Video meetings, Drive, and collaboration tools for teams
Small teams at a company or school can use Google Workspace Essentials Starter edition to collaborate with video meetings, chat messages, and online docs. With Essentials Starter, you get the following key features at no cost for a team of up to 25 users:
- 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
You also get easy tools for managing team members.
Note:
- Any number of teams can sign up—Although an Essentials Starter team can have up to 25 users, there's no limit to the number of teams that can sign up at your organization.
- Support isn't included—Essentials Starter edition doesn't include access to Google Workspace support.
- Paid upgrades are available—You can upgrade to a paid edition of Essentials at any time from your Team dashboard to add more users, get additional business features, and access Google Workspace support.
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You can also buy a paid edition of Essentials through a Google Sales representative or local reseller.
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Educational institutions aren't eligible for Essentials Starter—Instead, qualifying institutions can sign up for Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals at no cost or another Education edition. Compare Education editions.
All you need is a business email address
Use Google Workspace Essentials Starter at no cost with a team of up to 25 users at your company, simply by signing up with your business email address. 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.
If your organization uses Microsoft 365, you can let everyone join Essentials with their Microsoft account (if your IT administrator allows it).
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.
Includes Meet, Chat, Drive and other features
Video calls, content storage, and collaboration
- Voice and video conferencing—Host and join video meeting from anywhere with up to 100 participants Learn more
- Group and direct messaging—Communicate and collaborate efficiently from anywhere with Chat. Learn more
- Productivity suite—Easily create and co-edit files with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms.
- Files available any time, any place—Store and share over 100 file types—even Microsoft Office files—and co-edit them in real time, from any device. Learn more
- Digital whiteboarding—Collaborate in real-time with coworkers to share and visualize ideas with Jamboard. Learn more
- Tasks tracking—Assign tasks while collaborating in Chat spaces, and keep track of all your tasks on your computer or phone. Learn more
- Easy scheduling—Schedule video meetings and other events more easily, get reminders about upcoming activities, and share calendars. Learn more
- Shared notes—Capture, share, and collaborate on your notes on any device, anywhere. Easily create check lists, action items, voice memos, and more with Keep. Learn more
Team management
- Add and remove team members—Control who in your organization can use Essentials. Learn more
- Assign a Team admin role—Give another user full administrative control over your team's Essentials account. Learn more
Upgrade for even more features
At any time, you can easily upgrade to a paid edition of Essentials from your Team dashboard to get:
- 1 TB of pooled Drive storage per user
- Advanced features for Google services, such as shared team drives and longer video meetings with 150 participants, recording, noise cancellation, polls, Q&A, breakout rooms, and attendance tracking
- Security features, such as security alerts and mobile device management
- Policy controls for features such as document sharing
- Access to Google Workspace support
Learn more about upgrading to a paid edition of Essentials
Unlock advanced features for your domain
If you upgrade to a paid edition of Essentials and you're the owner or IT admin for your organization's domain name, you can get advanced business features by verifying your domain:
- Account (identity) management features, such as the ability to create user accounts and manage user profiles
- Advanced security features, such as 2-step verification and password monitoring and enforcement
- Advanced mobile device management
- Delegated admin access based on role
- Data retention and eDiscovery with Google Vault
You also take over management of any existing Essentials users in your organization.
Learn more about using Essentials with your domain.
Billing
If you have a Enterprise Essentials edition, you can choose between a Flexible or Annual billing plan. Learn more
If you have Essentials edition, you get usage-based billing. You pay only for active users in your organization for the previous month. Learn more
Storage limits
If you have a paid edition of Essentials, you also get pooled storage across your organization. Storage increases with each user that joins Essentials.
If you have Essentials edition, there's a limit to storage increases. Learn more
Compare Essentials editions
To find out your edition, go to What's my subscription and payment plan?
Essentials editions are designed to provide seamless integration with your existing email solution. Use these tables to see exactly which features are included with the following editions:
- Essentials Starter—Collaboration and video conferencing at no cost for teams of up to 25 users.
- Essentials—Collaboration and video conferencing, additional security features, pooled storage, and policy controls. Essentials edition is no longer available for new customers.
- Enterprise Essentials—Collaboration and video conferencing with more participants and advanced features, more pooled storage, and enterprise-grade security and management.
Compare instead: Business editions (1-300 users) | Enterprise editions | Education editions
| General | Service details |
|---|---|
Core and additional services
Compare instead: Business editions (1-300 users) | Enterprise editions | Education editions
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive storage and Docs editors | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Video conferencing with Meet | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Chat and chat spaces | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Digital whiteboarding with Jamboard | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tasks | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Calendar | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Directory management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Sites | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Notetaking with Keep | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Groups for Business | ✔* | ✔* | |
| Additional Google services (admin managed) | ✔* | ✔* | |
| Google Vault for eDiscovery and information governance | ✔* | ||
| Google Cloud Search for internal search and assist |
|
|
✔ Only Google services |
* Requires verifying your domain
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Note: If your organization has Essentials Starter edition or an email-verified account for Essentials edition or Enterprise Essentials edition, users can access additional services, which aren't admin managed, such as Google Groups, Photos, and YouTube.
Identity management
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add or remove existing user accounts | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Create and delete user accounts | ✔* | ✔* | |
| Assign a super admin role | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Assign custom admin roles | ✔* | ✔* | |
| Manage user profiles | ✔* | ✔* |
* Requires verifying your domain
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Migration products
Compare instead: Business editions (1-300 users) | Enterprise editions | Education editions
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Migrate calendars, contacts, files (many tools) | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Migrate from Exchange | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Migrate from Outlook | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Migrate from HCL Notes | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Have users migrate their data | ✔ | ✔ |
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Other admin features
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin SDK (APIs to manage users and services, create reports, and more) | ✔* | ✔* | |
| Upgrade directly to a Google Workspace Business or Enterprise edition with Gmail | ✔* | ✔* |
* Requires verifying your domain
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Google Meet
Compare instead: Business editions (1-300 users) | Enterprise editions | Education editions
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum meeting length | 60 minutes | 24 hours | 24 hours |
| Maximum number of participants per meeting | 100 | 100 | 150 |
| External participants | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Secure meetings | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Presentations and screen sharing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| App for Android and iOS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Digital whiteboard | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Add Meet video to Microsoft Outlook | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Works with Meet room hardware | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Hand raising | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Dial in (U.S. & international numbers)* | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Record meetings & save them to Drive | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Breakout rooms | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Polls | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Q&A | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Track attendance (requires 5 or more attendees) | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Add co-hosts to meetings | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Control Slides presentations | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Noise cancellation | ✔ |
* Powered by Google Voice
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Google Chat
Compare instead: Business editions (1-300 users) | Enterprise editions | Education editions
| Essentials Starter | Essentials** | Enterprise Essentials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat limit | 10 K | No limit | No limit |
| Set spaces history option for users | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Turn chat history on or off | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Automatically accept chat invitations | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Allow or restrict external chat | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Allow or restrict Chat apps | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Turn external spaces on or off | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Use discoverable spaces | ✔* | ✔* |
* Requires verifying your domain
** New subscriptions to Essentials edition are no longer available
Next steps
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