Microsoft 365 comes with a dizzying array of subscription packages for Home, Business, Enterprise, Non-Profit, Government and Education.
Office 2024 is sold as a one-time purchase, which means you pay a single, up-front cost to obtain and use the Microsoft Office suite on one computer. One-time purchases are available for both PCs and Macs. However, there are no upgrade options. This means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you'll have to buy it at full price.
With Microsoft 365 you always have the latest features, fixes, and security updates and you have the choice to pay the subscription either monthly or annually.
As these products and prices can change it always makes sense to review the linked Microsoft sites.
For reference, this page was last updated on 21/05/25
Microsoft 365 Home Subscriptions
Microsoft 365 for Home represents excellent value for money and comes in two flavours:
Microsoft 365 Personal (formerly Office 365 personal) at £84.99 (Inc VAT) annually provides you with premium office applications for one user (installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and Publisher).
Microsoft 365 Family (formerly Office 365 Home) at £104.99 (Inc VAT) annually is the same as Personal but is shareable with 6 family members.
Both of these come with 1TB OneDrive cloud storage, a 50GB mailbox with ransomware detection and file recovery options.
The Business and Enterprise subscription options are by far the most common solution Pro-Networks provides for its customers.
Microsoft 365 Business Subscriptions
Microsoft 365 Business comes in four flavours as below:
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials) at £4.60 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) is simply hosted email (Exchange in the cloud). It comes with web versions of the popular Microsoft Office Application (Word, Excel etc). Collaboration is achieved through OneDrive, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams (more discussion on these in later posts).
Microsoft 365 Apps For Business (formerly Office 365 Business) at £8.10 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) is best thought of as a rented version of Office. Email services (and collaboration services) are not included in the subscription but Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access are, and can be installed on your desktop PC.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard (formerly Office 365 Premium) at £9.60 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) is an installed version of Office on your desktop PC (as per Office 365 Business Apps), along with hosted email and collaboration (as per Office 365 Business Basic).
Microsoft 365 Business Premium (formerly Microsoft 365 Business) at £16.90 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) gives businesses everything included in Business Standard plus advanced cyberthreat protection and device management.
Like the Home products above (where applicable) mailboxes have a maximum capacity of 50GB. These accounts are provided with 1TB of cloud storage via OneDrive.
Paid Annually in Advance - this is a recent (Q1 2025) change by Microsoft where they are clearly pushing customers to commit to annual subscriptions and reward them for paying annually in advance. Should you wish to commit annually and pay monthly there will be an (approx) 5% increase in the published costs. Should you wish to only commit monthly, there is a further (approx) 20% increase to the annual commit / monthly payment figures.
The Office 365 Business Subscriptions are licensed for commercial use.
Microsoft 365 Enterprise Subscriptions
Microsoft 365 Enterprise Subscriptions come with a host of additional benefits. The advantages that a businesses can enjoy are dictated by the type of subscription:
Office 365 E1 at £6.00 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) does not include any installed version of Microsoft Office and is simply cloud-based Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Plannerer and Stream.
Office 365 Apps for Enterprise at £11.70 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) provides you with an installed version of Microsoft Office and 1TB of OneDrive storage, but does not include all of the collaboration tools in the E1 plan above.
Office 365 E3 at £18.60 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) merges the two plans above. Users get an installed version of Microsoft Office (as per the Apps for Enterprise plan) and all of the collaboration tools that come with the E1 plan.
Office 365 E5 at £32.10 + VAT monthly (paid annually in advance) is the E3 plan above and includes advanced security features and PowerBi Pro.
Paid Annually in Advance - this is a recent change by Microsoft (Q1 2025) where they are clearly pushing customers to commit to annual subscriptions and reward them for paying annually in advance. Should you wish to commit annually and pay monthly there will be an (approx) 5% increase in the published costs. Should you wish to only commit monthly, there is a further (approx) 20% increase to the annual commit / monthly payment figures.
At the same time Microsoft removed Microsoft Teams from new subscriptions for Enterprise plans and made this available as an optional (charged) extra.
Finally, Microsoft offer Microsoft 365 subscription plans that overlay the Office 365 subscriptions above with additional security features - please speak to us if you would like more information on this.
Pro-Networks can help you migrate to Microsoft 365. If you are already making use of these exciting technologies we can help you get more from your subscription.
Speak with us today to get answers to all of your questions on 01244 535527 or if your prefer, please get in touch using the simple form on our contact us page.