cost of services you might not need, like Gmail.
You can also buy Essentials through a Google Sales representative or local reseller.
Other options
- If you don't own or manage a domain, use Essentials with a team.
- If you need Gmail, sign up instead for Business Starter, Standard, or Plus.
Pricing
Essentials is USD $8 per active user per month, with up to 2 TB of pooled cloud storage.
For details about billing and storage limits, go to How Essentials billing works.
Use Essentials with your domain
Use Essentials with a team at your company, simply by signing up with your business email address. Then optionally unlock more features by verifying you own your domain. Here's how it works:
- Sign up with your business email address (email verified). You can then add other users who have email addresses in the same domain. For example, if your address ends in @yourbusiness.com, you can use Essentials with other people whose addresses end in @yourbusiness.com.
Note: You can't sign up with an address at a public web host like gmail.com or yahoo.com. Instead, you must use a custom address, such as for a business or organization.
- Optionally unlock more business features (domain verified). If you're the owner or IT admin for your organization's domain name, you can unlock account (identity) management features, such as the ability to create user accounts and managing user profiles and password strength. You also take over management of any existing Essentials users in your organization.
Compare key features below.
Meet and Drive features
Google Meet and Drive features are available for both email-verified and domain-verified accounts.
- Voice and video conferencing—Host and join video meeting from anywhere, with up to 150 participants. Learn more
- Group and direct messaging—Communicate and collaborate efficiently from anywhere with Chat. Learn more
- Collaboration—Use shared drives to collaborate more easily within project teams or departments. Learn more
- Files available any time, any place—Get to Drive files from any location on any computer or mobile device. Learn more
- Productivity suite—Easily create and co-edit files with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Learn more
- Digital whiteboarding—Collaborate in real-time to share and visualize ideas with Jamboard. Learn more
For a list of all Essentials features, see the Essentials site.
Identity management
Essentials can give you administrative control over user profiles (identity management) across all your organization's domains.
| Feature | Domain verified | Email verified |
|---|---|---|
| Add and remove existing user accounts
Control who in your organization can use Essentials. Learn more |
✔ | |
|
Create and delete user accounts |
✔ | |
| Assign a super admin role
Give another user full administrative control over your organization's Essentials account. Learn more |
✔ | ✔ |
| Assign custom admin roles
Give other users a specific set of admin controls, such as for a Help desk. Learn more |
✔ | |
| Manage user profiles
Reset Drive users' passwords, add photos, and update employee information. Learn more |
✔ | |
| Manage security settings
Enforce password strength settings and 2-step verification. |
✔ | |
| Add domains
Add other domains you own to your Admin console so users in those domains can use Essentials, too. Learn more |
✔ | |
| Set up third-party single sign-on (SSO)
Set up single sign-on for managed Google accounts using third-party identity providers. Learn more |
✔ | |
| Basic endpoint management
Make your organization's data more secure across your users' mobile devices, desktops, laptops, and other endpoints. Learn more |
✔ |
Bonus services
Essentials gives you the following services, too:
| Service | Domain verified | Email verified |
|---|---|---|
|
Google Calendar Schedule video meetings and other events more easily, and get reminders about upcoming activities. Learn more |
✔ | ✔ |
| Directory
Admins and users can manage personal and global contacts. Learn more |
✔ | ✔ |
| Groups / Groups for Business
Create admin-controlled groups and mailing lists. Host community forums or collaborative inboxes. Or let users create their own groups. Learn more |
✔ | |
|
Google Keep Capture, share, and collaborate on your notes on any device, anywhere. Easily create task lists, action items, voice memos, and more. Learn more |
✔ | ✔ |
|
Admin SDK Use APIs to manage users and services, create reports, and more. Learn more |
✔ | |
| Upgrade access to another Google Workspace edition
Easily upgrade to get Gmail. Learn more |
✔ |
Usage-based billing
You pay only for active users in your organization for the previous month. Learn more
Storage limits
You also get pooled storage across your organization. Storage increases with each user that joins Essentials, up to a limit. Learn more
