Patra vs Google Workspace for business email.

Google Workspace is an office suite priced per user, from US$7 per user per month on a one-year plan. Patra is email only, from US$35 a year for 10 GB the whole team shares, plus applicable tax. Choose Google Workspace for shared documents and video meetings; choose Patra for email on your own domain, without a per-person fee.

Last checked 16 October 2026, against Google’s own pricing and help pages. Google prices are its standard US-dollar rates for Business plans.

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The quick verdict, side by side.

Google Workspace here means its Business plans: Business Starter, Business Standard and Business Plus, for up to 300 users.

Google Workspace Business plans compared with Patra, checked 16 October 2026
At a glance	Google Workspace	Patra
Best for	Teams that work in shared documents, files and video meetings every day, with email as one part of the suite.	Teams that want business email on their own domain at one price for everyone, and agencies that resell email.
Price for 5 people for a year	US$420 on Business Starter (US$7 per user per month on a one-year plan), or US$504 on the Flexible plan, with no commitment.	US$49 for everyone on the 25 GB plan, if each person keeps up to 5 GB, plus applicable tax. The whole account can send to 600 recipients a day.
Storage	30 GB per user on Business Starter, 2 TB on Standard and 5 TB on Plus, pooled across the organisation and shared by mail and files.	One pool for the whole account: 10, 25 or 50 GB, for mail. Any mailbox can have its own limit. More storage on request.
Mailboxes	One for each paid user, up to 300 users on Business plans.	Unlimited within fair use (up to 1,000 mailboxes and 100 domains). Adding people doesn’t change the price.
Aliases	Up to 30 per user, at no extra cost. Nobody can sign in with an alias. Groups and a catch-all address are available on every Business plan.	Aliases, groups and a catch-all, at no extra cost.
AI	Gemini in Gmail on every Business plan. Gemini in Docs, Meet and more from Business Standard.	Read-only AI assistant access to your admin console, for AI apps that support custom connectors (MCP). No AI writing or summaries in webmail.
Automations	Gmail filters for each person, and Workspace Studio flows that Gemini builds from a plain-language description. Its third-party steps are in beta and off by default.	Built in: Telegram and Slack messages, signed webhooks, forwards, automatic replies and folders. 1,000, 3,000 or 10,000 runs a month, by plan.
Reselling and partner branding	Resale through Google’s authorized reseller programme, which needs a signed reseller contract. Resellers add customers and create orders in Google’s Partner Sales Console.	Partner pools from 75 GB, prices on request. Your name, logo, colour and support address on clients’ admin console, sign-in and setup pages and the emails we send them. Webmail and server names still show Patra (details).
Free trial	14 days for up to 10 users. Payment setup comes first, and the paid subscription starts automatically when the trial ends. During the trial, each user can send up to 500 messages a day.	14 days on every plan, from approval, with no payment details. Until the first payment: 10 GB and 100 recipients a day.

Google facts come from Google’s own pages, checked 16 October 2026 (see Sources). Google says it occasionally offers country-based discounts for new customers, and its pricing page also showed introductory offers that day; this page uses Google’s standard rates.

What a team of five pays for a year.

A worked example, with the sums shown: five people who each keep up to 5 GB of mail. Prices checked 16 October 2026.

Yearly cost for five people, checked 16 October 2026
Option	The sum	A year
Google Workspace Business Starter, one-year plan	5 users × US$7 × 12 months (or US$84 per user, paid once a year)	US$420
Google Workspace Business Starter, Flexible plan	5 users × US$8.40 × 12 months	US$504
Google Workspace Business Standard, one-year plan	5 users × US$14 × 12 months	US$840
Google Workspace Business Plus, one-year plan	5 users × US$22 × 12 months	US$1,320
Patra 25 GB plan, billed yearly	5 people × 5 GB = 25 GB, one price for the whole account	US$49, plus applicable tax

The money buys different things. Google’s price gives each user 30 GB of pooled storage on Business Starter, 150 GB for five, shared by mail and files, plus Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat. Patra’s price covers email for the whole team, with 25 GB shared.
Shared addresses: if info@, sales@ and support@ are aliases, Google stays at US$420, because each user can have up to 30 aliases at no extra cost. If each needs its own sign-in, that’s 8 users: 8 × US$7 × 12 = US$672 a year. On Patra, aliases, groups and extra mailboxes don’t change the price while the mail fits in 25 GB.
Sending differs too. On Patra’s 25 GB plan the whole account can send to 600 recipients a day; on Google Workspace, each user can send up to 2,000 messages a day, to up to 3,000 external recipients.
Ten people at 5 GB each: Business Starter costs US$840 a year (10 × US$7 × 12). On Patra they fit the 50 GB plan, at US$79 a year for everyone, plus applicable tax, with 1,000 recipients a day shared by the whole account.
On Google’s one-year plan you can reduce licences only at renewal, and cancelling early still costs the rest of the contract. The Flexible plan costs more but lets you add or remove users at any time.

Feature by feature, in detail.

Google Workspace Business plans compared with Patra, feature by feature, checked 16 October 2026
Feature	Google Workspace	Patra
Office apps, files and meetings	Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat on every Business plan. Meet recording starts at Business Standard.	Not included. Patra is email only, with no office apps, file storage, video meetings or chat.
List prices	Per user per month: Business Starter US$7, Business Standard US$14 and Business Plus US$22 on a one-year plan, or US$8.40, US$16.80 and US$26.40 on the Flexible plan. Enterprise pricing comes from Google’s sales team and resellers.	Per account: US$35 a year for 10 GB, US$49 for 25 GB and US$79 for 50 GB, plus applicable tax. Every plan has every feature.
Billing	A one-year plan, paid monthly or yearly, or the Flexible plan, billed monthly in arrears with no commitment.	Billed yearly. Self-serve plans have no monthly option; partner pools can be monthly or yearly.
Cancelling and refunds	One-year plan: licences can be reduced only at renewal, and cancelling early means paying the rest of the contract, with no refund. Flexible plan: cancel at any time without penalty.	Cancel any time from Billing; the plan runs to the end of the paid period. Patra’s Refund Policy says the first payment is refunded in full if you ask within 14 days of it.
Users and domains	Up to 300 users on Business plans, each a paid user account. Up to 599 secondary domains and 20 user alias domains. New Flexible accounts are limited to 20–50 users for their first 90 days, unless they make an advance payment for half of the total users they want.	Up to 1,000 mailboxes and 100 domains per account, within fair use, at no extra cost.
How storage works	Pooled across the organisation: mail, files and photos share 30 GB, 2 TB or 5 TB per user, by plan. More storage is sold as an add-on.	Shared by every mailbox. Give any mailbox its own limit from 1 GB, with warnings at 80% and 95% full. When storage is full, new mail is held until there’s space, and goes back to its sender after 3 days.
Shared addresses	Up to 30 aliases per user. A Google Group can work as a Collaborative Inbox, where members take and assign conversations, and Gmail delegation gives colleagues in your organisation access to a mailbox. Every Business plan also has a catch-all address, and plus addresses such as name+word@ arrive in the same inbox.	Aliases, groups and a catch-all, plus addresses such as name+anything@. Groups deliver to people in your account; shared mailboxes from another provider become groups or aliases.
Message size	Attachments up to 25 MB to send and 50 MB to receive.	Incoming messages up to 35 MB in total. Keep outgoing attachments under about 25 MB.
Sending limits	Each user: up to 2,000 messages and 3,000 external recipients a day, and up to 2,000 recipients per message in Gmail on the web (500 external), or 100 from IMAP and POP mail apps. A user who reaches a limit can’t send for up to 24 hours, but still receives mail.	One daily total for the whole account: 400, 600 or 1,000 recipients, by plan. Each address can also send to 400 recipients an hour and 1,000 a day, with up to 50 per message. Person-to-person business mail only: no newsletters, marketing or cold outreach.
Webmail	Gmail on the web, on computers, phones and tablets, with offline access.	Webmail in any browser, on computers and phones, with search, folders and colour tags, filters, signatures and templates, out of office and 27 languages.
Mail apps	IMAP and POP, which admins can turn off. Since 2025, mail apps must sign in with OAuth, or with an app password, which needs 2-Step Verification and isn’t available on every work account. Google Sync (Exchange ActiveSync) ended for Workspace accounts on 1 May 2025. Outlook can also use Google’s GWSMO plug-in.	Any IMAP and SMTP mail app, signing in with the mailbox password, or an app password once two-step sign-in is on. Setup pages for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, the Gmail app, Outlook and Thunderbird, and an Apple settings profile. No POP3 or Exchange ActiveSync.
Contacts	Available to other apps over CardDAV, which needs OAuth 2.0 sign-in. GWSMO syncs contacts with Outlook.	Address books in webmail, with vCard import and export. They don’t sync to the contacts app on a phone or computer.
AI	Gemini in Gmail on every Business plan, such as Help me write and suggested replies. Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat from Business Standard.	No AI writing, summaries or smart replies in webmail. A read-only connector lets AI apps that support custom connectors (MCP) look up your plan, storage, mailboxes, DNS records and delivery reports; it can’t read mail, change settings or send mail. Included in every plan.
Automations and integrations	Gmail filters can label, archive, delete, star or forward mail, and admins can set routing and content rules. Workspace Studio builds flows with Gemini. Its webhooks and its steps for Asana, HubSpot, Jira, Salesforce, Slack and others are off by default, and the third-party steps are in beta.	Automations watch an address and act on new mail: Telegram or Slack messages, automatic replies, forwards, labels and folders, and signed webhooks for Zapier, Pabbly Connect, Make, n8n or your own code (those tools may need a paid plan of their own for webhook triggers). 1,000, 3,000 or 10,000 runs a month by plan, and 100 during the trial.
Sign-in security	2-Step Verification with security keys, the Google prompt, authenticator apps, backup codes, text or call, and passkeys; Google enforces it for admin accounts. Single sign-on with SAML or OIDC.	Two-step sign-in for admins (authenticator app, with backup codes) and for mailboxes (authenticator app, without backup codes). Mail apps then use app passwords.
Admin and compliance tools	Alert center, audit and investigation logs and retention policies on every Business plan. Security Sandbox attachment scanning on Standard and Plus. Vault for eDiscovery and archiving on Business Plus. A deleted user account can be restored for up to 20 days.	An admin console with CSV bulk add (up to 100 people a file), setup links, per-mailbox limits, owner and admin roles, an audit log of admin actions that can’t be edited, and a delivery dashboard. Spam and phishing filtering on all incoming mail. Backups every 6 hours, kept 35 days, and a deleted mailbox can be restored for 30 days. Patra holds no third-party security certifications.
Where data is kept	Business Standard and Plus can keep data at rest in the US or Europe. Business Starter has no such setting.	The Subprocessors page lists each provider Patra uses, what it does and where it processes data.
Branding	Admins can add their organisation’s logo to Gmail, Drive and other Google pages. Only users in the organisation see it, and not on mobile.	Partners’ clients see the partner’s name, logo, colour and support address on the admin console, sign-in, setup and DNS pages and in our emails. Webmail, web addresses, server names and DNS records still show Patra.
Moving mail in	A data import tool in the Admin console copies email from another Google Workspace account, Exchange Online, an IMAP account or a single Gmail account.	Each person imports their own mail over IMAP, with ready-made settings for Gmail and Google Workspace, Zoho, Yahoo Mail, Fastmail and others. Mail from Microsoft 365 is moved by dragging folders in a desktop app.
Support	Standard Support on every Business plan: admins contact Google by chat or email from the Admin console. A paid upgrade to Enhanced Support is available through Google’s sales team.	Email support on every plan, at hello@trypatra.com, and a help centre with step-by-step guides. No phone or chat support.

Google facts: Google’s pricing and product pages, Google’s help centres, Google for Developers and the Google Workspace Updates blog, checked 16 October 2026. Patra facts: this site’s pricing, features, security and help pages. See Sources.

Which one fits your team?

Choose Google Workspace if…
- Your team works in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive every day, or you want video meetings and chat in the same subscription as email.
- You want AI in your mail and documents: Gemini in Gmail on every Business plan, and in Docs, Meet and more from Business Standard.
- Each person needs a lot of storage: 2 TB per user on Business Standard and 5 TB on Plus, pooled.
- You need single sign-on, security keys or passkeys, Vault for eDiscovery (Business Plus), or data at rest kept in the US or Europe (Standard and Plus).
- You’d rather pay monthly with no commitment, adding and removing users as you go, on the Flexible plan.
- People send a lot of mail each: up to 2,000 messages a day per user.
- Your admins want support by chat as well as email.
Choose Patra if…
- You want one price for the whole team: adding people, aliases and groups doesn’t change it.
- Your team needs business email on your own domain, not office apps or file storage.
- Most people keep a few GB of mail, so one shared pool of 10, 25 or 50 GB covers everyone.
- Some of your mail apps sign in with a password: Patra’s IMAP and SMTP take the mailbox password, or an app password once two-step sign-in is on.
- You want automations for incoming mail built in: Telegram or Slack alerts, webhooks, forwards and automatic replies, with runs included in every plan.
- You sell email to clients and want your brand on their admin console, sign-in and setup pages (partners).
- You’d like to try it free for 14 days without payment details.

Good to know about Google Workspace

Every user account is paid for, and Business plans stop at 300 users.
Business Starter has 30 GB per user, no Gemini in Docs or Meet, no Meet recording, no Vault and no choice of where data is kept.
On the one-year plan you can add licences at any time but reduce them only at renewal. New Flexible accounts are limited to 20–50 users for their first 90 days unless they pay in advance.
Mail apps must sign in with OAuth, or with an app password, which needs 2-Step Verification and isn’t available on every work account. Exchange ActiveSync (Google Sync) is no longer supported.
The free trial needs payment setup first and becomes a paid subscription when it ends.

Good to know about Patra

Patra is email only: no office apps, file storage, video meetings or chat.
Mail apps connect over IMAP and SMTP. POP3 and Exchange ActiveSync aren’t available, and contacts stay in webmail.
Self-serve plans are billed yearly and go up to 50 GB. More storage is available on request.
The daily sending total is shared by the whole account, and new accounts are reviewed before they can send.
Patra is in early access: support is by email, and there’s no availability guarantee or service credits.

More comparisons

See all seven providers side by side, or compare Patra with Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, MXroute, Fastmail and Proton Mail.

Switching from Google Workspace to Patra.

Set Patra up next to Google Workspace. Nothing changes for your mail until you switch your MX record.

Six steps, in this order

Your people come across from a Google user export, and each person brings their own mail with a Google app password.

Start free and add your domainYour Google Workspace email keeps working while you set up.
Add the DNS recordsAdd the records your admin console lists, starting with the signing key and the email policy. They don’t change where your mail goes.
Add everyone at onceExport your users from the Google Admin console and upload the file to Patra’s bulk add; any passwords in it are ignored. Each person chooses a password with their setup link.
Switch your MX recordWhen everyone is ready, replace Google’s MX records with the one your Patra panel lists. New mail starts arriving at Patra.
Bring your old mailOnce the switch has settled, each person imports their mail from their setup page with a Google app password, which needs 2-Step Verification. Some Workspace accounts can’t create one: ask your Google admin, or drag your mail across in a desktop mail app. Label archived mail first, so it comes across.
Finish the moveFilters, signatures and out-of-office replies are set up again, and contacts come across as a vCard file. Files in Drive aren’t part of Patra. Google may keep delivering mail between colleagues internally, so once everyone has moved, close your Google Workspace account or turn off Gmail for your users.

Read the full switching guide

Questions, answered.

Something else? Write to hello@trypatra.com.

How much does Google Workspace cost in 2026?

Business Starter is US$7 per user per month, Business Standard US$14 and Business Plus US$22 on a one-year plan, or US$8.40, US$16.80 and US$26.40 on the Flexible plan, with no commitment. Those are Google’s standard US-dollar rates on 16 October 2026. Google says it occasionally offers country-based discounts for new customers, and Enterprise pricing comes from its sales team and resellers.

Is Patra cheaper than Google Workspace?

For email alone, it can be. Five people who each keep up to 5 GB of mail fit Patra’s 25 GB plan: US$49 a year in total, plus tax. The same team pays US$420 a year for Google Workspace Business Starter on a one-year plan. Google’s price also buys 30 GB of pooled storage and up to 2,000 sent messages a day per user, plus Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat, so compare what your team will use.

Does Google Workspace have a free plan with business email?

No. Google Workspace Essentials Starter costs nothing, but Google describes Essentials as tools without Gmail and points to Business Starter for custom email. The Business plans have a 14-day free trial for up to 10 users, after payment setup. Patra has no free plan either: every plan is free for its first 14 days, with no payment details needed.

Does Patra include Docs, Drive or video meetings?

No. Patra is email only: webmail, contacts, any IMAP mail app and an admin console. It has no office apps, online file storage, video meetings or chat. If your team uses those every day, Google Workspace includes Docs, Drive, Meet and Chat in every Business plan.

Does Patra have AI features like Gemini?

Not inside your mailbox. Gemini in Gmail is part of every Google Workspace Business plan, and Gemini in Docs, Meet and more comes with Business Standard and Plus. Patra has no AI writing, summaries or smart replies in webmail. Its AI feature is a read-only connector for your admin console: AI apps that support custom connectors (MCP) can look up storage, DNS records and delivery reports, but can’t read mail, change settings or send mail.

Can I keep using Outlook, Apple Mail or the Gmail app with Patra?

Yes. Outlook, Apple Mail, the Gmail app and Thunderbird connect to Patra over IMAP and SMTP, and Patra has setup guides for each, with an Apple settings profile for iPhone, iPad and Mac. They sign in with the mailbox password, or an app password once two-step sign-in is on. POP3 and Exchange ActiveSync aren’t available, and contacts stay in Patra webmail rather than syncing to your phone.

Can I resell Google Workspace or Patra to my clients?

Google Workspace is resold through Google’s authorized reseller programme, which needs a signed reseller contract; resellers add customers and create orders in Google’s Partner Sales Console. Patra partners get one pool for all their clients, from 75 GB, with prices on request, and their name, logo, colour and support address appear on clients’ admin console, sign-in page, setup pages and the emails Patra sends them. Webmail, web addresses and server names still show Patra.

How do I switch from Google Workspace to Patra?

Set up Patra next to Google Workspace: add your domain, the DNS records and your people (a Google user export works as it is), then switch your MX record when everyone is ready. After the switch, each person imports their old mail from their setup page with a Google app password, which needs 2-Step Verification. Label archived mail first, and keep Google Workspace open until everyone has finished. Patra’s switching guide has every step.

Sources

Last checked 16 October 2026. Google facts come only from Google’s own pages: workspace.google.com, Google’s help centres (Google Workspace Help, the Google Workspace Learning Center, Gmail Help and Google Account Help), Google for Developers and the Google Workspace Updates blog. Prices are Google’s standard US-dollar rates for Business plans, per user per month. Google’s pricing page changes with the visitor’s location, including its currency, prices and sometimes the plans it shows, so we read its US-dollar version.

Google Workspace pricing (workspace.google.com): plans, pooled storage per user, the 300-user limit, Gemini by plan, the 14-day trial and introductory offers.
Compare Flexible and Annual/Fixed-Term payment plans (Google Workspace Help): standard US-dollar rates, paying monthly or yearly, reducing licences, cancelling early and country-based discounts.
Flexible Plan (Google Workspace Help): adding and removing users, cancelling, monthly billing in arrears and the user limit for new accounts.
Compare Business editions (Google Workspace Help): features by plan, storage, message size, groups and the catch-all address, Meet recording, Workspace Studio, Gemini, admin and security tools, Vault, data location and Standard Support.
Compare Google Workspace editions (Google Workspace Help) and Google Workspace Essentials (workspace.google.com): Essentials without Gmail, at no cost.
About your Google Workspace free trial (Google Workspace Help): trial length and users, payment setup and what happens when the trial ends.
Buy more Google Workspace storage (Google Workspace Help): the storage add-on.
Add or delete an email alias and Add a user alias domain or secondary domain (Google Workspace Help): aliases per user, signing in, paid user accounts and domain limits.
Use a group as a Collaborative Inbox and Tips to optimize your Gmail inbox (Google Workspace Learning Center), and Let users delegate access to a Gmail account (Google Workspace Help): shared addresses and plus addresses.
Gmail sending limits in Google Workspace (Google Workspace Help): messages and recipients a day, recipients per message, trial limits and what happens at a limit.
Turn POP and IMAP on or off for users, Transition from less secure apps to OAuth (Google Workspace Help) and Sign in with app passwords (Google Account Help): how mail apps sign in.
What is Google Sync? (Google Workspace Help): the end of Exchange ActiveSync for Workspace accounts.
About GWSMO (Google Workspace Help) and Manage contacts with the CardDAV protocol (Google for Developers): Outlook and contacts.
Protect your business with 2-Step Verification and About SSO (Google Workspace Help): sign-in security.
Choose a geographic location for your data (Google Workspace Help): where data is kept at rest, by plan.
Restore a recently deleted user (Google Workspace Help): how long a deleted user account can be restored.
Create rules to filter your emails (Gmail Help): Gmail filters.
Google Workspace Studio (workspace.google.com) and Workspace Studio integrations and webhooks, 17 September 2026 (Google Workspace Updates blog): flows built with Gemini, third-party steps and webhooks.
Reseller API prerequisites (Google for Developers) and About the Partner Sales Console (Google Workspace Help): reselling Google Workspace.
Add your logo to Google Workspace (Google Workspace Help): branding.
About the data import tool (Google Workspace Help): moving mail in.
Contact Google Workspace support and Google Workspace add-ons (Google Workspace Help): how admins get help, and paid support.

Patra facts come from this site: Pricing, Features, Partners, Security, Switch to Patra, Move your old mail, Phones and computers, Automations, AI assistants, the Acceptable Use Policy and the Refund Policy.

Google Workspace is a trademark of its owner; we are not affiliated.

Product names are trademarks of their owners. Patra isn’t affiliated with them.

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