Hi Steve,
Thank you for using Microsoft products and making community posts.
The reason for that is because there was a new product added to the subscription which is the copilot for Microsoft 365 Family and Personal plan,
The updated prices for Microsoft 365 subscriptions are as follows:
- Microsoft 365 Family: $129.99/year or $12.99/month.
- Microsoft 365 Personal: $99.99/year or $9.99/month.
These plans include features like AI-powered tools (e.g., Copilot), 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user, and access to apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Do let me know if you require any further help on this.
Chan G
Microsoft Community Moderator
Hi Steve,
Thank you for using Microsoft products and making community posts.
The reason for that is because there was a new product added to the subscription which is the copilot for Microsoft 365 Family and Personal plan,
The updated prices for Microsoft 365 subscriptions are as follows:
- Microsoft 365 Family: $129.99/year or $12.99/month.
- Microsoft 365 Personal: $99.99/year or $9.99/month.
These plans include features like AI-powered tools (e.g., Copilot), 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user, and access to apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Do let me know if you require any further help on this.
Chan G
Microsoft Community Moderator
A Family sub was never $69
There was an across the board price increase mid jan for o365 retail versions
Videos
Excessive price increase
MicroSoft 365 Home is increasing by 30% in 2025?
Avoid 37% Microsoft 365 plan price hike by dropping AI
Subscription increase
Totally agree!
... and of course the response will be increasing "interest rates", "cost of living", etc.
A 29% price increase is totally unjustified! Cost of living has not increased that much in the last years.
They have us trapped, now gouging for all they can. Wonder if this is a case to take to the ACCC?
There's an ACCC action just waiting to happen here.
A 29% increase on a subscription service that has high encumbrance to change. That's a definite misuse of market power.
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/competition-and-exemptions/misuse-of-market-power
Hi BKSlone,
Welcome to Microsoft Community.
As you have learned in another thread. The reason for the subscription price increase is that the product team has added Copilot to all Office applications starting from January 16, 2025. As a cost for unlimited use of AI, Microsoft has raised the subscription price.
However, if you do not need this feature, you can downgrade your subscription to Microsoft 365 Classic subcription, which will reduce the subscription price by $30. Correspondingly, your monthly quota for using Copilot to assist in creating documents will be limited. For more information about the Microsoft 365 Classic subscription and how to cancel your subscription for a refund, please refer to: Switching to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Classic Plans - Microsoft Support
I hope my explanation helps you understand the reason for your subscription price increase. Although the decision to raise prices was not made by me, I completely understand how you feel. Copilot can indeed be disabled, but this falls outside the scope of the discussion on the subscription price increase thread. I will address your other thread about disabling Copilot later.
If you have any further questions or want to share more context about the subscription price increase, please let me know in your reply!
Best Regards,
Thomas C - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist
Thomas - I couldn't find on Microsoft's site what the subscription fee is for Microsoft 365 Family Classic in my region (USA-Kentucky), can you provide? One thing I did see was that Microsoft 365 Family Classic is available for "a limited time"... what does that mean? Also, I'm currently sharing my Microsoft 365 Family with other family users with me being the primary account holder. If I downgrade to Microsoft 365 Family Classic, how does that effect my other family users? Is the downgrade automatically applied to them or is there something additional that they have to do? Would the "downgraded" software have to be downloaded and installed on all of our machines?
Thanks - BKSlone
Prices for Microsoft 365 Family are going up this year, from $109 to $149, a whopping 37% increase.
If you log into your Microsoft account and click "Cancel subscription" on the next page you have an option to switch your current subscription to Microsoft 365 Family Classic, labeled as "Lower cost without AI".
Great! I didn't want copilot embedded in everything anyway, and don't want to have a image slopifier.
There's also a button get two free months extension.
So what Microsoft is really saying is "We don't care about losing loyal subscribers - pay the new fee or loose access" - so blackmail it is! Yes, the true meaning of subscription access models in the daylight.
Looks like the beginning of the exploitation of the working and middle classes has begun by big business. With Trump in office, big business will be deregulated so they can do whatever they like to the consumer without recourse. Awesome ..... just awesome. Waiting to see what Apple, Amazon and other big companies start doing to consumers. Perhaps they increased costs because they put up wages ... nah, get serious, only bonuses to management and shareholders.
So NO, the above information was not helpful - just a bunch of corporate excuses for extorting more fees from long time loyal MS followers.
Dear Tony Marsh,
Hello! Welcome to the Microsoft Community. I'm glad to be able to assist you. If I misunderstand your question, please let me know promptly.
I understand that you received a strange email telling you that your Microsoft 365 Personal subscription will increase by 45.87%. I understand that this message may be confusing to you, and I will try to explain it to you.
First of all, thank you for your love and support for Microsoft products! Please do not trust any messages about payments and funds easily for the time being, and do not make any payments to this address. Please check the address of this email, is it an official Microsoft address?
About current Microsoft 365 Personal subscription prices, please check the official Microsoft price on the following page:
Compare All Microsoft 365 Plans (Formerly Office 365) - Microsoft Store
I have summarized the main content of the above article for you. For the personal version of Microsoft365, it is $69.99/year or $6.99/month. For the home version of Microsoft365, it is $99.99/year or $9.99/month. This is the official price, which means that if you want to renew, you will pay this price.
The new Microsoft 365 with Copilot (AI) is coming soon, but it is currently only available in some specific regions. If you receive a price increase message, it may be that you are in this specific region. At present, the annual subscription price of the personal version has changed from 69.99 $ to 99.99 $, and the family version has changed from 99.99 $ to 129.99 $. This seems to be more in line with the price increase message you received.
I understand that you may not have a need for Copilot at present. If so, you can consider subscribing to the Microsoft 365 Basic version. Its price has not changed. Relatively speaking, it provides fewer services. It provides Outlook, OneDrive and 100GB of cloud storage space. If you want to know more about this, please call our online support team. At the same time, if you have additional payments due to this subscription, you can ask the support staff whether you can get it back after changing the version.
Contact Microsoft Support.
- Visit this website: https://support.microsoft.com/home/contact
- Type in your problems in the search box there. For instance, subscription/Tax invoices/refund, etc.
- Now click Get help, and Select Contact Support below.
- Go to the Products and services tab, and choose either Microsoft 365 and Office category or Other Products
- On the Category tab, choose Manage My Subscription or other alternatives.
- Go to Confirm.
- You can now choose the option of Chat with a support agent on your web browser.
**Please Note:**The Chat support team only works at certain times, so if the last window says you are not available, try to open it again the next day. If you prefer phone support, you can leave a phone number. That way, they can call you and help you.
I hope the above information is helpful, if you have any questions, please feel free to let me know.
Best Wishes
Pyke.D | Microsoft Community Support Specialist
TL;DR:
Bought AU$139
Microsoft Family 36512-month subscription in SeptemberGot a "copilot" feature prompt in Word app today (November), checked the portal, my plan is now AU$179 and includes AI credits. I can't turn off the copilot button in the apps.
Checked the subscription portal - there's a AU$139
Microsoft 365 Family Classicplan that has the exact same features as the original plan I bought. I can't move back to it now, I can only move back to it at my next billing renewal (in September 2025). Contacted Microsoft support and everything.I'm stuck with the copilot bullshit popups indefinitely, even after disabling connected experiences in registry, the icon is still all over the UI, it just brings up errors now.
Microsoft support forums acknowledge they're changing people's subscriptions here.
Bonus fun fact:
The Register reports IBM are being sued by investors for fraud after bundling unnecessary/unwanted AI products into mainframe sales to inflate sales numbers. I wonder how Microsoft investors will react to the above?
Edit:
Publishing the wayback link for before and after. Note these are en-au pages - be mindful of redirects to another region's page.
AU August 2024
AU Now
Note another difference between product overview pages:
US: Powerful productivity apps
AU: Powerful productivity apps with AI
Edit 2:
Thanks to u/redorgreen14 who found the announcement from Microsoft about this.
Confirmed this is currently only in "Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand".
Totally agree!
... and of course the response will be increasing "interest rates", "cost of living", etc.
A 29% price increase is totally unjustified! Cost of living has not increased that much in the last years.
They have us trapped, now gouging for all they can. Wonder if this is a case to take to the ACCC?
There's an ACCC action just waiting to happen here.
A 29% increase on a subscription service that has high encumbrance to change. That's a definite misuse of market power.
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/competition-and-exemptions/misuse-of-market-power