Microsoft is raising prices for subscribers of the Microsoft 365 Family and Personnel plans. Previously, the family plan was $99.99 USD and the Personal plan was $69.99 USD. They will now be $129.99 USD and $99.99 USD respectively. In an email to current subscribers, Microsoft described the pricing changes as a means to enhance its current offering with Copilot.
Unfortunately, users will also be losing some functionality with their Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft Defender will no longer offer a VPN service to users as of February 28th of this year (2025). Microsoft vaguely stated that due to their continued evaluations of “usage and effectiveness of their services”, they will be discontinuing it and “invest in new areas that will better align to customer needs.” This was posted on one of Microsoft’s Support Pages.
Microsoft Copilot is “an AI-powered productivity tool that enhances work productivity by interfacing with Microsoft 365 apps, LLMs, and graph” according to Microsoft’s Copilot overview page. Microsoft, along with other big tech players, have been pushing very hard into their AI forays as of late. Many tools and features have been released to enhance users’ productivity and ease in using Microsoft’s Office suite and more.
Microsoft 365 itself brings plenty of value to the table for users as particularly the Family plan comes with a total of 6TB of OneDrive storage (1TB for each user for a total of 6) as well as 5 installations of its longstanding Office Suite on a combination of PCs, Macs, and mobile devices. It also includes Microsoft Defender, which protects against security threats including malware and even identify theft protection. Additionally, any new features and versions of the applications will be updated automatically and for free.
Users still have another alternative, however. Microsoft still does offer a standalone Microsoft Office installer for Mac and PC, Microsoft Office Home 2024 for $149.99. Support for this version of Office lasts 5 years since the launch date, ending on October 9, 2029. This version of Office will not get new features and versions like the Microsoft 365 plans. Additionally, it can only be installed on one PC or Mac and this version of the suite omits Microsoft Outlook.