Office 365 Family subscription - Increase in price

[nvubu]

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but the O365 Family Subscription has gone up from £79.99/year to £104.99/year. This has been to add Copilot AI stuff into the desktop apps. I neither need nor want this.

The "new" subscription looks exactly the same as the one I renewed in July 2024, but with the increase in price.

There is a way to downgrade to Family Classic - which is exactly what I had subscribed to and is the same £79.99/year - but it isn't obvious.

• Login in to your account
• Go to Subscriptions
• Select Manage on the right hand side
• Cancel Subscription - you will get a warning about how much cloud storage you are using and will lose this if you cancel.
• Below this warning there is Switch Plan for Family Classic option.
• Choose this and use the same Payment method.

And bingo, you are back to Classic without the AI stuff and at the original price, set to renew at the next Renewal rate as shown at the start. The AI stuff is still present until renewal.

I have 2 Family subscriptions - one for the family and the other extra for the 6Tb of cloud storage that my NAS uploads to, as this is the cheapest solution I can find for this amount of storage. If anyone has any suggestions, I have until July to switch.

I found out about this "upgrade" on a YouTube video.

[QuartzDad]

I have an alert setup on hotukdeals.com, Argos and others have the 12, sometimes 15, month Family subscription on offer fairly regularly for £45-£60 IIRC. You can stack the codes, my account expires in August 2028.

[Fallingup]

nvubu said:

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but the O365 Family Subscription has gone up from £79.99/year to £104.99/year. This has been to add Copilot AI stuff into the desktop apps. I neither need nor want this.

The "new" subscription looks exactly the same as the one I renewed in July 2024, but with the increase in price.

There is a way to downgrade to Family Classic - which is exactly what I had subscribed to and is the same £79.99/year - but it isn't obvious.

• Login in to your account
• Go to Subscriptions
• Select Manage on the right hand side
• Cancel Subscription - you will get a warning about how much cloud storage you are using and will lose this if you cancel.
• Below this warning there is Switch Plan for Family Classic option.
• Choose this and use the same Payment method.

And bingo, you are back to Classic without the AI stuff and at the original price, set to renew at the next Renewal rate as shown at the start. The AI stuff is still present until renewal.

I have 2 Family subscriptions - one for the family and the other extra for the 6Tb of cloud storage that my NAS uploads to, as this is the cheapest solution I can find for this amount of storage. If anyone has any suggestions, I have until July to switch.

I found out about this "upgrade" on a YouTube video.

Superb! Thank you Sir.

[surfymark]

Thank you so much for this! I am on 365 Personal which just renewed in December for £59.99.

Just went in and checked and when it renews in December it was going to charge me £84.99 (with no emails or anything to tell me of the change).

Followed your instructions and now back down to £59.99

Thanks!
Mark

[sgrimshaw]

nvubu said:

I have 2 Family subscriptions - one for the family and the other extra for the 6Tb of cloud storage that my NAS uploads to, as this is the cheapest solution I can find for this amount of storage. If anyone has any suggestions, I have until July to switch.

I've used OpenDrive for online storage for donkeys years and it's been faultless.

I'm using the Personal Plan for $99 per year and this gives me unlimited storage.

There's a free plan if you want to try it out.

https://www.opendrive.com/pricing

When I got the email about my renewal price going up to £105 I decided it was time to kick MS 365 etc into touch and have been trying out Libra Office for a couple of weeks ... so far it's proved to be fine for Excel and Word documents

[Crasher242]

nvubu said:

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but the O365 Family Subscription has gone up from £79.99/year to £104.99/year. This has been to add Copilot AI stuff into the desktop apps. I neither need nor want this.

The "new" subscription looks exactly the same as the one I renewed in July 2024, but with the increase in price.

There is a way to downgrade to Family Classic - which is exactly what I had subscribed to and is the same £79.99/year - but it isn't obvious.

• Login in to your account
• Go to Subscriptions
• Select Manage on the right hand side
• Cancel Subscription - you will get a warning about how much cloud storage you are using and will lose this if you cancel.
• Below this warning there is Switch Plan for Family Classic option.
• Choose this and use the same Payment method.

And bingo, you are back to Classic without the AI stuff and at the original price, set to renew at the next Renewal rate as shown at the start. The AI stuff is still present until renewal.

I have 2 Family subscriptions - one for the family and the other extra for the 6Tb of cloud storage that my NAS uploads to, as this is the cheapest solution I can find for this amount of storage. If anyone has any suggestions, I have until July to switch.

I found out about this "upgrade" on a YouTube video.

Awesome - thanks for posting this

[eeLee]

QuartzDad said:

I have an alert setup on hotukdeals.com, Argos and others have the 12, sometimes 15, month Family subscription on offer fairly regularly for £45-£60 IIRC. You can stack the codes, my account expires in August 2028.

This is the way to do it, never pay the MS price. I usually buy 2 years at a time and my sources are still around £60 (CHF80) for 365 Family. I try to get it for less.

Do note, Family subscribers, that the family primary account is the only one with the Copilot credits that are included, price hike or not.

With Copiilot, your value may vary. I use it extensively at work but less on my own account.

NEVER PAY THE MS PRICE

[dapprman]

nvubu said:

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but the O365 Family Subscription has gone up from £79.99/year to £104.99/year. This has been to add Copilot AI stuff into the desktop apps. I neither need nor want this.

The "new" subscription looks exactly the same as the one I renewed in July 2024, but with the increase in price.

There is a way to downgrade to Family Classic - which is exactly what I had subscribed to and is the same £79.99/year - but it isn't obvious.

• Login in to your account
• Go to Subscriptions
• Select Manage on the right hand side
• Cancel Subscription - you will get a warning about how much cloud storage you are using and will lose this if you cancel.
• Below this warning there is Switch Plan for Family Classic option.
• Choose this and use the same Payment method.

And bingo, you are back to Classic without the AI stuff and at the original price, set to renew at the next Renewal rate as shown at the start. The AI stuff is still present until renewal.

I have 2 Family subscriptions - one for the family and the other extra for the 6Tb of cloud storage that my NAS uploads to, as this is the cheapest solution I can find for this amount of storage. If anyone has any suggestions, I have until July to switch.

I found out about this "upgrade" on a YouTube video.

Glad you posted this as I have a life time annual deal under the HUP where as long as I resubscribe the cost stays the same even if I leave the company. They have now added co-pilot and upped the cost from £55.99 to £73.49, however when I try the above they want to charge me the full price of £79.99 .... Now on the phone to them (fortunately contacted them through the web and they called back) so hopefully will get that fixed.

[eeLee]

If you already have a 365 subscription, you can choose to get Office 365 Single or Family without Copilot and paying extra when it’s time to renew your subscription. To do this, you’ll need to cancel your subscription and opt for one of the two new plans called Single Classic and Family Classic. However, these are «really only going to be available for the next year», as Gareth Oystryk, Senior Director of Marketing for Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365, explained in an interview with The Verge.

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/16/24345051/micros...

The HUP is not called HUP any more and it's not very good value any more either (now Workplace Discount Program, I prefer HUP!), street price is usually better. I just checked and my offer is about 20% above street price for 365 Family.

[Legmaster]

QuartzDad said:

I have an alert setup on hotukdeals.com, Argos and others have the 12, sometimes 15, month Family subscription on offer fairly regularly for £45-£60 IIRC. You can stack the codes, my account expires in August 2028.

Can I ask please what you mean by stacking codes?

My office 365 subscription renews in December, can I somehow utilise this 15 month personal deal for £42 on the end of my current subscription?

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/microsoft-365-15-...

Thanks in advance.

[eeLee]

stacking is adding years of subscription using the codes either in the boxes or sent to you. I run out this year having last renewed in 2021, for example....

[Legmaster]

Thank you.

Sorry to be thick, but just so I understand correctly.

If I bought one of these 15 month deals now, I'll get a code which I can then use to 'pay' now for the subscription that I have next due in December 2025, meaning my subscription will then run until early 2027?

Similarly, I could stack another code from 2027 to 2028?

[Harpoon]

Yes, I do this as well and I'm good until October 2026 at the moment. I've purchased from Amazon or Argos - I don't know how kosher that website is.

Once you have the activation key, you go to the Office site (current link below), sign-in and enter the key. Rinse and repeat.

https://setup.office.com/?source=microsoft365?

Edited by Harpoon on Wednesday 29th January 17:28

[Harpoon]

Harpoon said:

Yes, I stack codes and I'm good until October 2026 at the moment. I've purchased from Amazon or Argos - I don't know how kosher that website is.

Once you have the activation key, you go to the Office site (current link below), sign-in and enter the key. Rinse and repeat.

https://setup.office.com/?source=microsoft365?

Edited by Harpoon on Wednesday 29th January 17:28

[GuigiaroBertone]

Thanks for this OP!

I just checked and my subscription renewed at full price 3 days ago. That's the price I pay for my loyalty I guess. Sometimes it's cheaper doing things monthly!

[Legmaster]

Harpoon said:

Yes, I do this as well and I'm good until October 2026 at the moment. I've purchased from Amazon or Argos - I don't know how kosher that website is.

Once you have the activation key, you go to the Office site (current link below), sign-in and enter the key. Rinse and repeat.

https://setup.office.com/?source=microsoft365?

Edited by Harpoon on Wednesday 29th January 17:28

Thank you, looks like I'm stacking up a couple of years then for when the inevitable "we don't do the basic subscription anymore" price hike happens.

[nvubu]

sgrimshaw said:

I've used OpenDrive for online storage for donkeys years and it's been faultless.

I'm using the Personal Plan for $99 per year and this gives me unlimited storage.

There's a free plan if you want to try it out.

https://www.opendrive.com/pricing

When I got the email about my renewal price going up to £105 I decided it was time to kick MS 365 etc into touch and have been trying out Libra Office for a couple of weeks ... so far it's proved to be fine for Excel and Word documents

I like the look of that - thanks. I've been using OneDrive for years, but outgrew the single subscription for cloud storage. I'm going to give it a try for my NAS on the freebee, and if it works drop the extra O365 subscription, and keep the other one for the family.

[snuffy]

I have just checked mine, and as it happens it will renew in a couple of week's time. It says I will be charged £79.99. It's been that price since 2019.

[Griffith4ever]

I'm assuming you all pay this for the online storage? because if not, you can get MS Office 2021 permanent, CD key, for £18 or less. Sod paying another subscription.

[Beetnik]

Another tip: When you redeem your code you'll be prompted to add recurring billing. Do this and you get an extra month added to your subscription. You can then immediately remove this option but it still retains the extra month.