Microsoft has decided to delay its planned price increase (opens in new tab) of Office 365 (opens in new tab) for an additional two weeks.
The software giant had announced (opens in new tab) its first “substantive” price increase since launching Office 365 in 2011 was set to occur on March 1, 2022.
Thankfully though, pricing will not increase for consumers or Microsoft's education customers at this time but businesses that use Microsoft's office software (opens in new tab) can expect to pay quite a bit more depending on how many employees they have when they need to renew their subscriptions.
Pricing grace period
In a support document (opens in new tab) published at the end of February, Microsoft informed its reseller partners that it had created a “transitional grace period” due to high demand by businesses looking to renew their subscriptions before the company's pricing changes went into effect.
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft's pricing changes, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $5 to $6 per user per year, Microsoft 365 Business Premium will go from $20 to $22, Office 365 E1 will go from $8 to $10, Office 365 E3 will go from $20 to $23, Office 365 E5 will go from $35 to $38 and Microsoft 365 E3 will go from $32 to $36.
> Microsoft Office 365 is getting a handy upgrade that will streamline your workflow (opens in new tab)
> Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is taking no chances with dodgy attachments (opens in new tab)
> Microsoft wants to make sure you don't get caught out by Office 365 email scams (opens in new tab)
As a result, Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) now have until 5pm PDT on March 14 or 12am UTC on March 15 to submit transactions and have them invoiced at the software giant's February 2022 pricing. This means that the next few weeks will likely be quite busy for CSPs as businesses try to renew one last time with the old Office 365 pricing.
While Microsoft did wait over a decade to raise the price of both Office 365 and Microsoft 365, some businesses could turn to Google Workspace (opens in new tab) or other Microsoft Office alternatives (opens in new tab) following the implementation of the company's planned price increase.
- We've also highlighted the best online collaboration tools (opens in new tab) and the best hybrid working tech (opens in new tab)
Via ZDNet (opens in new tab)
