My Google One Storage Plan Is Cheating on Me?
Is Google ripping everyone off with its Google One cloud storage? I admit I didn’t really think about it, but a Lifehacker reader recently posted an email to our tech tips column asking exactly this question.
I’ll let George explain:
“I recently upgraded my Google account storage using Google One. I chose 200 GB.
I assumed that in this case the total storage would be 215 GB; the free 15GB that I had with my free Google account, plus the 200GB that I’m paying for now. But this is not the case. I have 200GB of storage for my google account.
Am I an idiot thinking I have 215 GB of storage space? I feel like I’m paying for 185GB of storage now that Google seems to have invested my free 15GB in my 200GB purchase.
Thanks for your time and keep up the good work with Lifehacker. “
I think your question is more “Why does Google like round numbers” than anything else. Before I get to my answer, let’s do an overview. Google One for the uninitiated is a cloud storage service that you’ll probably pay for at some point if your Gmail gets out of hand (and you haven’t cleaned up all the huge files you send and receive).
Right now, here are all the different Google One options (and their prices):
- 15 GB: Free
- 100 GB: $ 2 per month or $ 20 per year
- 200 GB: $ 3 per month or $ 30 per year
- 2 TB: $ 10 per month or $ 100 per year
- 10 TB: $ 100 per month
- 20 TB: $ 200 per month
- 30 TB: $ 300 per month
You are absolutely right, George. Google doesn’t give you [your plan] plus 15GB. Rather, 15GB is added to your plan. So, yes, technically you only pay for 185GB and not the full 200, but for now we are sorry for a penny. Assuming you’re smart and paying $ 30 per year to get a 17 percent discount, that means you’re effectively spending 15 cents per gigabyte per year. So you are losing a whopping … $ 2.25. I wouldn’t worry about that.
And while I was joking earlier, I think the only reason Google is doing this – rather than giving you 215GB of cash to spend your money on – is because the round numbers are nicer to look at. Google would probably have to dedicate even more of its massive server infrastructure for custom storage if everyone who bought the Google One plan got an extra 15GB, but I doubt the company is sweating financially or even worried about overloading its servers for that to happen. … This is pure marketing because everyone loves round numbers . Really.
And Google is unambiguous about what it offers. The second sentence on the Google One pricing page says: “All Google accounts are provided with 15 GB of free storage space.” The word “enable” kills the extra storage. I suppose Google could clarify this by showing that you do pay for [data plan] minus 15GB, but I think that for non-experts it will be much more difficult than just rolling everything into round numbers.
Be that as it may, Google gives you the most free storage – no strings attached – of any major cloud storage provider. So, even if you pay for less data than you think, at least you get more for free? Like, like, something like? And no matter how you dice it in your head, Google One has the best price per gigabyte I’ve looked at , so you’ll still be saving money even if some other service gives you 215GB (which is do not).