Microsoft 365 Product Price Increase

Since its launch (over a decade ago!), Office 365 has grown to more than 300 million commercial paid seats (business owners who use the software to help run their businesses). On March 1st 2022, a price increase for some Microsoft 365 products will come into effect. As the first substantive price increase since the launch of Office 365, it is arguably a long time coming! But what does this mean for you and your business? 

It’s hard to believe that Office 365 was rebranded to Microsoft 365 four years ago, but since then, the product suite has expanded to include 24 additional applications such as Teams, Onedrive and Power Automate. Some of these apps are provided for no additional cost, a few others require separate licenses and fees. Officials also say that Microsoft has added over 1400 new features to its Office 365 subscriptions over the course of its life.  

As businesses across the world struggled to adapt to remote working during the pandemic, Microsoft integrated lots of other applications into Teams, helping their users to communicate effectively. And this year, real-time collaboration in Word, Excel and Powerpoint, allowing teams to work together more efficiently, has been on their radar.  

NEW PRICING 

The products and packages that will be affected by the March 1st 2022 price increase are those which will affect most businesses.  

Whilst the new prices for the UK have not yet been announced, the increases for the US are out there. Based on the $1-$4 increase per plan, we suspect an increase of £0.75 – £3, depending on the plan you are on. We estimate the below changes and will update this blog when we have confirmation from Microsoft.  

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: going from £3.80 to £4.50 per user per month 
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium: going from £9.40 to £10.35 per user per month 
• Office 365 E1: going from £6 to £7.50 per user per month 
• Office 365 E3: going from £17.60 to £20.25 per user per month 
• Office 365 E5: going from £30.80 to £33.60 per user per month 
• Microsoft 365 E3: going from £28.10 to £31.75 per user per month 

Another significant change coming in 2022 is that business owners will need to purchase annual subscriptions for their M365 products – monthly subscriptions will come with a hefty 20% premium! 

In addition to announcing next year’s price increases, Microsoft also announced plans to add unlimited dial-in capabilities for Teams across its paid suites. This will allow users to join Teams meetings from virtually any device, without the need to download the app and join the meeting over the internet! 

Keep an eye on our website, blog posts and social media channels for further updates.