How much does it cost to leave Google?

“I’d be happy to leave Google, but it must be expensive.” I hear that sentence every time I tell the story of my departure. So I did the math, with the prices listed in the site’s catalog, verified on July 7, 2026. Three scenarios, from all-free to hardware, and a total that should surprise you.

Scenario 1: replace everything for €0

The complete exit exists in a free version. Every line of this table replaces a Google service without spending anything.

Google service	Free alternative	Price
Gmail	Proton Mail (1 GB included)	€0
Chrome	Brave or Firefox	€0
Google Search	Brave Search	€0
Docs, Sheets, Slides	LibreOffice	€0
Google Messages	Signal	€0
Google Authenticator	Ente Auth	€0
Google Maps	Organic Maps	€0
Google Photos	Ente Photos (10 GB included)	€0
Google Calendar	Proton Calendar (included with Proton Mail)	€0

Two limits to know about, both tied to storage. Proton Mail offers 1 GB and Ente Photos 10 GB: enough to get started, not for twenty years of archives. For everything else, browser, search, office suite, messaging, maps, the free tier does the job with no second thoughts. The detail of each tool is in the alternatives catalog.

Scenario 2: comfort, about €10.50 per month

If your emails and photos weigh a lot, here is the typical basket with serious storage.

Subscription	What it covers	Catalog price
Proton Mail Plus	Encrypted email	€3.99/month (billed annually)
Proton Drive Plus	200 GB of storage	€3.99/month (billed annually)
Ente Photos 50 GB	Encrypted photos	$2.49/month

Ente bills in dollars. Counting one dollar for one euro, deliberately rounded generously, the total comes to around €10.50 per month, or around €125 per year. That’s the price of a video streaming subscription, often less.

Prefer a single bill? Proton Unlimited bundles email, 500 GB of storage, a VPN and a password manager for €9.99/month billed annually. And for large volumes, Infomaniak kDrive offers 3 TB at €4.99/month billed annually.

Scenario 3: hardware, a one-time cost

That leaves equipment, for those who want to host their files at home or change phones. Here, I’d rather be honest than pull amounts out of thin air.

Equipment	What it replaces	Catalog cost
Synology NAS	Google Drive and Google Photos, hosted at home	One-time purchase, drives to add as needed
Fairphone	A smartphone built around Google	One-time purchase, price of a mid-range smartphone
/e/OS (Murena)	Android with a mandatory Google account	Free ROM, Murena smartphones sold ready to use

The catalog doesn’t put euro figures on this equipment, because the price depends on the model and capacity you choose. Remember the logic: a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and nothing mandatory to get started. The hardware can easily wait until everything else is in place.

The real cost is not in euros

So, how much does leaving really cost? Almost nothing in money, as we’ve just seen. The real budget is time: sorting your accounts, transferring your emails, telling your contacts, rebuilding your habits. I spent evenings on it, not fortunes.

That time depends on your level of dependence, and that can be measured. The free diagnostic asks 24 questions to assess it, and the guide to leaving Google breaks the project into steps. To place your case among the other respondents, there is the barometer. And if you want to understand why this departure concerns so many people, Google’s market share in France sets the scene.

Sources

• This site’s alternatives catalog, prices taken from the catalog, verified on July 7, 2026.