On Wednesday, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) announced that it will begin offering its Google One service to all users around the world. Google One is the name of the overall service that will encompass all of your Google Drive offerings, as well as a number of added benefits including a new pricing structure, family sharing and, for some reason, reduced rates for hotels booked through Google Search.
Google has been slowly upgrading existing paid Google Drive users to One over the past few months. However, now is the first time people will be able to sign up for One rather than getting Drive and then being upgraded at random.
What’s different?
You might already know Google Drive; it’s where your work documents, unfinished manuscripts, spreadsheets, photos and videos live in the cloud. You already get 15GB of free storage with Google Drive, and for most people that’s plenty of data. But when you add in the photos and videos you might save to drive along with the the various documents you save in the cloud, the 15GB looks smaller and smaller.
Google currently offers a 100GB plan for $1.99 per month and a 1TB plan for $9.99 per month. That’s usually more than enough for most people. You can go beyond that all the way up to 30TB for $299 per month, but unless you’re an amateur photographer, you probably don’t need that much.
With Google One, however, you’ll get a 100GB plan for $1.99, a new 200GB plan for $2.99, and a 2TB plan for $9.99. It’s good to see Google added a new offering between 100GB and 1TB, considering the large price jump between the two.
Google’s One plans are extremely competitive, which is impressive when it comes to this already cutthroat space. Apple’s (AAPL) iCloud offers 50GB of storage for $0.99 a month, 200GB for $2.99 or 2TB for $9.99. That matches Google’s pricing but leaves out the option for a 100GB plan for $1.99.
Microsoft’s (MSFT) OneDrive sells a 50GB plan for $1.99 a month, a 1TB plan with access to Office for $6.99 a month and a 5TB plan with Office for $9.99 per month. Still, there’s nothing between 50GB and 1TB.
DropBox (DBX) sells a 1TB plan for $9.99 a month or 2TB for $19.99 per month, while Box (BOX) offers 100GB for $10 per month.
Family sharing and hotel savings
Google One also brings a family sharing feature that will let the main account holder dole out invitations to family members who can then use as much data as they want. The option makes for a more effective use of storage — you and your kids don’t each need 200GB of storage — but it would make more sense if you could, say, allocate a set amount to each person in your plan. This way one person doesn’t bogart the storage space, leaving the rest of you with nothing.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, Google is also offering One customers access to savings on hotels booked via Google Search. The company says users will be eligible for between 15% and 40% off bookings depending on which hotel they choose.
You can look for the new Google One to roll out in the U.S. in the coming weeks.
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Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@oath.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley. Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn
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