As if this year couldn’t get any worse, Google decided to discontinue its free Google Workspace Legacy Edition. I honestly can’t say I didn’t see this coming because it started years ago when they stopped the creation of new accounts, then reduced the number of users you could use.

Right now Google is saying that they will be shutting my emails down by the first of June unless I upgrade to their business editions.

The problem

There is only 1 major problem. The cheapest version of their workspace costs $6 per user per month. That would be $576 per year. Ouch!

It would be better if my family and I actually used the other services that are offered but honestly the only thing we use is Gmail. They did offer a “no-cost option” but that includes everything we don’t need and excludes the one thing we do need… email. One Reddit user put it best;

In my case, all I wanted was email with my own domain and the ability to alias another domain.

That’s all. I don’t need anything else.

Why alias? Well, years ago I got my domain mmusangeya.com and added it to Google Workspace Legacy Edition so that I could have a cool custom email. A few years after that I got the generic musangeya.com and started using that. Now I support both mmusangeya.com and musangeya.com with the emails landing in the same email box.

If Google offered a family plan for Gmail at maybe $20 to $80 per year I would have taken it no questions asked. But by asking me to pay over $500 they have forced me to evaluate the competition.

So what are my options?

Microsoft 365 family plan, the price is ok but no domain aliases so nope.

Apple? Hard pass.

Hosting my own mail? Only as a last resort. I’ve run mail servers before both personal and business servers. So while I can technically do it, I don’t want the hustle.

Zoho? Wins by default. At least for now.

I am still evaluating but the reality is I have found my next weekend project. I’ll be migrating my family to a new email provider. Thanks Google, while using apps for the last decade and a half was great, it’s not worth $576 dollars a year.

If Google comes up with a more reasonable offer before I move(I doubt it, they don’t give a fuck) then I’ll stay, otherwise, thanks for the memories. See you in the funny papers.