In February 2025, Google will transition Workspace for Education customers to a new licensing model. Google emailed notice of this change to primary admins in November 2024, so check that inbox.
Email Subject: [Update] Upcoming changes to the Education Fundamentals licensing model and new license types
Caution: Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals will continue to be free of charge.
While this new licensing model impacts the assignment and management of Fundamentals licenses, the cost is not changing. This change also has no impact on the Chrome Upgrade (Chromebook management) license—this change applies to user licenses only, not device licenses.
January Licensing Changes Webinar
CDW Education hosted a webinar January 30, 2025 to detail these changes. View the webinar recording below. See below for questions and answers from the webinar.
Timeline: What is changing?
Google is making three important changes to Google Workspace for Education licensing. Click a link below to read more on each change.
November 2024
Google emailed notice of this change to primary admins in November 2024.
March to May 2025
Existing customers transition to the new license model, starting with Education Fundamentals, followed by the transition of Education Standard and Education Plus customers as early as May 2025.
Additional information covered in this article
January 30, 2025 Webinar Questions and Answers
What Questions are CDW Education Researching
Sign up for our January webinar covering License changes
2025 Licensing Model
The new licensing model will require all users in your domain to be assigned a Workspace for Education Fundamentals license. Previously, all users automatically received this license, and each domain had unlimited Fundamentals licenses. With this change, users will need to be assigned a Fundamentals license to access all the basic features and core services of Workspace for Education, and each domain will have a finite number of licenses to use.
Caution: If users are on an Education Standard or Education Plus license, they will also need an Education Fundamentals license assigned. For existing users, Google will handle this assignments.
For Existing Education Domains
For existing Education domains, Google will transition you to the new licensing model between now and February 2025:
- Your domain will receive enough Education Fundamentals licenses to cover current users with an additional buffer. This licensing means you should have enough licenses to cover your users for the foreseeable future.
- License Breakdown: Customers will receive Gmail only and AU licenses equal to the number of Fundamental licenses they receive. So if a customer has 10K users today, they'll receive 10K Fundamentals (plus a buffer), 10K Gmail Only licenses (plus a buffer), and 10K AU licenses (plus a buffer). Technically, customers will also receive 10K Gmail Only AU licenses (plus a buffer), which allows admins to archive Gmail Only users.
- Admins will be responsible for managing their provisioned Education Fundamentals licenses, either through the Admin console or an automated license management tool.
- For existing users in your domain, Google will assign their Education Fundamentals licenses for you and their ability to interact with Google services will not change. Based on this information, Google admins do not need to take any action during the transition between November 2024 and February 2025. Existing users will retain their Fundamentals license automatically.
For New Education Domains
For new Education domains created on or after November 13, 2024, you will be on the new licensing model:
- Your domain will receive a set number of Education Fundamentals licenses (2,500 maximum), which you may assign to users in your domain or save for future users. As a user graduates or leaves their institution, admins may un-assign their Education Fundamentals license to free it up for another user.
- Education domains may request additional licenses via Google Support. CDW Education is not able to increase this cap for you.
New License Types for Education
Starting in February 2025, Google will add a new license type and status to Education domains: Gmail Only User and Archived User.
- Gmail Only User License Type: Gmail only licenses allow users to access Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts only (in addition to additional services). All other Workspace services (Drive, Editors, Meet, etc.) are disabled. This license is beneficial for Higher Ed alumni and K12 staff who need email, but do not need Drive. CDW Education cannot request additional Gmail Only User licenses on your behalf. Files in Drive owned by users with a Gmail Only license are still accessible by collaborators and impact Drive storage.
- Archived User Status: This status ensures that user data is retained and protected by the same industry-leading security as users with an Education Fundamentals license but does not allow users to sign in to their Google Account on any system, including Workspace services. For many organizations, you'll likely designate staff no longer employed by your organization to preserve their accounts for file retention needs as archived users. Admins can request additional count via Google Support. CDW Education cannot request additional Archived User statuses on your behalf. Files in Drive that Archived users own are still accessible by collaborators and impact Drive storage.
Note: Assigning a user the new Gmail Only license type will automatically un-assign their Fundamentals license, returning it to your license pool for assignment to another user. Changing a user’s status to Archived will automatically un-assign their Fundamentals or Gmail Only license, returning it to your license pool for assignment to another user.
Warning: If a user does not have a Fundamentals, Gmail Only, or Archived User license assigned to their account, files owned by that user and shared outside the domain will no longer be accessible to external users.
2025 Minimum Purchase Requirements
Starting January 1, 2025, new minimum purchase requirements for Workspace for Education Standard and Plus will go into effect.
- Institutions purchasing Education Plus or Education Standard receive one staff license at no cost for every four paid student licenses. Both license types access the same functionality. This requirement is not changing from the existing purchasing process.
- Education Standard and Education Plus subscriptions must purchase 50 licenses or the total student enrollment, including part-time students, whichever is greater. Previously, Standard and Plus required a purchase covering total full-time enrollment only. A new Student Enrollment Verification Letter will be provided that reflects this change.
- Renewals will have a different date for when these requirements take effect. More information is available at Google’s Help Center.
January Webinar Questions and Answers
Click a heading below to expand each section. Click again to collapse each section or click the Expand All/Collapse All button.
Example scenario
Take this example scenario. A domain has 4,250 users (active and suspended). When the transition to the new licensing model occurs for this organization, they will have an inventory of 4,250 Fundamentals licenses, plus a buffer of additional licenses. Google will automatically assign these 4,250 Fundamentals licenses to all the domain's existing users (active and suspended). The organization will also receive 4,250 Gmail Only licenses, plus a buffer, and 4,250 Gmail Only Au licenses, plus a buffer, which allows admins to archive Gmail Only users.
Moving forward, the organization's admins are responsible for assigning and un-assigning these licenses manually or through automation. If there is a dedicated OU for suspended users, which is best practice, admins could change their status from Suspended to Archived, which will return their Fundamentals licenses to the inventory for assignment to other users.
What do I need to know
In the short term, no immediate action is required. All existing users in your domain will automatically be assigned an Education Fundamentals license, and their ability to interact with Google services will not change. The timing of this change will allow organizations time to develop or update licensing plans throughout early 2025 and be ready for the 2025–26 school year.
We advise you to plan for license and user lifecycle management as you prepare for next year and your user rollover between school years. Several automated options are available for license management, including GCDS (Google Cloud Directory Sync), GAM, and the CDW Education Licensing Tool.
New Fundamentals SKU: 1010070001
Google has committed to sending more information about these new licenses at least 30 days before changes go into effect. CDW Education will work on updating our licensing tool to support this new licensing method so that we can support our customers who already use this tool to manage their upgraded licenses. Once our tool is updated, our Support team will be ready to assist you in updating your automations.
This change may require a review of your user retention practices and policies. We understand that many organizations have different policies for retaining student and staff accounts. Additionally, retention laws vary from state to state, so you may need to contact your organization’s legal counsel to understand your data retention requirements. Now that a finite cap on the number of Fundamentals, Gmail Only, and Archived User licenses will be in effect, retaining all user accounts indefinitely will likely no longer be feasible.
We recommend you review the Google Workspace for Education Licensing Guide for more detailed information on the state of license management moving forward.
What Questions are CDW Education Researching
We understand this is a significant change for many customers. We are researching several important questions to support you in this transition. Among the questions we are investigating are:
Q: How is the buffer for Fundamentals licenses calculated?
A: Although you cannot see your current license cap, you will be able to view the total number of available users and licenses under the new licensing model. At least 30 days before your transition to the new licensing model, we'll share the number of licenses you will be provided in an email to the primary administrator of your domain.
Q: What happens to Drive files for Archived Users? Are they accessible by collaborators just as files are for suspended users today?
A: Drive files owned by archived users are preserved and still accessible by collaborators. Archived users cannot access their own files, and those owned by archived users count against your Drive storage.
Q: What happens to Drive files for users who have no license at all?
A: If a user does not have a Fundamentals, Gmail Only, or Archived User license assigned to their account, files owned by that user and shared outside the domain will no longer be accessible to external users.
Q: Will the Admin console's automatic licensing be updated to include Fundamentals, Gmail Only, and Archived User?
A: TBD
Q: Will the new best practice be to create an Archived Users OU specifically for those whose accounts must be preserved for long-term data retention? Does this new model change the purpose of suspending a user?
A: The advantage of archiving over suspending users is that by archiving, admins reclaim the Fundamentals license for another user. As Fundamentals licenses will have a cap, admins will likely want to reclaim the license for someone else who needs it. If an admin needs to block a user's access for a short period (a few days to a few months), they may want to suspend the user and leave the Fundamentals license in place.
Q: How can I tell my institution has transitioned to the new licensing model?
A: Once the transition has taken place, you’ll see a minor naming change from “Google Apps for Education - Fundamentals” to “Google Apps for Education Fundamentals” on the subscriptions page in your Admin console. In the days following the transition, you’ll also see the availability of “Google Workspace for Education Gmail Only User” and you will have the ability to archive a user or multiple users from the users page in the Admin console.
| Document Version | Date | Description of Change |
| 1.0 | 11/25/2024 | Original Publish - will talk to cat before publishing |
| 1.1 | 1/17/2025 | Updated for Cat's questions answered email |
| 1.2 | 1/20/2025 | Text tweaks per Kyle |
| 1.3 | 2/3/2025 | Added Question and Answer sections and the recording link |
| 1.4 | 2/4/2025 | Updated for Google's fundamentals article, brought up by Kyle |
| 1.5 | 2/24/2025 | incorrect answer for no license at all |
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