Google folded Gemini into Workspace base plans

Assistant features move from add-on to base plan

On 15 January 2025, Google Workspace announced that Gemini, Gemini Advanced and NotebookLM Plus would be included in Business Standard, Business Plus and Enterprise plans, rather than sold as a separate add-on, across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat and Vids. The announcement gave one worked example: a Business Standard customer who had also been paying for the Gemini Business add-on previously paid $32 a user, per month, and would now pay $14 a user, per month, which the post itself describes as only $2 more than the base plan cost without Gemini at all. New-customer pricing took effect the next day; existing customers were moved to the new pricing from 17 March 2025 or at renewal, with a later update pushing the change for very small business customers to 7 July 2025.

Who this affects, and how the bundling works

The $2 figure is the important number for a buyer who never wanted Gemini. Folding a paid add-on into the base plan removes the option to decline it: Gemini now appears by default inside Gmail, Docs and Meet for anyone on an included tier, and the base subscription price absorbs part of what used to be an optional line item.

The friction: a restructured ladder, not just a price line

Google's current pricing page, as retrieved on 16 September 2026, shows Gemini access built into Business Standard, Business Plus and Enterprise, described only as 'expanded access' compared with Business Starter's more limited Gemini access in Gmail. That vague phrasing across tiers means a buyer cannot tell from the price list alone what capability difference the higher tiers actually buy; checking the fine print, not just the monthly figure, is now necessary to compare plans.

• Is there still a lower tier that excludes Gemini, and does it meaningfully cost less?
• Are you paying more for an assistant your team will not use, now that it cannot be declined?
• Which renewal date applies to your contract, given the phased rollout across 2025?

Bundling can lower the price for someone who already paid for the add-on and raise it for someone who did not. Both are true of this change at once, and only reading the worked example in the original announcement makes that visible.