Google Workspace is Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs and Sheets on your own domain, with an admin console on top. There is nothing to review that you do not already know. The question is only whether it is worth paying per user instead of using a free address, and for anyone who sends mail to other businesses the answer has been yes for fifteen years.

How I use it

Mail and calendar are the obvious half. The less obvious half is Drive as a file system that other people can see. Every project gets a shared drive with a predictable folder layout: raw footage here, exports there, briefs in a third place. Someone new to a project is told the drive name and finds everything without a tour.

Because Drive has an API, a few of my scripts read those folders. One watches a delivery folder and copies new files where a website can serve them. Another lists what arrived this week so I do not have to open the folder and count. Small things, but they only work because the files are in a place a script can reach, which is the argument for a shared drive over a desktop folder that syncs.

Sheets is the same story: a spreadsheet that a script can write into is a report nobody has to build. Half of my daily numbers land in a Sheet that way.

What surprised me, after years, is how little it breaks. Mail delivery, calendar invites across companies, document sharing with outside people; it works and I do not think about it, which is the whole point of infrastructure.

What annoys me: every mailbox costs a seat, so a shared address for a function needs a group or an alias rather than a user, and the admin console makes finding that setting an expedition. Storage on the lower plans runs out sooner than expected once video lands in Drive. And the pricing changes every couple of years, always upward.

Who it is for

Any business, from one person up. If you are alone and only need mail, Fastmail is cheaper and calmer. If other people or scripts need to reach your files, this is the default for a reason.

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