Microsoft have recently announced that their Microsoft 365 prices will be increasing from March 1st 2022. This is the first time there has been a substantive price change since the suite launched in June 2011. These new prices represent an increase of between 8.5%-25% per licence, depending on the licences you are using.
Who will be affected by this?
Microsoft’s new prices apply to commercial and business licences only. This means that general consumers and the education sector will not notice any changes in licence fees. Whilst the prices won’t be drastically different, larger businesses may feel the impact of an extra dollar or two per seat.
Why are the prices changing?
According to the Corporate VP for Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro, the updated pricing reflects the increased value that they have delivered over the last ten years. It is worth noting that other SaaS solutions have steadily increased prices every few years, whilst Microsoft’s have stayed the same since 2011. The suite contains an additional 24 apps, including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and much more. On top of this they have also released over 1,400 new features and capabilities across their suite of apps.
Whilst many of these apps and features are not major and in use every day, there have certainly been a lot of useful improvements over the past decade. For starters, Microsoft Teams is used by more than 250million active users every month. Used for meetings, chat, calls, collaboration and integration with all of the Office suite of apps, Microsoft Teams has been a game changer for many businesses over the last few years and especially helping through working from home during lockdowns.
Furthermore, there have been advances in other fields such as cybersecurity, added features for compliance, AI and automation. For example, Microsoft 365 now contains capabilities such as data loss prevention and message encryption. It also includes AI powered processes, such as creating maps, charts and tables in Excel and recommended slide templates in PowerPoint. All of these updates have come at no extra cost over the years, but Microsoft now feels that it is time for their prices to increase.
What are the price changes?
The prices coming into effect on March 1st 2022 are as follows:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $5 to $6 per user
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium will increase from $20 to $22
- Office 365 E1 will increase from $8 to $10
- Office 365 E3 will increase from $20 to $23
- Office 365 E5 will increase from $35 to $38
- Microsoft 365 E3 will increase from $32 to $36
If you have any questions about the new prices, please contact your Nutbourne account manager for more information.
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If you have any questions about Microsoft 365 licences, we’re here to help. Our experienced team at Nutbourne can help come up with a plan to suit your budget and requirements going forwards. Whatever you need, just give us a call.
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