What you need to know
- Microsoft announced a set of price increases for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions.
- The price of consumer, education, and Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions will remain the same.
- This is the first "substantive pricing update" for Office 365 since its launch in 2011.
Microsoft announced changes to the prices of several Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The increased prices will go into effect on March 1, 2022. The largest increase is for a Microsoft 365 E3 subscription, which will go up by $48 per year per user. The consumer, education, and Microsoft 365 E5 versions of Microsoft 365 will not increase in price.
This is the first "substantive pricing update" for Office 365 since it launched ten years ago, according to Microsoft. There have been some small price changes over the years, but Microsoft's phrasing is accurate.
Since its initial launch, Office 365 has increased in value while remaining the same price. More recently, since the launch of Microsoft 365 in 2017, 24 apps have been added to Microsoft 365 and Office 365, including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard. Many of those apps come at no additional cost to subscribers. Microsoft also highlights that it's added more than 1,400 new features over the last ten years.
Here are all of the price changes. Note that these prices are per month per user:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic (from $5 to $6)
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium (from $20 to $22)
- Office 365 E1 (from $8 to $10)
- Office 365 E3 (from $20 to $23)
- Office 365 E5 (from $35 to $38)
- Microsoft 365 E3 (from $32 to $36)
Along with the price increases, Microsoft is adding unlimited dial-in capabilities for Teams meetings across its enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites. This will roll out over the next few months.
