Microsoft to hike 'Microsoft 365' pricing in 2022 citing 'increased value'

Posted:
in General Discussion edited August 2021
Microsoft last week announced plans to increase commercial pricing for its flagship Microsoft 365 productivity suite, with the company calling it the first "substantive" pricing update since the package launched in 2011.

Microsoft 365


Announced in a blog post, the new price structure only applies to commercial subscriptions, with cheaper plans seeing the biggest jumps.

From March 1, 2022, Microsoft's Office 365 E1 will be priced at $10 per user per month, up 25% from $8, while Office 365 E3 gets a 13% price bump from $20 to $23 per user. The top-tier Office 365 E5 moves from $35 to $38, a 9% increase.

Microsoft 365 bundles, which include Office apps and other software like email, social, work management and more, are also seeing price hikes, with Microsoft 365 Business Basic moving from $5 to $6 per user per month. Microsoft 365 Business Premium jumps from $20 to $22 per users and Microsoft 365 E3 moves from $32 to $36.

"This updated pricing reflects the increased value we have delivered to our customers over the past 10 years," the company said.

According to Microsoft, the price increases will see a global rollout with local market adjustments for certain regions.

In its announcement, Microsoft touted improvements to Microsoft 365, previously branded as Office 365, which include advancements in communications and collaboration, security and compliance, and AI and automation. More than 300 million paid users take advantage of the productivity suites, according to Microsoft.

The company took the opportunity to announce new unlimited dial-in capabilities for Microsoft Teams meetings across our enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites, a feature that will roll out over the next few months.

Read on AppleInsider
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 38
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    Sadly much of the value is hard to use because of the "Mircosoftness" of the suite of products.
    That don't work together, have vast arrays of settings in multiple versions of the admin interfaces each not containing all the settings. Settings that do part of the job but don't always relate to the settings for the other part of the job. 

    The whole product is just a means to get you sign up to a partner who has paid them lots in training to workout how it all fits together into the product they promise.

    Yes should have gone with Google for business (important decision marker couldn't live without outlook and word) but there is room for some more competition to improve the offer. Apple seriously needs to compete in this space.

    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 38
    KTRKTR Posts: 279member
    Like Microsoft really needs the money

    ikirwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 38
    Why Apple never really ups the competition with their office suite I don’t get. 
    mattinozdewmejony0
  • Reply 4 of 38
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    urashid
  • Reply 5 of 38
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    That may be so, but why is there only one? Why has Apple let it? And Alphabet? Why?
    opinion
  • Reply 6 of 38
    boboliciousbobolicious Posts: 1,139member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.

    apps.apple.com/app/id951937596

    behavioural modification? www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/microsoft-outlook-will-stop-you-sending-tone-deaf-emails/ar-AANuxkL

    edited August 2021
  • Reply 7 of 38
    Why Apple never really ups the competition with their office suite I don’t get. 
    anti-trust deal with microsoft back in the day. Also there was a deal for a long time that apple would not further develop an office suite or microsoft would pull word+excel from the mac. Also, most companies use Office 365, which is very complete, no way apple can compete on that front.
    edited August 2021
  • Reply 8 of 38
    KTR said:
    Like Microsoft really needs the money

    They're not a charity are they? Apple doesn't need the % from the App Stores either.
    urashidFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 9 of 38
    Really just a bloated fur ball that 95% of us make use of 5% of the features.
    StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 38
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Microsoft messing with licensing costs is the third certainty behind death and taxes.
    dewmeFileMakerFellerjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 38
    pscooter63pscooter63 Posts: 1,080member
    Just yesterday, my 365 suite (work) started throwing errors when I tried to open a Word doc.  Turns out I needed to reboot to complete a Windows update, but the OS (AND Office) was too stupid to tell me that.

    A while back, my office shortcuts wouldn’t persist in my taskbar after a reboot.  It took six weeks of automatic updates to resolve that,  Just crazy, random things.

    So I don’t miss Office after-hours.  This weekend my SO asked me to scan and enlarge a set of tiny device instructions to fit on a letter-sized hard copy, and Pages was MUCH less fiddly than Word ever has been.
    FileMakerFellermattinozjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 38
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Counterpoint: Outlook is a bloated POS that is anything but easy to use and overkill for normals. No wonder Windows enterprise IT guys love it. 
    edited August 2021 MplsPdewmemattinozjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 38
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    michelb76 said:
    Why Apple never really ups the competition with their office suite I don’t get. 
    anti-trust deal with microsoft back in the day. Also there was a deal for a long time that apple would not further develop an office suite or microsoft would pull word+excel from the mac. Also, most companies use Office 365, which is very complete, no way apple can compete on that front.
    Do you have a link to this back room agreement? 
    jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 38
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Counterpoint: Outlook is a bloated POS that is anything but easy to use and overkill for normals. No wonder Windows enterprise IT guys love it. 
    Never had any problems with Outlook, it’s probably the least offensive app in the Office suite.  

    Maybe RSS feeds being in there is a bit much, but otherwise I don’t find it especially bloated.
    muthuk_vanalingamFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 15 of 38
    65026502 Posts: 380member
    kimberly said:
    Really just a bloated fur ball that 95% of us make use of 5% of the features.
    Except we all use a different 5%. I wrote my thesis in word taking full advantage of figure/caption links, auto table of contents, indexing, styles, references, etc... I use Excel daily for data analysis. It really is a fantastic piece of productivity software with a reasonable price.
    urashidFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 16 of 38
    65026502 Posts: 380member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Agreed. Excel lets mere mortals with no programming experience do some amazing data analysis. The rest of the office suite is fantastic too. We're a long ways away from the awful Word 6 days.
  • Reply 17 of 38
    ikirikir Posts: 127member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Outlook is a mess, UI is a mess, performance are terrible too.
    MplsPwatto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 38
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Counterpoint: Outlook is a bloated POS that is anything but easy to use and overkill for normals. No wonder Windows enterprise IT guys love it. 
    I’m forced to use Outlook. It sucks. Apple Mail isn’t perfect, either, but it’s far better than Outlook for email.

    Office 365 Apps suck, too. Several of my partners will routinely use Google docs simply because they’re better and easier to use. And don’t even get me started on Teams…

    The reason Microsoft continues its dominance is because it’s a virtual monopoly in the business market, not because it’s a quality product.
    edited August 2021 FileMakerFellerjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 38
    65026502 Posts: 380member
    MplsP said:
    KBuffett said:
    There is no reputable competitor to Excel in the enterprise field.

    As for outlook, for something as simple as an email client, it trounces competitors. Apple’s iOS Mail is toy in comparison.
    Counterpoint: Outlook is a bloated POS that is anything but easy to use and overkill for normals. No wonder Windows enterprise IT guys love it. 
    I’m forced to use Outlook. It sucks. Apple Mail isn’t perfect, either, but it’s far better than Outlook for email.

    Office 365 Apps suck, too. Several of my partners will routinely use Google docs simply because they’re better and easier to use. And don’t even get me started on Teams…

    The reason Microsoft continues its dominance is because it’s a virtual monopoly in the business market, not because it’s a quality product.
    Good luck in setting up a meeting and reserving a conference room in Apple Mail. Your partners don't sound too tech savvy, perhaps they should try TextEdit or Notepad? Office 365 is tremendously powerful and productive, if you're will to spend just a few minutes learning how to use it (like most things in life).
    FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 20 of 38
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    That doesn't sound so substantial compared to some of the other price raises of things I subscribe to. A few have been a bit troubling when all combined at once (seeing as wages aren't really going up). I do get that companies might need to raise prices from time to time, but I fear the timing of these points to bigger overall financial concerns.

    This one is more painful, though, as I only use the apps a few times per year currently, so it's a lot of money for the actual usefulness to me. My wife uses them a bit more often, though, so maybe overall we're slightly justified in keeping it (I hope).
    watto_cobra
Sign In or Register to comment.