Google Apps is no longer free

[Andy.N]

Google Inc. said it stopped offering its suite of Web-based software for businesses — known as Google Apps — free of charge to groups of 10 or fewer users, as it moves to generate revenue from previously free services.
http://allthingsd.com/20121206/google-to-rein-in-free-version-of-software/

 

[Digital Doctor]

That sounds fair to me.

 

[AdamD]

Been that way for months, from memory.

 

[RickM]

Been that way for months, from memory.

Nope - its today that it started.

 

[AdamD]

Really? oh, heh
For some reason I thought it had gone in months ago.

 

[RickM]

Really? oh, heh
For some reason I thought it had gone in months ago.

They did change the limit on free accounts from something like 50 users down to 10, that was about 3 months ago IIRC.

There is still a work around you can use, but it only allows you to have 1 user.

 

[Jaxel]

Wait a minute... I currently use "Google Apps for Free" to handle my google accounts. Email, youtube, etc...

Will I suddenly lose access to all my info if I don't upgrade to Google Apps for Business?

 

[ibnesayeed]

Wait a minute... I currently use "Google Apps for Free" to handle my google accounts. Email, youtube, etc...

Will I suddenly lose access to all my info if I don't upgrade to Google Apps for Business?

From their Blog post.

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. And as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities.

 

[rollthebones]

I switched from Google Apps to my own mail VPS a few months ago with no regrets. Good riddance.

 

[Shamil]

And people ask why I have my own Exchange Server to handle my mail.

 

[Andy.N]

I switched from Google Apps to my own mail VPS a few months ago with no regrets. Good riddance.

And people ask why I have my own Exchange Server to handle my mail.

I used to have my own email server, it crashed and caused me so much problem with email. I moved to Google Apps and later to Amazon SES. I rather pay few bucks each month to have Google/Amazon handle that than worry about setting up and keeping up email server.
Amazon SES is much more reliable than Google Apps email which has a 500 email/day limit last I check.

 

[RickM]

And people ask why I have my own Exchange Server to handle my mail.

Why would that make a scrap of difference exactly? If you're already using Google apps - nothing is changing at all. If you arent using it, it's still a pretty damn cheap solution at $50 a year/user, and is a heck of a lot more reliable than a VPS, shared environment, or even a cluster of dedicated servers.

It still works out to be a cheap, highly reliable solution for startup businesses (which at the end of the day, is one of it's main purposes).

I've got a shed load of servers, cloud accounts, etc - but I'd still trust Google's servers a hell of a lot more than my own servers.

 

[rollthebones]

This is good if you want email hosting on the cheap: http://25mail.st

 

[ENF]

This doesn't really impact us, since we've been using the paid version for a long time. I have few other domains still using the 'free' version which is fine for the time being.

The costs we pay to Google for their services, removes the headaches of maintaining and operating an office suite such as Exchange or other similar platforms. (We primarily use Google Mail, Calendar and Drive/Docs)

The fact that they let these services go for free for so long was quite amazing. Granted, the free versions were limited in some ways, but certainly enough was available for a small company or website.

 

[Rho Delta]

If you already have it, it looks like we are grandfathered in. All of my google apps emails are still working.

 

[Shamil]

Why would that make a scrap of difference exactly? If you're already using Google apps - nothing is changing at all. If you arent using it, it's still a pretty damn cheap solution at $50 a year/user, and is a heck of a lot more reliable than a VPS, shared environment, or even a cluster of dedicated servers.

It still works out to be a cheap, highly reliable solution for startup businesses (which at the end of the day, is one of it's main purposes).

I've got a shed load of servers, cloud accounts, etc - but I'd still trust Google's servers a hell of a lot more than my own servers.

I'm not already using Google Apps across the board of domains I have, I've been slowly moving away as the increase in spam emails getting through the filters have been increasing. It is good at what it does, but there are better tools.

I currently maintain emails from over 6 domains, of which organisations are not linked, and due to security, they are not commonly linked under a single Google apps account (I've never seen a very positive look for it with the way I do things).

With Exchange I've completely dismembered and decentralised the basic requirement for federated and linked domains. I've known for a while now that this is where Google Apps has been slowly going. It doesn't fit my needs. Heck, I have email boxes /accounts for very specific things, such as ticket responders, transient subscriptions etc. It could easily cause my payment to Google to skyrocket.

 

[RickM]

I'm not already using Google Apps across the board of domains I have, I've been slowly moving away as the increase in spam emails getting through the filters have been increasing. It is good at what it does, but there are better tools.

I currently maintain emails from over 6 domains, of which organisations are not linked, and due to security, they are not commonly linked under a single Google apps account (I've never seen a very positive look for it with the way I do things).

With Exchange I've completely dismembered and decentralised the basic requirement for federated and linked domains. I've known for a while now that this is where Google Apps has been slowly going. It doesn't fit my needs. Heck, I have email boxes /accounts for very specific things, such as ticket responders, transient subscriptions etc. It could easily cause my payment to Google to skyrocket.

Fair enough.

I cant agree with you on the spam front, or the security front though. Google has one of the best, if not the best spam filter around. I've got, what must be around 60 of my own email accounts, plus accounts for others and it's very seldom that we get any spam that isnt put directly into the spam box. We must receive around 900 emails a day between our domains.

As for security, they offer complete 2-phase protection, and it's going to be a hell of a lot more secure than your own server could ever be.

I dont think any self-hosted email service could ever match the big boys like Google any more - they can just obviously provide so much more reliability and security than any of us could dream of doing on our own setups.

 

[Shamil]

Fair enough.

I cant agree with you on the spam front, or the security front though. Google has one of the best, if not the best spam filter around. I've got, what must be around 60 of my own email accounts, plus accounts for others and it's very seldom that we get any spam that isnt put directly into the spam box. We must receive around 900 emails a day between our domains.

As for security, they offer complete 2-phase protection, and it's going to be a hell of a lot more secure than your own server could ever be.

I dont think any self-hosted email service could ever match the big boys like Google any more - they can just obviously provide so much more reliability and security than any of us could dream of doing on our own setups.

It agree that it's quite good, but I'm getting much more spam in than I used to - *shrugs*. Security wise, I use my Yubikey across a custom implementation, as my current implementation somewhat doesn't work with Google Apps (don't ask me why, I spend over 2 weeks with a Google Apps reseller and we both gave up).

In terms of reliability, I've got Exchange in hybrid configuration, with OE365 - it's not too bad, plus, with Sharepoint + Office Web Apps, which I rarely use nowadays

Now I did say that I have my Exchange server to handle my email, that's only part of the story.

 

[Sim]

Just to revisit this - I'm wondering whether anyone has found a good alternative to Google Apps for free/cheap email hosting?

I have a lot of small business clients - previously I would automatically set them up with a free Google Apps account for their email. Now I'm looking at alternatives, since Google Apps quickly becomes price-prohibitive for my small business clients with more than one or two mailboxes.

Suggestions (based on experience please, not on a Google search!) ??

 

[ENF]

Just to revisit this - I'm wondering whether anyone has found a good alternative to Google Apps for free/cheap email hosting?

I have a lot of small business clients - previously I would automatically set them up with a free Google Apps account for their email. Now I'm looking at alternatives, since Google Apps quickly becomes price-prohibitive for my small business clients with more than one or two mailboxes.

Suggestions (based on experience please, not on a Google search!) ??

Nothing yet. At least not at the same level of free service Google provided previously.

The services that are free are limited in the numbers of users, functionality and space. (i.e. Zoho.com, 3 accounts, 5GB limit, all else is paid) I've also heard that outlook.com is offering domain level services, but I've not researched it deeply. (http://domains.live.com/)