Ten years after launching Office 365, Microsoft has announced it will be increasing Microsoft 365 pricing in 2022. Since first launch, the company has added an impressive 24 apps to the suites. Its reach has grown to include over 300 million paid seats. Here’s more on the new pricing and Microsoft’s reasons for the increase.
Changes to Pricing of Select Products
INTELITECHS clients should anticipate the new prices, which will go into effect on March 1, 2022. The changes will not affect any of Microsoft’s educational and consumer products; the price increases only affect commercial customers. Commercial products affected and their new prices are listed here:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic – from $5 to $6 per user
- 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.
An Explanation for the Pricing Increase
Microsoft cited three main areas of improvement the company has made over the last decade to better serve its customers: communication and collaboration; security and compliance; and AI and automation.
Communication and collaboration have changed substantially across Office 365 in recent years alone. The introduction of Teams in 2017 allowed companies to meet, chat, call, collaborate, and automate business processes. In addition, Microsoft continues to increase real-time collaboration opportunities, including in the Word, Excel, and Powerpoint desktop apps.
As the cybercrime landscape has evolved, Microsoft has added capabilities like data loss prevention for email and documents, sensitivity labels, and message encryption to help keep important data within the organization. Powerful compliance capabilities such as Content Search, eDiscovery, and core Litigation Hold help organizations reduce risk and respond to increasing regulatory requirements.
Since launching in 2011, Microsoft has grown Office 365’s AI capabilities to help users be better writers, designers, and presenters. Cloud-powered AI capabilities within the suites have become nearly endless.
Microsoft 365 and Office 365 continue to provide astonishing value to businesses even with the planned price increase. The new pricing should not deter companies from sticking with their current subscriptions. However, if the cost is prohibitive, we can help companies entertain the possibility of scaling back their subscriptions and features.
Do you have additional questions about the Office 365 price increase? Contact your IT team at INTELITECHS to learn more.
