Dropbox Business Plus costs $15/user/month as a standalone storage tool. Google Workspace Business Starter at $6/user includes Drive, Gmail, Meet, and Calendar — potentially saving you $9/user/month while consolidating your productivity stack.
Dropbox Business Plus at $15/user/month is expensive for what is essentially a file sync tool. Google Workspace Business Starter at $6/user includes Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Meet. For teams already using Google Workspace, Dropbox is often entirely redundant — they're paying for two storage systems simultaneously. Consolidating to Drive saves $15/user/month.
The migration is technically straightforward — file transfer is well-supported — but behavioural changes are significant. Dropbox's desktop-first, folder-based sync is deeply familiar. Google Drive's web-first model with Google Docs (not real .docx files) requires a mindset shift, especially for users who work heavily with Microsoft Office files.
For a 20-person team on Dropbox Business Plus migrating to Google Drive (via Google Workspace Business Starter).
| Input | Suggested Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Current monthly cost (Dropbox) | $300 | Business Plus, 20 users |
| New monthly cost (Google Workspace) | $120 | Business Starter, 20 users (inc. Drive) |
| Contract months remaining | 4 | |
| Migration hours | 22 | File transfer + folder structure + link audit |
| Staff hourly rate | $60 | IT admin |
| Retraining hours / person | 2 | Drive orientation — relatively quick adaptation |
| Staff needing training | 20 | All Dropbox users |
| Downtime hours (total) | 20 | |
| Downtime cost / hour | $50 | Team productivity cost per hour |
| Risk buffer | 10% | Shared link invalidation scope risk |
Pre-filled for a 20-person team. Adjust the user count to match your team size.
Open Calculator with These ValuesAll values are editable. Results are estimates only.
For small volumes: download Dropbox folders locally and upload to Google Drive or use the Drive desktop app to copy. For larger migrations (100GB+), use Google Workspace's Data Migration Service or a tool like MultCloud or CloudMigr to transfer directly between cloud services without downloading locally. Verify file counts and sizes match before and after migration.
Yes — Dropbox's file version history (30 days on Business, 180 days on Business Plus) does not transfer to Google Drive. Files arrive in Drive as their current version only. If version history is important for compliance or collaboration purposes, export critical version snapshots from Dropbox before migrating, or maintain read-only Dropbox access for the retention period your policy requires.
Dropbox has historically had a slight edge in desktop sync reliability and speed, particularly on large file sets and selective sync workflows. Google Drive for Desktop has improved significantly. For most business use cases, both are reliable. Dropbox has better support for large design asset libraries (used with Figma, Sketch) and better selective sync on slower connections. For standard office documents, both work well.