How to manage user licenses?

manage user license

How licensing works

A user needs a license to use a Google service. For example, a user must have a license for Google Workspace before they can use Gmail, Google Drive, or any other Google Workspace tool. A user can have a license for more than one service. Multiple users can’t share a single Google Workspace license, even if they don’t use all of the tools.

This article contains general licensing information that applies to all Google services managed in your Google Admin console. For licensing information specific to Cloud Identity, see How licensing works for Cloud Identity.

Site-based and user-based licenses

For some Google services, such as Android, licenses are site-based. When you sign up for the service, every user in your organization automatically gets a license, even if they already have a license for a different service. You don’t need to assign site-based licenses.

For other Google services, such as Google Workspace, licensing is user-based. For these services, a user needs to be assigned a license to use the service. For details, see the next section on assigning user-based licenses.

Assigning user-based licenses

If you purchased only one Google service that has user-based licensing, all of your users get a license for that service by default. You don’t need to assign licenses.

-->You need to assign licenses if one of these statements applies:

• You purchased more than one user-based Google service, such as Google Workspace and Google Voice. For services that include additional services, a user only needs a license for the parent service. For example, a license for Google Workspace gives a user access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive, and all the other services included with Google Workspace.
• You purchased multiple subscriptions of the same service, such as different editions of Google Workspace.

-->You can assign licenses to individual users, to everyone in an organizational unit, or to                     everyone in your organization.

 

Ways you can assign user-based licenses

User-based automatic license assignment:

If licenses aren’t assigned by default and you know that everyone in your organization needs a certain service, you can turn on automatic license assignment. If you do, users in your account who don’t have a license for the selected service (and any new users you add later) get a license for that service. If you have multiple Google services or multiple subscriptions of the same service, you can only turn on automatic licensing for one service or subscription.

Existing user licenses aren’t changed at any level, including licenses for the same service or for different subscriptions of the same service.

If you have organizational units under your top-level organization, you can set automatic licensing options for specific organizational units.

 

Google Workspace on the Annual Plan

If you have Google Workspace on the Annual Plan, turning on automatic licensing might limit the number of users that you can create. If you have another service with user-based licensing and you turn on automatic licensing for that service or Google Workspace at the top level, the maximum number of users that you can create is equal to the smallest number of licenses among your user-based services.

 

User-based manual license assignment

-->If you have more than one Google service with user-based licensing or multiple                                   subscriptions of a service, here’s how manual license assignment works:

• If you automatically assign licenses for one service or subscription, you need to manually assign licenses for any other service or subscription.
• If you turn off automatic licensing for all services and subscriptions, you need to manually assign all licenses.

-->You can manually assign licenses to individual users, an uploaded list of users, or an entire             organizational unit.

If you manually assign licenses to an organization, only users in that organization get a license. Users in child organizations don’t automatically receive a license—you need to manually assign it to them as well. 

 

Reducing licenses

You can reduce licenses for a paid service such as Google Workspace to lower your monthly payment. You can also reduce licenses you don’t need for a free service.

• If your subscription is on the Annual Plan-->You can reduce licenses only when it’s time to renew your contract.
• If your subscription is on the Flexible Plan or your Google service has site-based licensing       -->You don’t reduce licenses directly. Instead, you can delete users whenever you want, and those users’ licenses are removed from your account.

Assign, remove, and reassign licenses 

In some cases, Google automatically assigns a license for a service to every user in your entire organization. In other cases, you can manually assign licenses to your entire organization, an organizational unit, a group of users, or an individual user. You can also turn on the option to automatically assign licenses to users.

You assign and manage licenses in 3 places in the Google Admin console:

• The Billing page→Use to assign licenses to all users in your organization or an uploaded list of users or to set up automatic licensing.
• The Users page→Useful for assigning licenses to multiple users, but not all users in your organization. You can manage licenses for multiple users using a CSV file.
• An individual user’s page→Good for managing a single user.

Assign and remove licenses

These steps are for assigning and removing user licenses.

Automatically assign a license to every user in your organization 

You can assign a license to every user in your organization automatically from the License settings page.

• If you have multiple Google services or multiple subscriptions of the same service, you can only turn on automatic licensing for one service or subscription.
• If you choose to automatically assign licenses for a service to all users, you can’t remove an individual user’s license.
• If you have organizational units under your top-level organization, you can set automatic licensing options for specific organizational units.
• It can take up to 24 hours for an automatically assigned license to take effect.
  
  

 

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Billing > License settings.
   

  2. Click to the service you want to assign licenses for.

  3. Click Off > Select On.

  4. If you have multiple subscriptions of the same service, choose which subscription to use for             automatic license assignment.

  5. Click Save. 

Manually assign and remove licenses on the Users page

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Directory > Users.
2. Next to each user’s name where you want to assign or remove a license, check the box.
3. At the top, click More > Assign Licenses or Remove Licenses.
   
   

   4. Click the service > Assign or Remove. 

Manually assign and remove licenses on an individual user's page 

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Directory > Users.
2. Click the name of the user you want to manage.
3. Scroll down and click the user’s License section.

  4. Click any service to display the on/off switches in the Status column.

  5. Next to a service, in the Status column, click the switch to assign or remove a license.

  6. Click Save.

Assign licenses to multiple users from a CSV file 

You can assign licenses to multiple users when you use a CSV file to bulk add or update users: 

1. Follow the instructions described in Add or update multiple users from a CSV file.
2. For the users you want to add licenses to, add the SKU IDs to the New Licenses [UPLOAD ONLY] column of the CSV file.
• Use the SKU IDs listed here: https://developers.google.com/admin-sdk/licensing/v1/how-tos/products.

A spreadsheet can include up to 200 existing users that are being assigned new licenses.

You can assign a licenses to a user only if the user does not already have a mutually exclusive license. For example, if you try to assign a Business Standard license to a user who already has a Business Starter license, the license reassignment fails.

 

Reassign licenses

You can’t directly reassign a license for a Google service from one user to another. Instead, follow any of the procedures above to unassign the license from the original user and then assign it to the new user.

After you unassign a license, it might take up to 24 hours before you can reassign the license to a different user. 

Change a user’s license to a different subscription

If you have multiple subscriptions for the same Google service—for example, multiple Google Workspace editions—you can change a user's license option by assigning a license to a different subscription of the service. The user's previous license is freed up.

 

Steps to Change a License on the Users list page

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Directory > Users.
2. Next to each user’s name you want to change licenses for, check the box.
3. At the top, click More > Assign Licenses.
   

  4. For any service that has multiple subscriptions available, an arrow appears next to the                     service name. Click the Down arrow to expand the list of subscriptions.

  5. Click the license for the subscription of the service you want to assign.

  6. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to change the subscription for another service.

  7. Click Assign. This replaces the users’ currently assigned license type with the new license               type.

Steps to Change a License on an individual user's detail page 

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Directory > Users.
2. Click the name of the user to whom you want to change the license.
3. On the user’s detail page, scroll down and click the Licenses section to expand it.
4. Click the service name. If an arrow appears, this indicates that multiple subscriptions are available for that service.
5. Click the Down arrow to display the available subscriptions. 
6. Click the subscription you want. This replaces the users’ currently assigned license type with the new one.

  7. Repeat steps 5–7 to change the subscription for another service.

  8. Click Save.

About automatic licensing for organizational units

Depending on your organization structure and Google services, you might be able to override your top-level organization’s automatic licensing setting for individual organizational units. For example, if you have Business Standard automatic licensing turned on for your top-level organization, you can override that setting and turn it off for one or more lower-level organizational units. You can also set different options for a parent organizational unit and any children.

When can you use automatic licensing?

To set automatic licensing at the organizational unit level, both of the following conditions must be true:

• At least one organizational unit under your top-level organizational unit
• A subscription to more than one Google service

If you have:

• A subscription to a paid service and a free one (such as Business Standard and free Cloud Identity)--> You can only set automatic licensing at the organization level for the paid service.
• One primary Google subscription and one or more secondary services (such as Business Standard plus Google Vault add-on)-->You can set automatic licensing at the organization level for one of the secondary services, but not the primary subscription.
• No lower-level organizational units and multiple paid subscriptions-->You can see that automatic licensing is turned on for one paid subscription, but you can’t change this.

Steps to Set automatic licensing for organizational units 

If you set up organizational units in the Google Admin console, all child organizations inherit the automatic licensing setting of their parent. However, you might be able to override the parent setting.

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Billing > License settings.
   Next to each of your subscriptions, the Automatic licensing field shows whether automatic licensing is turned on or off for the entire organization and for any child organizations.
2. At the left, click the name of the organization.
3. Point to your subscription > click Edit.
4. Click the Down arrow and select On or Off.

  5. Click Save / Override.