Startups and remote-first teams often find Google Workspace's browser-based collaboration more natural than M365's desktop-centric model. But moving an organisation off Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams is a major undertaking — often underestimated.
M365 Business Standard costs $12.50/user/month. Google Workspace Business Standard is $14/user/month — slightly more expensive. This switch is almost always about collaboration model, not cost. Startups find Google Docs' real-time co-editing and browser-first approach faster for small teams. Remote companies prefer Google Meet's lightweight setup. Organisations with heavy Chromebook fleets find Google Workspace more natural.
The critical challenge: SharePoint and OneDrive have no clean Google Drive equivalent at enterprise scale. SharePoint's intranet, permissions model, and document library structure must be completely rethought as Google Drive shared drives. VBA macros in Excel must be rebuilt as Google Apps Scripts.
Conservative estimates for a 30-person organisation. Adjust for your SharePoint complexity and automation footprint.
| Input | Suggested Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Current monthly cost (M365) | $375 | Business Standard, 30 users |
| New monthly cost (Google Workspace) | $420 | Business Standard, 30 users — slightly more |
| Contract months remaining | 5 | M365 annual mid-point |
| Migration hours | 85 | Email + SharePoint + macros + integrations |
| Staff hourly rate | $85 | IT admin + Google migration specialist |
| Retraining hours / person | 8 | Gmail, Drive, Meet, Chat, Sheets |
| Staff needing training | 30 | All users — whole-org migration |
| Downtime hours (total) | 60 | Org-wide productivity dip over 3 weeks |
| Downtime cost / hour | $80 | Blended team productivity cost |
| Risk buffer | 20% | SharePoint migrations frequently overrun |
Pre-filled with 30-person estimates. Adjust for your actual org size and SharePoint complexity.
Open Calculator with These ValuesAll values are editable. Results are estimates only.
Yes — a parallel running period of 4–8 weeks is standard practice. However, split environments create confusion: documents get created in both platforms, meetings get scheduled in both calendars, and email replies happen in both Outlook and Gmail. Set a hard cutover date and decommission M365 access within 2 weeks of the switch to prevent long-term dual running.
SharePoint intranets don't migrate to Google. Your options are: rebuild key intranet pages as Google Sites, move to a dedicated intranet tool (Notion, Confluence, or a dedicated intranet platform), or accept losing intranet functionality. Most organisations choose to defer intranet migration and treat it as a separate project after the core productivity tools have settled.
Google Workspace Enterprise Plus has strong compliance features including eDiscovery, data loss prevention, and compliance certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA with BAA). However, M365's compliance tooling (Microsoft Purview, Compliance Manager, sensitivity labels) is generally considered more mature for highly regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, and government. Verify your compliance requirements before committing to the switch.