Google One: Price, storage and how it’s different from Google Drive

Google services are ubiquitous owing to their power, simplicity and ease of use. As a free user, you get access to 15GB of storage across Gmail, Google Drive, and Photos, and access to a tonne of free services like Google Docs, Google Meet, Google Calendar, and many more. These features are intuitive to use, sync seamlessly across devices, and make it easy to collaborate with friends, family, and colleagues.

There will come a point, however, usually when you’re running out of storage space on Drive and Photos, , and not to mention, your smartphone and laptop itself, such that you’ll want to upgrade your account. As a small business owner or power user, you might also find some of the free features to be somewhat limiting. For example, Google Meet is limited to just 60 minutes when there’s more than one participant, which isn’t ideal when you’re, say, giving an elaborate presentation to a client, offering tuition to students, or even just jamming with friends on a Friday night.

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This is where Google One comes in. Subscribing to Google One doesn’t just get you more storage, the subscription also offers a significant upgrade to the apps and services that you use daily for managing your life or business.

Google One pricing

Google One subscriptions are available in several tiers, including one that offers premium access to Gemini, Google’s most powerful AI engine to date.

1. Google One Basic (100 GB): Rs 130 / month or Rs 1,300 / year

2. Google One Standard (200 GB): Rs 210 / month or Rs 2,100 / year

3. Google One Premium (2 TB to 30 TB): Rs 650 / month or Rs 6,500 / year for 2 TB, going up to Rs 16,250 / year for a 5 TB plan, and Rs 9,750 / month for 30 TB. This tier offers additional benefits over and above the storage upgrade. 

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4. Google One AI Premium (2 TB + Gemini): Rs 1,950 / month for 2 TB of storage and additional Gemini AI features on top of Google One Premium features. There’s a 2-month free trial, but no annual subscription.

Google Drive vs Google One

Think of Google Drive as a free, 15GB pool of cloud storage that you use for syncing mails, storing essential documents and photos, and syncing other data between your devices. That’s all it is.

Google One, on the other hand, is a subscription service that not only upgrades your storage, but the services you use as well. Based on the features you want and the amount of storage you need, this subscription service is further categorised into several tiers, including Basic, Standard, Premium, and AI Premium.

All Google One tiers include the following:

1. An increase in Google Drive storage capacity from 15GB to at least 100GB. This can go up to 30TB, depending on your requirements and budget.

2. The option to share Drive storage with up to 5 other people. This is especially useful for families and small businesses as you can centralise backups and subscriptions.

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3. Access to a higher tier of Google Experts to help resolve issues faster. This is useful if you’re running a business.

4. A larger suite of AI-powered photo editing features, including HDR, Magic Eraser, Portrait Blur, Styles, and more. These features are very powerful and a great tool for enhancing and editing images taken on your phone or mirrorless camera.

5. Google will monitor the Dark Web in real-time to check and track leaks of your personal data and information, and will give you guidance on how to mitigate leaks and protect yourself in the event of a data leak. This is a powerful and underrated tool for managing and protecting your privacy.

Google One Basic/Standard vs Google One Premium

Google One Basic and Google One Standard offer the above services and 100GB or 200GB of storage respectively. If you need more storage, you must opt for the Premium plan, which offers between 2TB and 30TB of storage, as well as these additional features:

1. Google Meet upgrades: Unlimited meeting length and recording with transcripts. The free tier is limited to 60-minute meetings.

2. Google Calendar upgrades: Premium offers features like multiple appointment types, automatic email reminders, and more.

Google One AI Premium

Yet another option is the Google One AI Premium tier. This upgrade offers 2TB of storage and all the features that you’d find in Google One Premium, but enhances them with access to Gemini, Google’s supercharged AI assistant. Think of Gemini as Google’s version of ChatGPT. It’s a powerful and fast AI model for power users that offers subscribers the following benefits:

1. Near real-time responses to queries, images, and code.

2. Coding assistance in various languages, including code-generation and explanations.

3. AI assistance for drafting emails, invitations, CVs, ideation, and even Slides.

4. Enhanced video quality and noise reduction in Google Meet

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Google One isn’t just a storage upgrade, it’s a holistic upgrade to the entire suite of Google services that you use every day. Given how much of your workflow a Google One upgrade can streamline, working professionals and small businesses will benefit immensely from it, especially if they’re opting for the Premium or AI Premium plans.