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Every firm of ten to fifty people ends up on one of two platforms for email, files and meetings. We set up and manage both every week, and the honest answer to "which is better" is that both are excellent, and the choice is usually made by three things that are not on any feature list: the files you already have, what your accountant and your industry expect, and how much you value a desktop copy of Excel.
This article compares the two suites as they stand in August 2026: plans and list prices, security by tier, AI assistants, storage, desktop apps versus the browser, migration and coexistence, and data residency under UK GDPR, ending with when we recommend each. Our Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace pages describe what we do on each platform; this piece is about choosing.
The plans and what they cost
Microsoft sells three business plans, all capped at 300 users. Its UK site lists Business Basic at £5.40 and Business Standard at £10.80 per user per month, paid yearly and excluding VAT; Basic gives web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook only, while Standard adds the desktop applications (Microsoft, 2026a). Business Premium is £16.90 on the same terms and adds the security stack discussed below (Microsoft, 2026b). All three auto-renew annually, so the renewal date belongs in your diary; see our subscription audit guide.
Google's business tier is also capped at 300 users. A caveat on prices: Google's UK page sets the currency in the browser and we could not capture the sterling figures in a citable form, so we quote the US-dollar list prices from Google's help centre. On an annual plan those are $7 for Business Starter, $14 for Business Standard and $22 for Business Plus per user per month; the flexible monthly plan costs $8.40, $16.80 and $26.40 (Google, 2026a). Check the sterling price before you budget; the 20% premium for flexibility applies in any currency.
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Google Business Starter | Business Standard | Business Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per user per month | £5.40 | £10.80 | £16.90 | $7 | $14 | $22 |
| Desktop Office apps | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| File storage per user | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 30 GB pooled | 2 TB pooled | 5 TB pooled |
| Endpoint security | No | No | Defender for Business, Intune Plan 1 | Standard | Standard | Advanced endpoint management |
| Retention and data protection | No | No | Purview DLP and Information Protection | No | No | Google Vault |
| Data location | UK geography | UK geography | UK geography | None | US or EU | US or EU |
| AI assistant | Copilot add-on | Copilot add-on | Copilot add-on | Gemini app | Gemini included | Gemini included |
Security: where the tiers really differ
The biggest difference for a small firm is that Microsoft puts serious security in a plan you can buy at ten seats. Business Premium includes Microsoft Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365, Intune Plan 1 for device management, Entra ID access controls and Purview data loss prevention and information protection (Microsoft, 2026b). In practice that means managed endpoint protection on every laptop, conditional access rules ("no sign-in from an unmanaged device") and policies that stop customer data being emailed out: the controls a Cyber Essentials assessor or insurer asks about; see our post on the April 2026 changes.
Google's equivalents mostly sit in the Enterprise editions. Its security dashboard is supported on the Frontline, Enterprise and Education Standard and Plus editions and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Context-Aware Access, which restricts app access by "user identity, location, device security status, and IP address", has the same list plus Cloud Identity Premium (Google, 2026c; 2026d). Neither is available on any Business plan. What the Business tier does give you is Google Vault for retention and eDiscovery and advanced endpoint management on Business Plus, and ransomware detection on Business Standard and above (Google, 2026a). Two-step verification, phishing filtering and sharing controls are strong on every tier; it is device and policy tooling that costs an Enterprise licence.
Neither platform backs up your data in the way most owners assume; we add independent backup on either, see backup and recovery.
AI assistants: an add-on against an inclusion
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is an add-on to a qualifying plan, listed at £13.80 per user per month paid yearly, down from an original £16.10, with bundles of Business Standard with Copilot at £18.10 and Business Premium with Copilot at £24.60 (Microsoft, 2026c). Look at the bundles: Premium with Copilot costs £7.70 a month more than Premium alone, far less than adding the licence separately.
Google folded Gemini into its plans instead. Business Starter includes the Gemini app for quick questions; Business Standard and Plus add what Google calls advanced AI functionality across the Workspace apps, with no separate licence to buy (Google, 2026a). For a firm that wants AI for everyone, Google's inclusion is cheaper and simpler. Where a handful of people would use Copilot inside Excel, Outlook and Teams, Microsoft's per-user model lets you pay only for them.
Storage and the desktop-versus-browser question
Microsoft's Basic and Standard plans include 1 TB of cloud storage per user (Microsoft, 2026a), and Premium builds on Standard. Google pools storage across the organisation: 30 GB per user on Starter, 2 TB on Standard and 5 TB on Plus (Google, 2026a). Starter's 30 GB is the trap; a mailbox and a Drive folder fill it within a year or two and force an upgrade.
The deeper difference is philosophy. Microsoft Standard and Premium install Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on the machine; Google's apps live in the browser, with offline modes that work but are not the same thing. If your business runs on complex Excel workbooks, mail merges or client templates with macros, browser versions of anything will frustrate people daily. If your work is shared documents, comments and video calls, Google's real-time collaboration is still the more natural experience.
Data residency and UK GDPR
UK GDPR does not require data to stay in the UK; it requires appropriate safeguards for transfers abroad, which both vendors provide contractually. Many clients in legal, financial and public-sector supply chains still prefer data held here, and that is where the platforms differ.
Microsoft lists the United Kingdom as a Local Region Geography, with Product Terms commitments to store customer data at rest for Exchange Online, SharePoint and OneDrive and Teams in that geography. The geography is fixed by the country entered when the tenant is created and cannot be changed afterwards (Microsoft, 2026d), so get it right on day one.
Google's data regions feature is available on Business Standard and Plus, not Starter, and the choices are the United States, the European Union or no preference (Google, 2026b). There is no UK option. For most firms that is acceptable; where clients ask "where is our data held" in tenders, Microsoft's answer is simpler.
Migration and coexistence realities
Both directions are routine for us and share the same rough edges. Mail, calendars and contacts move cleanly with the vendors' tools; the long tail does not: shared calendars, mailbox rules, out-of-office settings, room bookings, Drive files with their sharing permissions, and Teams or Chat history. Treat files as a separate project from mailboxes, and budget for a fortnight of "where did that go" questions.
Coexistence is workable but never free: it needs calendar free-busy sharing, one identity provider so leavers are removed everywhere, and a decision about which platform owns the files. We run several such setups and rarely recommend starting one deliberately.
What typically decides it
For a 10–50 person firm the decision usually turns on one of these:
- Existing files. Years of Excel and Word documents, especially with macros or complex formatting, pull towards Microsoft.
- The accountant and the industry. Legal, financial services, construction and anyone dealing with government bodies mostly live in the Microsoft world; agencies, start-ups and firms founded on Gmail lean Google.
- Security requirements. If an assessor, insurer or client questionnaire requires managed devices and conditional access, Business Premium delivers it at about £17 a seat, where Google needs an Enterprise licence.
- How people actually work. Watch the team for a day: a browser and a shared document says Google; Outlook and Excel says Microsoft.
When we would recommend each
Microsoft 365, usually Business Premium, when you need managed endpoint security and conditional access, use desktop Office heavily, get asked about UK data location, or run industry software that integrates with Outlook and SharePoint. Standard suits a lower-risk firm that just needs the desktop apps; Basic suits shared mailboxes and light users.
Google Workspace, usually Business Standard, when the team is browser-first and collaboration-heavy, you want AI included for everyone without licensing arithmetic, storage matters more than desktop apps, and you are starting fresh rather than carrying an Office archive. Plus earns its price only if you need Vault or advanced device management.
Stay where you are and fix the setup when the platform is merely badly configured. Most of the pain we are asked to solve by switching is a security baseline, a licence tidy-up and a shared-drive structure away from being solved in place.
What to do next
Count your users by how they work, not by job title; price Microsoft Business Premium against Google Business Standard plus any Enterprise features you would actually need; and check the vendors' UK pages for current sterling prices before signing an annual term. For a written recommendation with reasons, we run both platforms under managed IT support and as cloud services projects; get in touch with your headcount and how the team works.
Sources
- Google (2026a) Business editions. Google Workspace Admin Help. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/getting-started/editions/business-editions (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Google (2026b) Choose a geographic location for your data. Google Workspace Admin Help. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/compliance/choose-a-geographic-location-for-your-data (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Google (2026c) Protect your business with Context-Aware Access. Google Workspace Admin Help. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/security/protect-your-business-with-context-aware-access (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Google (2026d) Use the security dashboard. Google Workspace Admin Help. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/security/use-the-security-dashboard (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Microsoft (2026a) Microsoft 365 Business Basic (UK pricing page, including Business Standard comparison). https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/business/microsoft-365-business-basic (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Microsoft (2026b) Microsoft 365 Business Premium (UK pricing page). https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/business/microsoft-365-business-premium (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Microsoft (2026c) Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (UK pricing page). https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/copilot/business (accessed 25 August 2026).
- Microsoft (2026d) Overview of Microsoft 365 data residency. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/m365-dr-overview (accessed 25 August 2026).