Google Workspace Essentials can be viewed as a slimmed-down version of Google Workspace.
It includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet, Chat, Sites, Forms, Keep, and Jamboard.
However, this version does not host your company email. Essentials doesn’t include Google Drawings or My Maps.
So, who is Essentials for?
Let’s say your business is using Microsoft 365 or Zoho as your primary email & calendar platform. Your email addresses such as jabbott@abbottsolar.com are hosted with one of those services.
There are a number of reasons you may want to subscribe to Google Workspace Essentials in addition to your current provider.
1. You want the powerful collaboration capabilities of Google’s office products (Docs, Sheets, Slides) within your organization.
2. You work with other businesses and subcontractors using Google Workspace. If someone from a company using Google Workspace decides to share a Google Sheets spreadsheet file with one of your employees, in the absence of Essentials, they would have to use visitor sharing, which is one extra step.
3. You hire a new employee who has been using consumer Google products for years and also used Google Workspace at previous jobs. They will be more efficient if they can originate documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the Google platform, even if they save those as Microsoft Office files before sending them out to others.
4. While there are many meeting platforms on the market such as Zoom and Teams, you prefer the ease of use of Google Meet and the fact that it is 100% browser-based.
5. You want to build online forms and capture submissions into a spreadsheet or into a database (using a product like Zapier).
If, for example, your organization is using Microsoft 365 and you have 25 or fewer employees, all your staff can use Google Workspace Starter Edition at no cost.
Adding Google Workspace Essentials to your employees’ suite of software can improve collaboration and increase efficiency. If you are looking to host your organization’s email and calendar with Google, consider one of the full versions of Google Workspace.