Microsoft’s increasing its subscription prices for Microsoft 365 in March.
It’s the first big price rise in the last 10 years. You should expect to pay around 20 to 40 per cent more per user.
In fact, it’s not just a price increase. Microsoft’s also changing the way it sells 365. It’s a complicated situation and there’s bound to be some short-term pain as we all get used to it.
Here are the basic details. You should talk to your IT support partner over the next few weeks to see exactly how it’s going to affect your business.
From March you’ll have a choice of keeping the month-by-month contract and agree to the price increase. Or you can commit to a 12-month contract.
The benefit of an agreement is that it’ll freeze your current pricing for a year. But you’ll lose flexibility.
During your contract you can increase the number of licenses you use but you can’t decrease them.
That means if you hire more staff, it will be easy to give them access to the essential business tools they need.
But if you fire staff or an employee quits, you’ll have to pay for the user licenses you no longer need.
You also won’t be able to move your Microsoft licensing to another IT services company during that contract.
The other option is to have a monthly contract. You can add or remove licenses as needed, but the price will be higher. For some businesses, that flexibility is worth paying extra for, and better value long-term.
It’s worth thinking through your plans for the next 15 months before deciding.
If you want to talk through which option’s going to be best for you, do give us a call or fill out our contact form
