Why You Should Not Use GoDaddy for Microsoft 365
GoDaddy is one of the most popular sites to sign up for a new domain for a website and email address. It’s actually the #1 domain registrar in the U.S. by far. It also likes you to sign up for many other services along with your domain name.
When you sign up for a domain with GoDaddy, you’ll get asked if you want several other services, like web and email hosting or SSL security. You may also get asked if you want Microsoft 365 (formerly called Office 365).
This can look like a great deal, especially if you compare GoDaddy’s price to the per user signup price at Microsoft’s website. GoDaddy often gives great deals up front, but you may find out later that a deal isn’t all that it seemed to be.
This is especially true with a Microsoft 365 subscription. See, the price may seem lower for the same thing, but you’re not actually getting the same exact product as you would from Microsoft. There are several differences, that if you have more than a couple employees, could end up causing you major problems down the road.
Here are some of the reasons why you don’t want to get a Microsoft 365 account through GoDaddy.
Limited Features
The account you sign up for with GoDaddy is designed for very small businesses (less than 10 employees) or individuals. So, it gives you the basics, but not more advanced features that a small business might need as they grow. You’re connecting to the apps through a GoDaddy user interface (UI), which restricts what you can do and the integration of other apps.
For example, if you try to purchase an add-in, such as an Outlook plugin or an add-in for Power Bi, you’ll get redirected to the GoDaddy Interface and get blocked.
Weird Billing
Billing with GoDaddy can be complicated and confusing. If you’re getting your domain, web and email hosting, and Microsoft 365 through the service, you can get separate invoices for different things.
There are optional add-ons for advanced email security and email archiving that make billing even more complicated.
People also often find that the attractive introductory price ends up being much more when their recurring billing hits.
Lack of Scalability
If you have more than 10 employees, you have to specifically contact GoDaddy for a quote from “one of our Microsoft 365 experts.”
Signing up through their service severely limits your ability to grow and can mean a major pain if you need to add on that 11th user and then find out you have to cancel your current account and try to migrate to a new one.
There are multiple horror stories on Reddit related to problems trying to migrate off GoDaddy’s version of Microsoft 365 onto a standard version. You’re pretty much setting yourself up for headaches when you need to scale up by having the GoDaddy version of the platform.
Sign-in Problems
Because GoDaddy’s Microsoft 365 version is nested inside a GoDaddy UI, it causes problems with things like single sign-on (SSO) and other token-based authentication clients and cross sign-ins with other Microsoft services.
For example, if you sign into Microsoft for Edge, Bing, or your Windows 10 computer, you can end up in a login loop when trying to sign-in to your Office programs (Word, Excel, etc.) through the GoDaddy UI.
You Don’t Have the Same Admin Interface
You have a more limited admin interface through the GoDaddy UI for Microsoft 365, which can restrict the activities you want to do.
For example, one user wanted to create an AppCatalog for SharePoint, and wasn’t able to because of the difference in GoDaddy’s admin panel and the fact that the option didn’t exist.
This can add more frustration to your admin team who may be confused as to why on Microsoft’s support site it’s giving them step-by-step instructions on a function, and they don’t see the same options in their GoDaddy version of the admin panel.
This is another example of how it’s not really an “apples to apples” comparison to the Microsoft 365 that comes through Microsoft when you’re comparing subscription prices with GoDaddy.
You Could Run Into Other Issues
Getting stopped by a licensing problem after you reformat a computer and try to log back into your subscription or a conflict when you’re trying to access other Microsoft Services can be a real drag on productivity that you never expected.
When you’re going through another company’s UI to get to multiple Microsoft 365 apps, you are bound to continually run into problems that have you wasting hours on the phone with GoDaddy Support.
Get Microsoft 365 from the Source – We Can Help!
C Solutions can help your Orlando area business get Microsoft 365 from Microsoft, so you eliminate potential problems. And if you already have a GoDaddy version, we can help you with a migration too!
Schedule a free consultation today! Call 407-536-8381 or reach us online.