Google could soon introduce a 'Google One Lite' plan (APK teardown)

If you have an Android flagship phone, you may have heard of Google One already. Google One is Google’s cloud storage solution that gives you more storage across Google services like Google Photos, Google Drive, Gmail, and more. Google One plans start at $1.99/mo for the Basic tier, but Google could soon introduce another tier in the form of “Google One Lite.”

We spotted a “Google One Lite” reference in the latest v6.92 update to the Google Photos app.

The string does not give away a whole lot about the plan, but we have spotted another reference within the app that suggests that the Lite plan co-exists alongside Google One’s existing Basic, Standard, Premium, and AI Premium plans.

Beyond these, the app does not present any other clues about Google One Lite. Since references to this upcoming plan were spotted within the Google Photos app, there is a good chance that it could include some Google Photos benefits.

Google currently offers the Basic, Standard, Premium, and AI Premium plans, with the following benefits:

We’re not sure where a “Lite” plan would fit in the above structure, but the terminology is often used to denote a tier lower than the default, meaning something even cheaper than Basic. With that presumption, a Google One Lite plan would offer even fewer benefits than the Basic plan, perhaps offering users just some marginal cloud storage upgrade and limiting the number of family members the plan can be shared with.

However, another theory is that Google could rejig Google One’s pricing structure and benefits. If the company plans to increase prices or introduce another key feature to Google One, it could do so with the Basic plan onwards and offer this upcoming Google One Lite plan at the same price and benefit tier as the Basic plan. As a speculative example, the Lite plan could start at $1.99/mo, while the Basic could rise to $2.99/mo and come with some new benefits.

There’s also the speculative possibility that Google could include a Google One Lite plan with some of its upcoming smartphones. This would allow the company to offer some limited benefits alongside the purchase of compatible hardware. These benefits could be time-limited or in perpetuity. This would make sense if the combination of benefits that Google wants to offer is different from what is available in the existing tiers. As a speculative example, maybe Google One Lite gives access to some new Google Photos features and 50GB of cloud storage with partner-sharing when you purchase the upcoming Pixel 9, intending to upsell users onto more expensive plans after giving them a taste of the benefits.

To be clear, all these theories are speculative, and Google could adopt any or none of them. The company has not yet confirmed the existence of a “Google One Lite” plan.

We’ve contacted Google to learn more about the Google One Lite plan. We’ll update this article when the company responds.