Outlook vs Gmail: Which Email Platform is the Best for Your Budget plan?
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are the dominant performance suites in the world of software as a service (SaaS), both providing a large range of applications that modern business need.
While the functions of a lot of these applications are similar, Microsoft and Google's proprietary offerings each have their own quirks, for much better or even worse.
In this post, we will take a look at e-mail through Microsoft Outlook and Google's Gmail for Business. Separately, the pair are the leading email applications in organization by market share and are pillars of M365 and Workspace, respectively.
Email might appear easy on the surface area, but the distinctions in between Outlook and Gmail reveal that things are more complex than sending out and receiving mail.
The functions of each are different, beginning with how they are accessed, and ending with the security and privacy provided.
Pricing
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are priced each month, per user, and have different tiers of rates. As it pertains to the mail accounts themselves, the distinction in tiers usually just impacts storage space.
Using Microsoft's Business Basic strategy ($ 5/month/user when billed annually), each user gets 50 GB of email storage area, which is independent of the additional 1 TB of cloud storage in OneDrive.
Keep in mind, one of the most fundamental level of M365 does not include any of Microsoft's desktop applications, including Outlook. Users acquiring this plan will have to be happy with the Outlook web app.
Google's Business Basic strategy ($ 6), offers just 30 GB of storage overall, combining e-mail storage and drive storage together.
That's right, 60% of the mail box storage attended to Microsoft accounts for 100% of your overall storage on Google's most affordable strategy.
That inconsistency is likely an effort by Google to upsell users to their premium plans, with their Standard strategy ($ 12) leaping to 2 TB of drive storage, and the Plus plan ($ 18) going to 5 TB.
A grid revealing the rates and storage abilities of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Scoring round 1 here, let's call it a draw. At the most affordable level, the 2 platforms are comparable, and Gmail's web app might be worth the additional dollar per month.
As you go up strategies, the Outlook desktop app could swing your decision, as we will talk about later on. Bear in mind, Microsoft's prices is based on an annual commitment, while Google does not offer annual discount rates since this post.
This post is merely covering the two suites through the scope of their e-mail applications, and these costs cover lots of other features. If price is your main factor, consider each suite in total prior to deciding.
Relieve of Use
The most significant distinction between the 2 suites total is Microsoft's desktop apps, which are much more feature-packed relative to Google's web apps.
While the functions are not as various in between the e-mail applications, the complete Gmail experience is only available through a web browser.
With Outlook's desktop app, users get the complete Exchange server experience, with the included advantage of having the ability to read and prepare e-mails while offline.
If you are on a plane, responding to e-mails and working on documents you prepare to send out later may be the finest usage of your time.
With Outlook, you do not require to wait for the web to continue working, only to deliver your work.
Gmail's interface can't be reached without web connection unless you first jump through some hoops.
At the time of this writing, you will require to utilize Google's Chrome web browser, have Gmail bookmarked, and sync your email by means of their offline function, the reliability of which has been debatable throughout the years.
Both have mobile applications, so that issue can be worked around, however reacting to a bunch of work e-mails on a mobile phone can be a struggle.
The complete suite of Microsoft Office desktop applications will be a much bigger benefit for Microsoft in comparing other apps, but we'll still give Outlook a minor, but significant, advantage over Gmail due to ease of usage.
Searchability
As you would expect, the company understood for its online search engine enables you to find e-mails you need more reliably.
Gmail's benefit starts with its categorization utilizing labels. Several labels can be used to each e-mail or thread, and subcategories can be created within labels to produce more of a filing system.
If several labels have actually been used to a single email or term, those messages will appear under each label. In addition, labels allow you to auto-filter inbound e-mails based on hand-chosen criteria.
In Outlook, arranging is limited to folders, forcing users to categorize each email/thread into a particular place.
As for the real search function, both enable users to browse using keywords, along with folders/labels, senders, and date received.
Gmail not just has much deeper advanced-search functions, by all accounts, however it is likewise flat-out more accurate.
This is the first strong win for Gmail, as Outlook's searchability and classification are not as robust.
Security
Microsoft is the leader in this classification, and it is not particularly close. Their exceptional standing is not just large, but it is apparent on two various fronts.
Google has actually come under fire just recently regarding its handling of individual information, with reports that the business scans user e-mails. More notably, Google reportedly tracks your area, on site support - IT Leaders your activity, and even your voice for the purpose of targeted advertisements.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is much more transparent about their privacy policy and the data they gather.
If your service sends sensitive or personal information routinely, it most likely goes without saying that you would feel more comfortable utilizing Microsoft and Outlook. Even if you aren't sending out and receiving private data, it would take a great deal of other advantages to exceed such evident privacy issues.
For supervisors, Outlook provides much more internal security in the type of authorizations. While Outlook's folder organization does not provide the same searchability as Gmail's labels, it does give users the ability to permit and prohibit certain actions within folders.
Outlook offers users 10 differing roles to choose from, as well as a custom role where the manager can hand-select specific actions one by one.
These actions consist of whatever from reading, editing, deleting, and sending messages to seeing your calendar's particular meetings or downtime.
Functionally, this allows managers to entrust tasks to their subordinates without providing full-scale access to more vital info. It likewise stops unhappy staff members from potentially stealing or erasing info considered delicate.
You can hand over account access to others in Gmail, which is basically like turning over the secrets to your automobile. You can't designate levels of access, hide private messages, and even see messages sent out by your delegate in your place.
One of, if not the most important category is a runaway win for Outlook. With detailed choices and a personal privacy policy that is much more transparent, Microsoft 365's email platform stands alone.
Calendar
Technically, Google Calendar is not a part of Gmail, though all it takes to sync the 2 is a Workspace account and a few clicks through Gmail's menu.
For the sake of taking a wider look at Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, we'll compare Outlook's calendar to Google Calendar here.
Gmail users lamented the platform's integration with other services or customers who utilized Outlook.
Some complaints included that updates to standing meetings made from Outlook accounts would not upgrade in Google Calendar, and the failure to press updated details to participants.
Furthermore, Google Calendar will immediately try to turn all of your video meetings into a Google Meet call. Its default setting will automatically post a Google Meet link into your calendar entry, and that function requires to be disabled by an administrator.
Otherwise, both platforms have actually included combinations with the other, and by all accounts, they work flawlessly. For all intents and purposes, this function is a draw.
Decision
Like most things, this decision mostly comes down to personal preference. Many of the differences in between Outlook and Gmail have actually advantages based on how your business operates, in addition to your budget plan.
Ultimately, the transparency and security of Outlook make it the stronger offering. If you discover yourself arranging through countless e-mails a day, nevertheless, Gmail might be the right alternative for you.