Is office 365 a subscription? (2023)

FAQs

When did Office 365 become a subscription? ›

When Office 365 first launched in 2013, this subscription-based version of Office was available for the general public to use.

Microsoft is introducing a new consumer tier to its Microsoft 365 subscription offerings. Priced at just $1.99 per month, Microsoft 365 Basic is designed to replace the 100GB OneDrive storage option with some extra features that sit in between the free option and the $6.99 a month Personal subscription.

If you cancel a monthly subscription, it immediately moves to the Disabled stage on the date you cancel it. This means that your users immediately lose access to the Microsoft 365 assets, and only admins have access to the data for the next 90 days.

Microsoft 365 Personal costs $69.99 per year (or $6.99 per month), while Microsoft 365 Family costs $99.99 per year (or $9.99 per month) and covers up to five personal and ten corporate devices, respectively.

One-time purchases are available for both PCs and Macs. However, there are no upgrade options, which means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you'll have to buy it at full price. Microsoft 365 for the web is a free version of Microsoft 365 that you can use in a web browser.

Anyone can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft 365. However, it does require you to enter a credit card number. And if you don't cancel before the month is up, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (formerly called Office 365 Home).

What is the difference between Office 365 and Microsoft 365? Microsoft 365 includes everything you know in Office 365. Microsoft 365 is designed to help people and businesses achieve more with innovative Office apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security.

If you see a circle arrow, then your subscription is set up for recurring billing, unless you turn recurring billing off or cancel it beforehand. The next charge info shows you when you'll be charged next, and for how much. If you see Expires on [date], then your subscription will expire on that date, unless you renew.

Forget about subscription or license renewals. Renewable licenses are for the birds, especially in the current economic climate. Head into the new year with an affordable lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home & Business for Mac or Windows 2021, available now for $40.

Get started with Office 365 for free

Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for Office 365 Education for free, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. Use your valid school email address to get started today.

How do I activate Office 365 without paying? ›

Activating Microsoft 365 Apps

As long as the computer can connect to the internet at least once every 30 days, Microsoft 365 Apps remains fully functional.

Monthly commitment payment: You pay month to month, and you can cancel at any time. Annual commitment payment: You sign up for a one-year subscription, but you can choose to pay month to month or pay for the entire year at the time you sign up. There is a discount for using this payment option.

You'll still be able to open and print your documents but you won't be able to edit them or to create new ones. Tip: In the meantime, you can use Office Online for free in your web browser. Go Office.com to access the free version.

It includes: Full Office desktop apps such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Publisher and Access for Windows PCs, as well as access to additional OneNote features (features vary). 1 TB of additional OneDrive cloud storage so you can save documents, photos and videos online and access them from nearly anywhere.

All the same apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote—are available for Office 365 and Office Online. The Office 365 Mobile Apps include versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook for the iOS and Android platforms. To use these Office 365 mobile apps, you'll need to have a paid Office 365 subscription.

You do not have to purchase Microsoft Office with any computer, but several manufacturers offer a discounted version of the software with the purchase of their hardware. Many makes of laptops come with a trial version that the user is free to delete or activate.

Click Settings, and then under My app settings, choose Office 365. On the My account page, choose Subscriptions. You'll see the services that you're licensed to use, such as the latest desktop version of Microsoft 365, SharePoint in Microsoft 365 or OneDrive for work or school, and Exchange Online.

As with the web version, you just need a Microsoft account and you're good to go, but there is a caveat: If you want to use the mobile app version of Word on an Android device with a screen size of fewer than 10.1 inches or on an iPad, you need to pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Is there a version of Microsoft Office that doesn't expire? ›

There's the “perpetual” version of Office that's available as a one-time purchase; the most current version is Office 2021. Then there's the subscription version that lives in the cloud and for which you pay a monthly or annual fee.

If you have the Microsoft Office on your Microsoft account, you can install Office from your account and you do not need to repurchase Microsoft Office.

Following the expiration of your subscription, you have thirty days where Office 365 is still available for use. Any installed applications can still be launched, and you can still access additional solutions as well. Microsoft won't remove any of your data from its servers.

You can get a lifetime 365 subscription by paying the then-existing rate (annual or monthly) for Microsoft 365 for the rest of your life.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription service that ensures you always have the most up-to-date Office apps from Microsoft. With Microsoft 365 Family, you can install Microsoft 365 on all your devices and sign in to five at the same time―that means you can use Office no matter where you are or what device you're on.

Is Office going away entirely? No, as part of Microsoft 365 you will continue to get access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. We will also continue to offer one-time purchases of those apps to consumers and businesses via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans.

That purchase of a license to legally run the software gives you the right to use that version of Office 2021 in perpetuity. In other words, the license has no expiration date, and users may run the suite for as long as they want.

All regular Microsoft 365 licenses expire after 12 months. However, Microsoft offers a grace period of up to three months, starting at the expiration date. You can still benefit from all the tools included in your current plan.