I hated paying for Google One, but not after these 2 updates

As someone with thousands of photos/videos in Google Photos, and a regular user of both Gmail and Drive, Google One has been an essential subscription for years. When most of my life revolves around these Google services, paying for Google One isn’t really a choice for me – it’s just something I have to do.

Although I’ve been a regular Google One subscriber out of necessity, that doesn’t mean I’ve always enjoyed paying for it. Over the years, Google One has lacked basic features, been filled with confusing plans/pricing, and often left me wanting more.

But this has started changing in the last few months. Google has made several significant improvements to Google One, and at this point, it’s now one of those subscriptions I can’t see myself giving up. Not because I need it, but because I really love it.

When it launched in 2018, Google One focused primarily on cloud storage and a few additional features. But as time went on, it slowly started to include more – like a built-in VPN service, Google Store cashback rewards, and additional Google Photos editing tools.

These were all great additions, but they never made Google One live up to its name. Apple One is actually “the one” subscription you need to access almost all of Apple’s paid services, but Google One never got to that point. This included more than just cloud storage, but it also didn’t include things like YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, Nest Aware, or Fitbit Premium — all other Google subscriptions that existed outside of Google One.

But last October we saw the first signs of this changing.

As part of the rebranding of Nest Aware to Google Home Premium, Google announced that the service will be included for free with the Google One AI Pro tier. In other words, a subscription that Google One customers would normally have to pay $10/month for is now included in their Google One plan at no additional cost. It didn’t mean much to me at the time, but having recently purchased my first home and using Google Home more than ever, this has quickly become a wonderful benefit.

Fast forward to May 2026, and we’re seeing Google do the same thing once again. Fitbit -> Google Health As part of the change, Google is also converting its Fitbit Premium subscriptions to Google Health Premium. And as before with Google Home Premium, Google Health Premium is now included with Google One AI Pro.

Google Health Premium includes all the features that Fitbit Premium used to offer — including Google’s AI-powered health coach, more detailed sleep tracking, and full access to Fitbit’s workout videos and meditation sessions. You could pay $10/month for the service itself, but if you have Google One AI Pro (or Google One AI Ultra costs $250/month), you’ll now get it for free.

This bundle of other Google subscriptions is exactly what I’ve wanted from Google One for years. Google Home and Health Premium are not useless services. If you use Google Home for your smart home and you have a Fitbit or Pixel Watch, both are required.

If you subscribe to Home and Health premiums individually, you will have to pay $20/month for both. It just so happens that Google One AI Pro also costs $20/month and includes not only Home Premium and Health Premium, but 5TB of cloud storage, priority access to new Gemini features, additional Google Meet features, Google Store cash back, and more.

Google has essentially doubled the price of the Google One AI Pro plan over the past seven months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see other subscriptions added as time goes on.

This is all obviously great news for Google One. As someone who uses Google Home daily and has just started wearing a Pixel Watch again, my Google One AI Pro plan is incredibly great. I may have signed up for cloud storage initially, but now I also get two other Google subscriptions that I have to pay extra for – saving me $20 per month. That’s not too shabby.

That being said, the addition of the Home & Health Premium subscription doesn’t solve all of Google’s problems.

While bundled subscriptions are great, Google One’s plan structure is still a mess. of Six Available plans include (Basic, Standard, Premium, AI Plus, AI Pro and AI Ultra), Home Premium and Health Premium only In the last two. Meanwhile, each Apple One plan includes a mix of bundled Apple subscriptions. Google needs to add value for everyone, not just its highest-paying customers.

Similarly, Google needs to significantly streamline its Google One plans. Even as someone who writes about Google for a living, it doesn’t take much time Official Google One plan details To brighten my eyes. I’m all for giving people more storage options (even though Google is struggling here, there’s no middle ground between 200GB and 2TB), but having six different branded plans is no way.

Finally, I hope the recent inclusion of home premium and health premium is a sign of more to come. If Google really wants to make Google One the “one” ultimate Google subscription, there are still several other services including YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, YouTube TV, and Google Play Pass that could either be included in full or offered a permanent discount.

There’s still work to be done, of course, but for the first time, I really believe Google will do it.