Indian MSMEs react to hikes in Google Workspace charges

Google has recently hiked its service fee for Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Suite). This means that the Indian MSEMs must pay extra of the original service fee to avail the facility. We spoke to some key players in the industry to understand how this rebranding is affecting their company’s productivity and what impact it has on the overall development of the industry.

- Neha Basudkar Ghate

MSMEs form the backbone of the Indian economy. After having suffered significantly during the pandemic that led to losses in the GDP contribution from the MSME sector, today, the sector is again witnessing a bright ray of hope. The Indian Government, with its ‘Make in India’ policy along with other such crucial polices, has been supporting this sector, therefore, creating new job opportunities for the new MSME companies and their new product development.

However, things suddenly took a toll with the recent service fee hike from Google. One of the companies directly addressed Google India’s senior management with an open letter about the additional investments that companies will have to make every year to avail the services. The entrepreneur had also tagged the respective Indian ministries to notify the issue and resolve it.

What does Google state?

According to this policy change, Indian MSMEs will be forced to pay an additional ₹1500 cr to ₹5000 cr yearly. As Google announced its rebranding from G-Suite to Google Workspace with specific policy changes, now it states that an additional 100 GB of storage is no longer available as they need to fit into the ‘Business Standard’ category, which has a minimum storage of 2 TB and costs ₹10,100 per year per user. Google further stated that if a business needs more than 30 GB storage in a single account, they must upgrade all the accounts to 2 TB storage, which led them to pay a 400% higher price. Additionally, Google has raised the exit barrier, which has made it more difficult for businesses to transfer their data to a different service provider. Team EM spoke to entrepreneurs from MSME sector, Google India and respective Indian Ministries over this topic and has noted their reactions.