Microsoft 365 Price Rise | March 2022

There is no way to fluff this up, the cost of using the Office 365 family of products is going up.

As of 1st March, Microsoft has rolled out price rises to pretty much the entire Office 365 family of products, such as Business Standard, Exchange Online, Visio and Microsoft Project.

Alongside the price rises, the way in which the licenses are obtained for Microsoft Partners like ourselves has changed, as they begin to roll out the New Commerce Experience, known as NCE.

In short, the price of these products has risen, and using the flexible monthly licenses which we all love, have risen.

This is probably the part where I’m meant to list all the benefits. Quite honestly, this is simply a price rise from Microsoft. I’m not going to fluff this up in any way, shape or form.

Microsoft is perhaps a little disconnected from the small businesses of the world, which prop up the economy (yes we really do), which is the biggest frustration for us.

Whilst we appreciate things do cost more, and price rises are perhaps inevitable, the way it has been pushed out and forced upon us, does feel a little like we’ve been pushed around by “the big boys” without listening to us or having consulted us.

This means we’re having to pass on these prices to our customers who use us for anything relating to a 365 product, we simply have to from a business standpoint.

If you’re a customer of ours, you will be contacted by us outlining the changes to you (it’s not our style just to do a public announcement and leave it at that, we’ll have a one to one conversation with any customer affected).

We still love all things Microsoft, and in particular the 365 range of services, as solutions for business productivity – we won’t be changing our solutions because of this. They really are great products, we’ll be continuing to use them internally, and therefore they will still be part of our recommended solutions for productivity, collaboration and seamless working from anywhere. 

Gavin Moorhouse is the owner of Lucid Computer Solutions, a Microsoft Partner and 365 Solutions provider, based in Worcestershire.