Microsoft has announced a significant price increase for its Microsoft 365 consumer (what it commonly refers to as ‘Home’) subscriptions.
This price hike comes as Microsoft integrates its Copilot AI assistant into various applications within the Microsoft 365 suite.
The new pricing structure is as follows:
- Microsoft 365 Family is now $129.99USD/year, up from $99.99USD/year equating to a 30.00% increase!
- Microsoft 365 Personal is now $99.99USD/year, up from $69.99USD/year equating to a 42.86% increase!
The price change is effective immediately for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will see the change upon renewal.
With this price increase, subscribers will gain access to AI-powered features in applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Microsoft Designer.
From what I’ve read, Microsoft appears to justify the price increase as a reflection of the extensive benefits added to the subscription over the past 12 years and as a means to continue delivering new innovations. However, it’s worth noting that while AI features are included, they are limited to 60 credits per month, with each credit allowing for one AI-powered action. So you are paying extra for the privilege of having AI integrated into your app, but will have to pay even to upgrade your plan to CoPilot Pro.
So the real cost to consumers may not be limited to the prices mentioned above and this is what Microsoft is actually counting on.
Further readings on the subject:
It’s All A Lie, Smoke And Mirrors – You Can Get MS365 Without Any Increase!!!
Update 2025-01-27 – Thank to a comment by Paul West we come to learn that all of this is nothing but a forced upsell on personal consumers to force CoPilot on them. I guess adoption wasn’t panning out so Microsoft decided to force people to adopt it and hide, as best they can, the fact that the origianl non-CoPilot plan was still available!
That’s right, you can still get the original plan without CoPilot for the original price should you wish.
What Microsoft did was rename the CoPilot subscription the name of the existing plan, and then renamed the original plan ‘Classic’ and hid that one of course.
Here is some more information on the whole situation:
Alternatives
Microsoft has yet again shown itself to be manipulative, dishonest and disrespectful of its clients/user IMHO. I’d urge you to think long and hard about if you truly want to keep supporting such a business before just blindly renewing your plan.
Never forget that you have choices & alternatives and don’t have to blindly keep paying for office software and be subject to random price increases from Microsoft. Some of the alternatives include:
- Google (Docs, Sheet, Slides)
- LibreOffice (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, Math, Charts)
- and many more.
As for a replacement of Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird is an excellent option but there are other e-mail clients on the market as well.
Access Anyone
Completely off subject, but years after the start of this ‘AI revolution’, it still amazes me how CoPilot is nowhere to be found in Microsoft Access. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, … all have it, but Access still doesn’t.
And they STILL don’t have the Access logo on the comparison screen for any of the business versions. SMH.
And they won’t!
This is nothing new and it has been brought up so many times to the Dev Team, Product Managers, year after year, and nothing ever changes. Sad, but out of our hands.
That’s me done with MS Office – cancelled recurring subscription. Don’t want or use AI, so I should not have to pay for it.
Is it still possible to get MS Access as a standalone option ?
Paul
Take a look at: Access – How to Purchase Standalone Version and Not Office 365Nevermind, I see those links no longer offer the ability to actually purchase the application!?
Try: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/access/CFQ7TTC0PD0B be sure to check your locale! The page does not actually indicate which version you would be purchasing, but I believe it is always the latest one, so that would be Access 2024 currently.
I posted all the individual links as part of my post: https://www.devhut.net/microsoft-office-2024-released/
I just tried using MS’ Chatbot and it couldn’t tell me the version being sold on the standalone page and directed me to speak with a sales associate, sadly they couldn’t answer the simple question either! Klein (the associate helping me) instead tried to direct me to “Office Homes 2024 and Office Home and Business 2024”. They don’t even know themselves what is currently available. And, once again, this was pointed out to the Dev Team multiple time and we’ve begged them to add the Version to the title of the sales page for years.
Thanks
It did take me to the UK site. Cost of £160.
Very limited details about ver, update plan etc
I will see in March when my current plan expires
Cheers, Paul
Just remember, perpetual licenses only get security updates. They do not get Feature updates. I’m assuming (their own sales agent could answer that question!) MS is currently selling Access 2024, so I highly doubt the new SQL Editor is included and any other updates that may, or may not have recently occurred.
light at the end of the tunnel ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVPThx7yss
I was looking for this but could never find such information when I originally searched. Thank you for sharing!