Microsoft 365 Price Changes in March 2022

Update- March, 2022

Microsoft has raised its prices on many M365 platforms. This price increases took effect in March, 2022.

There are now two pathways to join M365 from a licensing perspective.

• The first is a 12-month licensing agreement and there are no additional surcharges
• The second takes into account your ability to be able to add or delete licenses at your discretion, and not be tied to an annual agreement. Microsoft will charge a 20% premium for this flexibility.

As a decision maker, you will need to decide whether your company will benefit more from locking in a set number of licenses at a set cost (yearly plan) or whether it makes more sense to have the flexibility of adding and reducing your license quantity throughout the year, paying the 20% increase – monthly.

In August 2021, Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, posted a blog about new pricing for Microsoft 365 that will take place. Office 365 products have gone through some impressive changes over the last decade.

A few improvements are:

• 24 additional applications to the suite of products (Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, Whiteboard…)
• Microsoft Teams to call, chat, meet, collaborate, and automate business processes in a single integration solution
• Security and Compliance with data loss prevention, mobile device management, and attack surface reduction capabilities

Lock In Monthly 20% Savings with Annual Rates

Most importantly, is that there have been minimal price changes over the past decade even though Microsoft has used extensive resources to make these improvements. Improvements which we have all experienced firsthand with the switch to remote work during the pandemic.

So, what is the new pricing and what other important details should you keep in mind while planning out your 2022 licensing?

All Microsoft customers will experience a price increase effective March 1, 2022. Where you can save from incremental charges is by locking into to an annual agreement.

If you choose to continue to keep your Office 365 licenses and pay on a monthly basis, without an annual agreement, you will see an additional 20% premium added onto your monthly rate.

As a decision maker, you will need to decide whether your company will benefit more from locking in a set number of licenses at a set cost (yearly plan) or whether it makes more sense to have the flexibility of adding and reducing your license quantity throughout the year, paying the 20% increase – monthly.

Business Plans

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic is going from $5 to $6/user/month¹
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium is going from $20 to $22/user/month¹

Enterprise Plans

• Office 365 E1 is going from $8 to $10/user/month¹
• Office 365 E3 is going from $20 to $23/user/month¹
• Office 365 E5 is going from $35 to $38/user/month¹
• Microsoft 365 E3 is going from $32 to $36/user/month^{1
  1}_{Pricing is in USD}

In addition, for companies who have a high turnover rate or seasonal employees, this can cause an increased expense that they are not used to. For example, with the new yearly or multi-year plan enforcement, a company will no longer be able to reduce the license count when employment numbers drop.

You will also no longer be able to downgrade your licenses to a less complex plan such as E3 to E1 during the agreement.

How can you lock in the annual rates?

Through eMazzanti Technologies, you can sign up for a 1 to 3* year license agreement before March, 2022 and your license costs will be at the new annual rate. Sign a 1 to 3* year agreement to prevent the 20% premium for the monthly flexibility.

*Select subscriptions

If you want to lock in your current rate or need help evaluating the pros and cons of monthly versus yearly plans, let us know. We are happy to help!