Google Workspace for Education
Google Workspace for schools, from free to full-featured.
Education Fundamentals is free for eligible institutions; Standard, the Teaching & Learning add-on and Education Plus layer on security and teaching tools. What each tier includes and how the licensing actually works.
Plans & pricing
The education editions
Google's published education pricing is in USD per licence per year; Australian schools buy through partners at the AUD equivalent - current as at July 2026.
Education Fundamentals — Free
Classroom, Gmail, Drive, Docs and Meet for the whole institution at no cost - the foundation most Australian schools already run.
Education Standard — Paid
Adds the security centre, advanced device management and audit controls - Fundamentals plus the tools to protect student data properly.
Teaching & Learning — US$60/user/yr
Per-educator add-on: 500-participant Meet with recordings and breakouts, originality reports and richer Classroom add-ons.
Education Plus — US$6/user/yr
The everything tier - Standard plus Teaching & Learning capabilities, personalised Cloud Search and priority support, licensed for all active users.
How education licensing works
Google changed education licensing in 2025 and older advice is now wrong in important ways:
- Fundamentals remains free, licensed per user, for all active users in the domain
- Education Standard and Education Plus are licensed for all active users (students and staff together) - the old 1-free-staff-per-4-student ratio is gone
- Minimum purchase equals total enrolment plus active staff, with a 50-licence floor for small institutions
- The Teaching & Learning upgrade is per-educator, so you only pay for teaching staff who use it
- Multi-year agreements attract automatic discounts
Google publishes education pricing in USD (Education Plus moved to a suggested US$6 per user per year, and Teaching & Learning to US$60 per educator per year, in the 2025 pricing update). Australian schools buy in AUD through education partners - we confirm the current local price for your enrolment numbers as part of a quote.
What we do for schools
Licensing is the easy part. The work that matters is safeguarding-appropriate configuration - locked-down student OUs, YouTube and Chat restrictions, Chromebook fleet management via the Chrome Education Upgrade, alerting on risky behaviour, and clean identity lifecycle from enrolment to graduation. Synex runs this for schools alongside their internal IT or as the whole IT function.
Google Workspace for Education FAQs
Is Education Fundamentals really free?
Yes, for accredited educational institutions - Google verifies eligibility at sign-up. Schools pay nothing for the core suite; costs come from devices, configuration, safeguarding setup and support.
Fundamentals vs Education Plus - what actually changes?
Security and visibility, mostly: the security centre, advanced device management, audit and investigation tools, bigger Meet, originality reports and priority support. Schools with 1:1 device programs or serious student-data obligations are the ones who feel the difference.
Do we need Teaching & Learning if we buy Education Plus?
No - Education Plus includes the Teaching & Learning capabilities. The add-on exists so schools on Fundamentals or Standard can upgrade educators only, which is often the cheapest way to get recorded lessons and originality reports.
Can Synex manage our Chromebook fleet too?
Yes - Chrome Education Upgrade licensing, enrolment, policy management and repairs coordination, alongside the Workspace tenancy. One partner across the whole Google stack is precisely the point.