Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider? Even though several digital marketing strategies have evolved, email marketing continues to maintain its grip when it comes to acquiring new customers, building good B2C and B2B relationships, regulating consistent communication within the company for positive collaboration, and so on.
It is undeniably effective and affordable, and usually comes equipped with growth oriented features such as target messaging, email tracking, enhancing brand awareness, etc.
Well, so shall we start with the article blog Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider?
Email Provider Importance
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All in all, captivating the benefits of email marketing might seem obviously beneficial to you, but businesses face several challenges when opting for the most suitable email provider, due to issues, such as:
Deliverability
Various aspects affect the deliverability factor, such as customer engagement, spam traps or emails bouncing back, as well as complex sending patterns of bulk email. There is also promotional or outreach email landing in the Junk folder when more than 0.1% of subscribers report them as spam and the basic infrastructure like servers being used, controls, setup procedures, etc.
This kind of spam filtering, which is mostly found in corporate email servers, leads to poor deliverability scores.
Data Security
Since email marketing tends to be the highest revenue generating factor for most businesses, marketing emails remain the primary target of cybercriminals and hackers. So, keeping your data secure is a real task in the contemporary business world.
Thus, it is imperative that security measures go beyond merely keeping unique passwords, which requires email content protection beginning from the transmission itself, creating more than one authentication method for authorized access, going through the email program’s functionality, integrity, etc.
The following methods help you execute a sophisticated security strategy — such as DMARC (Domain Based Authentication, Reporting, and Messaging Consistency); SPF (Sender Policy Framework); and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail).
Performance
A high performing email provider greatly affects the business growth as its performing standards are based on whether or not the email has achieved the goal it was sent for. An email that is not received within the chosen time frame might hamper the client acquisition process.
Therefore, a business must opt for an email service that is replete with features such as robust personalization, target specific, capable of achieving clicks and opens, etc.
Customer Service
Lack of solution provision on an urgent basis is one of the major causes of losing clients or customers. A customer support team has to face irritated customers often, which is either because of an error on the company’s part or due to some misunderstanding.
Empathy and priority through email support greatly help you overcome such issues between the client and the support reps.Hence, a well equipped and quick responding customer service heightens customer relationship quality and boosts revenue growth.
Businesses are trying to find the best option for them as email continues to become even more popular and important.
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In turn, many companies are choosing to move over to Office 365 or G Suite. Both are cloud based services that give you access to email and document collaboration tools, storage space, search and social media sharing features, and offer enterprise grade security features.
So how do you decide which is better for your specific business needs?
That’s why we’ve written this blog post to help you get to know in detail about Office 365 and G Suite. Equally, two prominent email providers are the market today and we touch upon their interesting features, how they compare against each other, and finally pick one to suit your business the best.
Office 365 Email Provider
Now known as Microsoft 365, it is a subscription based workspace that offers an easy to access online version of some of their enormously popular apps such as Word, PowerPoint, etc. Although it is mainly a desktop based software, some web based versions of its applications are also available.
As per a 2022 survey, over 879851 companies in the US alone are using Office 365, among over a million companies worldwide.
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Following, Office 365 is an integrated business suite that is used by many SMBs as well as enterprises. Different cloud applications and services have been brought together into an Office 365 subscription based model.
Features of Office 365
The productivity oriented professional email hosting by Office 365 is secure and benefits businesses in several ways:
- Provides you with a custom email domain — for example, Name@CompanyName.com.
- Its highly secure cloud storage allows you to virtually access your files from anywhere or share files with your team without any security compromises.
- You can easily access calendar and contact lists, and share them securely with your teammates.
- Enables you to securely access your emails remotely with multi factor authentication.
Office 365 offers two power packed plans:
- Microsoft 365 Family at $99.99/year — Offers accessibility to 1-6 people; can be used on five devices at the same time; compatible with PC, iPhone, Android phones, iPad, and Mac; 1 TB per person cloud storage totaling 6 TB cloud storage.
- Microsoft Personal at $69.99/year — Accessible by 1 person; can be simultaneously used on up to 5 devices; 1 TB cloud storage; compatibility is the same as the Family plan.
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Pros of Office 365
An Efficient Inbox
Furthermore, Office 365 offers an intelligent inbox that can be personalized, and its exciting features help you adopt a smarter way to view and interact with an organized email.
This tool provides an enhanced and refined search function for faster and more accurate results. You get to enjoy its robust customization and flexibility with add-ins. With this, you can easily connect with its expansive internal line of feature packed business apps as well as modern services.
Unique Email Hosting Regardless Of Business Size
Whether you are an SMB or a large scale enterprise, Office 365’s email hosting service empowers you with some catchy features:
- A powerful email solution with advanced malware and virus protection.
- Protection against unauthorized email access with protection based policies and restricted email forwarding.
- You and your team can send, archive, or receive messages irrespective of the inbox size without any hassles.
- A well-equipped 24/7 customer support to address your security issues.
FeatureNRich OneDrive For Business
OneDrive for Business by Office 365 is a tightly integrated MS Office product that allows you to easily store, share and collaborate content on the web. It enables cross platform collaboration with Microsoft 365 users, which means that it allows you to collaborate with multiple users on the same project regardless of the platform type.
It comes with a host of benefits:
- Secure storage of files and information.
- Strong integration with other MS products.
- Lets you customize the synching feature.
- Helps you free up the device’s storage.
- Cross platform collaboration on projects with your team.
Cons of Office 365
Less Intuitive Software
Office 365’s less intuitive user interface steepens the learning curve. Getting acquainted with the tool can be a task without a good experience in hand. The help feature is replete with terminologies that are tricky and challenging for a new user.
Unorganized Segregation Of Emails
Even after multiple email exchanges with certain contacts, the emails keep landing in Trash instead of ‘Important’ emails. This largely affects urgent matters which might require instant action but go unnoticed due to this repetitive glitch.
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Up next with Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider? we introduce G Suite.
G Suite Email Provider
It is a suite of productivity apps (like Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Drive, G Talk) that provides your business with a combination of tools (such as email, calendar, contacts, etc.) into one shared cloud service.
Renamed Google Workspace, G Suite can be beneficial for all business sizes. Today, over 5 million paying businesses are using G Suite for business advancement.
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Features of G Suite
Overall G Suite features brings together apps like Gmail, Google Drive, etc. into one cohesive package that can be accessed from anywhere. The service also allows users to share their calendars and contacts with other users in their organization.
With G Suite, you can either use your existing domain name or register a new one. It allows you to create as many as 30 email aliases, comes with a simple user interface, and is easy to adapt to owing to its usage of the same technology as Gmail.
G Suite offers three exciting business plans and an enterprise plan to choose from:
- Starter Plan at $6/user per month with features such as — a secure business ID, 30 GB cloud storage for each user, video meetings allowing 100 participants, standard support, and more.
- Standard Plan at $14/user per month with features such as — a custom business email, video meetings with 150 participants plus recording, 2 TB cloud storage per user, and more.
- Plus Plan at $18/user per month featuring a custom business email plus e-discovery and retention, video meetings with 500 participants plus recording plus attendance tracking, 5 TB cloud storage per user, and more.
- Enterprise Plan — you need to contact their sales department for the pricing.
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Pros of G Suite
Easy Deployment And Data Migration
Regardless of the size of your organization, deploying Google Workspace is easier when compared to Office 365. It allows your team members to enhance their collaboration and communication methods for better business outcomes.
With the help of a G Suite tool called G Suite Migrate, you can easily migrate any data effortlessly. The software offers a simple, precise, and reliable process by which you can migrate your emails, contact information, calendar, or any other important data into the secure cloud environment of Google.
Domain-Based Email For Business Promotion And Building Trust
With G Suite, you can have a professional email address with your custom domain lending a more sophisticated approach to your business. A custom domain name helps in promoting the company as well as building trust with the customers.
Additionally, individual employees’ access to a company’s custom email can be controlled. So, for example, if an employee leaves the company, he/she can be restricted from accessing his/her email.
Vast Storage Space
G Suite offers 30 GB of storage space in its most basic plan for each company employee. This helps in retaining a larger number of emails, and allows you to easily upload images, documents, or large files. The stored data can then be accessed from any location at any time. In addition to this, you can work on the documents or access Gmail and Drive even when you are offline.
Plus, it offers a strong search feature that allows you to trace and access a file with a single relatable word search.
Cons of G Suite
Unjustified Email Inbox Pricing
The G Suite inboxes come at the same cost whether you want just the email or the other set of given features as well. For example, if a support email address is to be set up for the support desk, the price of the new account is no different from the existing feature packed account. This way, the cost of the new account seems unjustified.
Inefficient Shared Inbox Tool
As compared to other well equipped aspects of G Suite, its Shared Inbox has limited features to offer. It lacks automation features and doesn’t allow you to see if another user has sent a response to an email, which might lead to two employees replying to the same email creating further confusion for the recipient. This directly affects the performance and collaboration of the team at work.
Now with this article Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider? it is time to perform a comparison guide for you.
Office 365 vs G Suite — Quick Comparison
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Pricing Of Office 365
It currently offers two plans — Office 365 Family Plan for $99.99/year and Office 365 Personal Plan for $69.99/year. Both plans offer a fixed storage capacity of 1TB. It provides you with calling features via Skype. For local calls, you require Skype credits.
Pricing Of G Suite
The plans offered by G Suite are classified into four categories — Business Starter Plan for $6/user per month; Business Standard Plan for $14/user per month; Business Plus Plan for $18/user per month; and Enterprise, which can be sought by contacting their sales department.
G Suite offers unlimited cloud storage in its Business and Enterprise Plans. You can make calls using Hangouts, Google Voice, or Google Meet.
Inbox Of Office 365
It allows you to create an email id with your custom domain. Its inbox, Outlook, offers a feature-rich desktop email client, several mobile apps, and a web version. You can create 400 email aliases with this inbox, and can also use the Office 365 email address with other email clients. Plus, It offers 50 GB of email storage.
Inbox Of G Suite
It uses the same technology as Gmail for its inbox, which makes it easier for users to get acquainted with its features and interface. Email accounts can be effortlessly created using a newly registered domain name or an already existing one. You can also create 30 email aliases with the G Suite inbox.
Cloud Storage Of Office 365
Every Office 365 plan offers 1 TB of cloud storage per user. With OneDrive, you can sync and share files easily. Operating systems like Windows 10 and Windows 8 PC come integrated with OneDrive. OneDrive files can be opened directly on the other apps on your system.
Cloud Storage Of G Suite
It uses Google Drive for file storage which offers 30 GB in all its plans and unlimited storage in the Enterprise plans. The apps can be downloaded without any hassles on mobile devices, desktops, or tablets. You can easily share files and also make the files available offline for working offline.
Privacy And Security In Office 365
Office 365 ensures the safety of your entire data with its multiple-factor authentication feature. Intuitive AI tools under its hood allow it to identify any security threats or malicious activity. It helps in the scanning of your emails, attachments, and other documents to prevent viruses or malware via its spam detection tool(s). Data loss, data theft(s), or any potential data leak are prevented by its security tools.
Privacy And Security In G Suite
G Suite data protection strategy comes equipped with the capability to automatically detect phishing attempts or other suspicious activities. It uses the same infrastructure as is used by Google Cloud for Gmail. An administrator can impose two factor authentication (2FA) on all its users. You can also set different policies you deem important for data safety. Plus, it has a built-in detection tool that can identify spam, malware, or virus.
Communication and Collaboration In Office 365
Office 365 uses Microsoft Teams for team collaboration and helps you easily connect with specific professional communities. With its powerful audio and video recording features, you can easily share presentations with your team members.
Additionally, Skype for Business enables you to hold conferences and the ability to make free calls (using devices like mobile, computer, and tablet) to about 50 people.
Communication and Collaboration In G Suite
G Suite comes with G Meet, using which you can make free calls or hold business meetings and web conferences. It is a free online and web app, has simple usability, and also offers a live multi user editing facility.
Accessibility Of Office 365
Its desktop version is robust and dynamic. Please note that it is also available in web version, and is accessible on Windows, Mac OS, and all mobile platforms.
Accessibility Of G Suite
Built primarily as a collaboration tool, G Suite is offered in a web version only. Since G Suite apps do not have any native desktop version, if you enable file syncing, offline usage is possible through the Chrome browser. It can be accessed via Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac OS.
Thank you for reading Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider? We shall conclude this article title.
Office 365 vs G Suite — What's the Best Email Provider? (Conclusion)
Summing up, Office 365 vs G Suite – What’s the Best Email Provider? Well, the decision to choose between Office 365 and G Suite will come down most likely to your specific needs. Both email services are subscription based with several productive features. But if we have to focus on their differences which can justify what you opt for, there are a few contrasting aspects to take into account:
- G Suite’s offline functionality comprises offline working possibilities on Doc, Sheets, and Slides as a desktop app, while in Office 365, you can only work on a file once you have download when online.
- You must also note that Office 365 restricts you from using the features which are only available in online mode when you are working offline.
- While G Suite has a simplistic approach and a simple user interface, Office 365 is expansive and can be a bit tricky with its steep learning curve.
- G Suite’s plans are costlier than the plans offered by Office 365, which makes it tougher for most SMBs to select it as their choice of the email provider.
Simply put, each of these email providers has unique features that make it a suitable choice for businesses in different stages of development. Although G Suite is more expensive, it can be a more suitable option for beginners or SMBs due to its simple approach and butter-smooth user interface.
By switching to one or the other, you can take advantage of a more modern email platform that makes communication easier, more effective, and more comprehensive than ever before.
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