Adding a domain vs. signing up for another account  |  Domain management  |  Google Workspace Help
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Domain basics
What is a domain?
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2. Remove dry-run blockers
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Adding a domain vs. signing up for another account
Stay organized with collections
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When choosing how to use your domains with Google services, consider these
options.
Single identity—You provision all users in a single domain.
Multidomain—You can provision accounts both in a primary domain and in
secondary domains.
Separate accounts (not recommended)—You can spread users across
multiple Google accounts.
Compare options
The following sections list and describe the domain design options, including
the pros and cons, and feature comparison.
Pros and cons
Pros
Cons
Single identity
Single branding for the entire company
No multidomain limitations
Users can receive mail at alias addresses.
Users cannot sign in using secondary domains.
Users who want to use an alias from a secondary domain can use this identity for sending email only—not calendar invites or doc sharing—a user with alternative branding can send mail using "send as" but cannot send cal invites or doc sharing.
If mail is sent from an alias or nickname, the recipient can determine the primary identity in the headers.
Potential conflicts can arise if a user in a secondary domain has the same username as a user in the primary domain.
Multi-domain
A user in a secondary domain can have the same username as a user in the primary domain without causing any conflict.
Users can sign in and have an identity at a primary or secondary domain.
Users at secondary domains can send email, calendar invites, and doc sharing from their identity at that domain.
Administration restricted per account
Multidomain limitations may apply.
If a user in a secondary domain and a user in the primary domain have the same user name, it is not flagged.
Users can sign in and have an external identity at the required domain.
Separate accounts (not recommended)
Multidomain limitations—for example, the following features are supported for the primary domain only:
Custom logo
Domain aliases
You cannot restrict sharing to the users in a single domain.
No support for delegating administration by domain
No "trust" relationship between accounts—you must set other collaboration services, such as Drive, Sites, Meet, and so on to be shared externally.
Multiple consoles required for administration
Overhead when moving a user between domains
No central booking for shared calendar resources
Each account maintains a separate Global Address List
Email delegation available for "local" users only
Note:
For all domain designs, aliases are optional based on customer need.
For single identity and separate accounts designs, secondary domains are optional based on customer need.
Find more details on multidomain support here.
Compare features
Single identity
Multidomain
Separate accounts
Admin experience
Single administration console
Yes
Yes
No
Overhead when transferring a user between domains
Low
Low
High
Sync tool instances required (e.g., GADS, GAPS, GCC)
Single
Single
Multiple
Potential namespace collisions if consolidating domains
Yes
No
No
Involves multi-domain complexities
No
Yes
No
User experience
Central book for shared calendar resources
Yes
Yes
No
Collaboration functionality among coworkers
Best
Best
Limited
Single corporate GAL
Yes
Yes
Difficult
Email delegation available between coworkers
Yes
Yes
Limited
User ability to have external identity at secondary domain (i.e., send email, cal invites, doc sharing messages)
Email only
Yes
Yes
Send feedback
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2026-07-17 UTC.
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