It looks like this officially started in February and I'm only seeing it now because my annual subscription renewal is coming up. I'm seriously considering terminating the service. My family mostly uses GSuite applications anyway... It is what the schools teach our kids and what most non-profits I work with use as well.

Anyone else ditching O365 due to the price hike?

From the email from MSFT:

"Thank you for being a valued Microsoft 365 subscriber. To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade, address rising costs, and enable us to continue delivering new innovations, we’re increasing the price of your subscription.

Effective February 14, 2025*, the price for* Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase from USD 99.99^* per year to USD 129.99^* per year*.* To continue with the new price, no action is needed—your payment method on file will be automatically charged. To make changes to your subscription plan or turn off recurring billing, visit your Microsoft account at least two days before your next billing date.

By maintaining your subscription, you’ll enjoy secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices, and cutting-edge AI-powered features, along with all your other subscription benefits. Thank you for choosing Microsoft."

Of course, I didn't request the new AI features and I'm not using them, but there is no subscription option without them that keeps my cost level.

Hello,

As you know, Microsoft decided to bump up the subscription price for 365 subscribers, with adding Copilot & all that.

I've discovered this neat video that explains the mandatory upgrade isn't really mandatory.

I've also written up a short guide on how to keep your current price, if you're interested.

Hope this helps!

Advancing Microsoft 365: New capabilities and pricing update | Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft is adding some enhancements including what appears to be an additional 50GB of email storage for the business tiers (although it is not mentioned anywhere in the blog).

They are also increasing prices for everyone, including nonprofits, by $1-$3 per user.

Just received this email...

Thank you for being a valued Microsoft 365 subscriber. To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade, address rising costs, and enable us to continue delivering new innovations, we’re increasing the price of your subscription.

Effective February 14, 2025, the price for Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions will increase from USD 69.99^* per year to USD 99.99^* per year*.* To continue with the new price, no action is needed—your payment method on file will be automatically charged. To make changes to your subscription plan or turn off recurring billing, visit your Microsoft account at least two days before your next billing date.

By maintaining your subscription, you’ll enjoy secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices, and cutting-edge AI-powered features, along with all your other subscription benefits. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

Learn more about how to manage your subscription, including how to cancel and switch your subscription.

Edit: Some have pointed out that there is a classic subscription without AI. Thanks! For those interested: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switching-to-microsoft-365-personal-and-family-classic-plans-58342e83-38e7-4cda-b63b-88604a8fb7ef

Original post:

My Office 365 personal subscription is being raised from 69,99€ to 99,99€ a year. A ridiculous hike of a little over 42%. Their reasons stated reasons (innovation), read to me as AI development.

A little while back, I got Co-Pilot shoved down my throat by automatically including it in my subscription. I didn't want it, but I got it since there was no opt-out. I already suspected that this was a way to cover costs for Co-Pilot by introducing it to a large market. And here we are, a 42% increase in a single year for the same product with (to me) a useless addition of Co-Pilot.

Needless to say, I will migrate my stuff as soon as possible.

Do you think this increase is proportional to the value added by Co-Pilot?

I just got an email from MS saying they going to increase the price of Office 365.

The increase is 28.57% - WOW!

Cost of living has gone up for me.

I haven’t had a pay increase of that sort of percentage for years, in fact ever.

What alternatives do I have?

What are your thoughts?

Go to: account.microsoft.com/services/microsoft365

Under Manage Subscription, select Cancel Subscription

You'll then have the option to switch back to your original plan, aka "Microsoft 365 Personal Classic"— without all the AI stuff Microsoft is pushing down your throat.

Personally I really don't need these kinda features, figured there might be more people that don't know about this.

After switching back it'll charge you on your usual billing date.

Hope this helps you out!

edit: removed 'www.' from the link, which caused it not to work

The manner of which the price increase is being communicated via email is awful and needs to be urgently updated.

The fact that the cost is increasing by a whopping 41.7% from £5.99 to £8.49 and no standalone email has been sent advising of the massive price change, due to the addition of AI, is mind blowing!

Currently, the only reference to the price increase is 'hidden' within the most recent Subscription Renewal email. As the email title is the same as every other renewal email, this can be easily missed and therefore comes across as intentionally deceptive.

There NEEDS to be a standalone email providing the following:

• Notification of the price increase (Cost change)

• Reasons for the price increase (AI addition)

• Options and instructions for alternative packages

• Information on the new Classic option which removes the AI functionality

Please reconsider your current marketing on this. It does not hurt to be clear and forthcoming.

My $99/year Office 365 Family subscription has been changed to $129/year.

The only difference in services that I could find is 60 credits of CoPilot AI that are limited to the subscription owner.

Yesterday, MS injected CoPilot into my Office suite (desktop). Today, I see it changed my Outlook (Android) signature. I do not recall seeing a notice about this.

The Office 365 Personal went up to $99/year. I am quite annoyed by this.

EDIT 1 - Thanks to u/johnnymonkey below, here is the info on how to change back to the 'Classic' version.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/switching-to-microsoft-365-personal-and-family-classic-plans-58342e83-38e7-4cda-b63b-88604a8fb7ef

EDIT 2 - As u/Dbthegreat1 clarified, you have to Cancel the $129 subscription before you can Downgrade to the Classic.

EDIT 3 - I'm having the same issue as u/Questor-John. I was unable to cancel and downgrade. I see the message that I have already paid until March 2025. Maybe, at that time, I'll be able to downgrade.

I'm also wondering how this will impact the other family members as I attempt to make the change.

Anyone notice this 5% increase for most NCE subscriptions? Or am I reading this wrong? Most of our clients have a yearly commit with monthly billing.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2025-march#1

On April 1, 2025, all new and renewing monthly billing plans for annual subscriptions will be priced five percent higher than the annual/triennial billing option for annual/triennial subscription plans. Pricing updates for Microsoft Teams Phone and Power BI effective April 1, 2025.

• Date: March 3, 2025

• Workspace: General

• Impacted audience: All Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Partners

Microsoft is bumping the price of M365 licenses for annual commits paid monthly by 5% starting April 1, 2025 across the common base skus.

I created a blog/video to cover these changes and other pricing changes and promos coming in 2025 that I wanted to share:

Blog: Microsoft Prices going up?! | Changes 2025 -

Video: https://youtu.be/hpMNykWIo6o

Some helpful information to get ahead of this with your customers:

• You will not experience a price increase if you move to annual prepaid.

• If your renewal date is before April 1, 2025 for an annual paid monthly, you will not experience a price uptick until your next renewal date. (which could be all the way to march 2026 depending on the anniversary date)

• I've listed some of the top promos like upgrading to BP. Now would be a good time to pitch an upgrade path (if they are not already on these skus) to not only get a discount for a year (15%), but also to lock in the existing price point for the next year.

• Email Template you can modify to send out (made this overly verbose you can cut it down if needed): Customer Email Template

How are you communicating these changes with your customers?

Microsoft is adding artificial intelligence tools to its consumer Microsoft 365 bundle and bumping up the price for the first time since introducing subscriptions 12 years ago.

In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft said it’s bringing its Copilot AI assistant into the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote applications for consumers who have the Microsoft 365 suite.

The increase of $3 per month is meant “to reflect the extensive subscription benefits that we’ve added over the past 12 years and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come,” Bryan Rognier, vice president of Microsoft 365 Consumer, wrote in the post.

Microsoft 365 Personal will now cost $9.99 per month and $99.99 per year, up from $6.99 per month and $69.99 per year. The Microsoft 365 Family plan, which serves up to six people, will cost $12.99 per month and $129.99 per year, up from $9.99 a month and $99.99 per year.

Microsoft had 84.4 million consumer subscribers to Microsoft 365 in the September quarter, up 10%. Existing customers will see the new prices upon renewal, according to the blog post.

Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is important to the company’s efforts to compete with Google’s productivity tools in the consumer market. But sales to businesses are far more lucrative for Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 commercial products and cloud services represented 31% of the company’s fiscal third-quarter revenue, while Microsoft 365 consumer products and cloud services contributed less than 3%. In 2022, Microsoft increased prices of commercial Microsoft 365 subscriptions for the first time.

In addition to bringing Copilot into the Microsoft 365 applications, consumer subscribers will gain access to Microsoft Designer, an AI image editing tool.

Microsoft said that, for a limited time, existing subscribers can switch to plans without Copilot or other AI.

“These plans will continue to be maintained as they exist today, but for certain new innovations and features you’ll need a Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscription,” the company said.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/16/microsoft-raises-price-of-consumer-microsoft-365-first-time-since-2013.html