Just as I was warming up to choosing a Microsoft Office 365 subscription over making a one-time software purchase, Microsoft started giving away a lot of subscription benefits for free. The company now offers Word, Excel and others at no cost on most mobile devices.
It's a smart move by Microsoft, but it makes me wonder whether you really need a subscription, which starts at $70 a year.
But the cost here can be calculated based on your known user count. The premium licensing also has the advantage that it lets you use any of the premium features, not just the word connector. Plumsail pricing is based on a number of executions per month, not users.
- Publisher: Microsoft. User rating, 5 out of 5 stars with 2 reviews. (2) Price Match Guarantee. $119.99 Your price for this.
- Microsoft Word 2016, the latest version of the software, can be availed by subscribing to any Office 365 pricing plan. Office 365 is a suite of applications which includes Microsoft Word. Give the details a look, and select the best home/enterprise pricing plan for your needs: For Home. Office 365 Home.
The subscription will appeal to people who use Office apps on traditional Windows or Mac computers or Windows tablets, such as the Surface Pro 3. Those who primarily use iOS and Android mobile devices can probably stick with free apps. What's right for you comes down to whether you need a PC or can get things done with just your smartphone or tablet. Here's what to consider.
Microsoft's newly released Office apps for iPhones, iPads and Android tablets are quite good. Microsoft offers Word for text documents, Excel for spreadsheets, PowerPoint for presentations, Outlook for email and OneNote for organization--all for free. (Access for databases and Publisher for desktop publishing aren't available yet.)
I'm writing this review on Word using an iPad and Android tablets from Samsung and Google--the latter with a wireless keyboard. I've edited documents on an iPhone and am pleased it has the same features that are available on the iPad, though with some menu changes to account for the smaller screen.
I'm still not totally used to the mobile apps, especially for cutting and pasting text in Word and inserting cells in Excel spreadsheets. There are also missing features, such as green underlines of potential grammatical mistakes. But the apps include most of what I use on PCs. You do have to sign in with a Microsoft account, but you can create one for free.
On Apple devices, a subscription would unlock about two dozen features, such as inserting section breaks and tracking changes between drafts. (Some power users might need these, but I don't.) There are fewer features available for Android phones and tablets, whether free or for pay. Microsoft says the Android apps will catch up, as well as the version for Windows phones.
Note: If you have a Windows tablet, you must pay for Office unless you're running a lightweight operating system called RT.
Can't live with just a smartphone or tablet? You can buy Office for personal computers and Windows tablets the traditional way, by paying for the software just once. For $140, you get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Comparatively, an Office 365 subscription costs $70 a year for one user, so by year three the subscription is costing you more. You're guaranteed the latest version of Office, which comes out every three years, but the one-time fee is still cheaper.
-- For iOS and Android mobile devices, you get extra features you can't get any other way.
-- Most Windows tablets, including the Surface Pro, require a one-time purchase or subscription, even for basic features. The subscription also gives you three apps you don't get with the $140 one-time purchase: Outlook, Access and Publisher. (You can buy all seven Office apps for a one-time fee of $400, but the subscription is cheaper.)
-- For PCs, a $70 one-user annual subscription lets you use all seven Office apps on multiple PCs and tablets by signing in and out. The $140 one-time purchase limits you to one device and four of the seven apps.
-- The subscription is a great deal for multiple users or multiple PCs. For $100 a year, rather than $70, you can install the software suite on up to five Mac or Windows PCs, so you don't have to keep signing in and out. That can be five PCs you have, or five individuals in a household. You can switch up the PCs as often as you like. (A subscription also allots you an additional five tablets and five phones, but Microsoft doesn't really enforce that limit.)
-- If you have a lot of files to store, a subscription gives you 1 terabyte of online storage through OneDrive, compared with just the 15 gigabytes you get with a free account. You also get 60 minutes a month of Skype calls to anyone. Typically, free Skype calls are limited to other Skype users.
The days of keeping your digital life on a single machine are long gone, and the subscription makes it easy to manage multiple PCs. But people tend to have multiple mobile devices, not PCs. Microsoft's giveaway of iOS and Android apps eliminates a major need for a subscription.
Then again, Microsoft has little choice when it's competing with cheap and free apps that recognize the Office file format. The company would rather people stick with Office, even for free, in hopes they will buy premium features later. There are signs that's working: Excluding business customers, Office subscribers grew 30 percent to 9.2 million in the last three months of 2014--the same period Microsoft released its latest iPhone and iPad apps and made core features free.
Microsoft Office, a suite of products developed by Microsoft, includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, Publisher Outlook and PowerPoint.
Microsoft Office has been at the forefront of dominance in the office suite market until recently when it started facing strong competition from the likes of Google apps for business, OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice.
Apart from being available in the traditional desktop-based form, they also offer different versions of Microsoft office through the cloud (office 365) and via different mobile devices like the Windows Phone.
“Microsoft Office 365 lansering” (CC BY 2.0) by Microsoft Sweden
How much does Microsoft Office cost?
Video editor for i mac. As of 2017, Microsoft offers Office 365 Home, which in order to use online, you will have to pay an annual subscription, ranging from $100 to $400+ a year, depending on the package and if it’s either for personal use or business. To make things easier, we created a table below breaking up the costs.
| Software Package | Price |
|---|---|
| Office 365 Home | $99.99/year |
| Office 365 Professional | $69.99/year |
| Office Home 2016 | $149.99 one-time fee |
| Office 365 Business | starts at $8.25/user |
| Office 365 Business Premium | starts at $12.50/user |
| Office 365 Business Essentials | starts at $5/user |
| Office Home & Business 2016 for PC | $229.99 one-time fee |
| Office Professional 2016 for PC | $399.99 one-time fee |
If you want to bypass the annual subscription fees, then Microsoft does offer Office Home and Student 2016 for $149.99, but you may be able to find it cheaper via third-party retailers or even on eBay for a lot less. Office Home & Business 2016 retails for $229.999, while Office Professional 2016 retails for $399.99. These are the prices for both PC and Mac.
At Best Buy, for example, the prices are the same for the subscription cards, but in some cases, they may hold a sale to bring the costs down. Other retailers to check out includes Sam’s Club, Costco and Walmart.
Microsoft Office, designed for the iPad, is free for reading only, but if you want to use the full functionality, you will need an Office 365 subscription.
In the end, when purchasing Microsoft Office, you have three options: either paying the annual subscription, one-time fee or using the slim downed version online via Office.com for free.
An outdated version — Microsoft Office 2013 — can be purchased brand new for about $55.
Microsoft Office overview
Annual personal subscriptions come with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher (PC only), Access (PC only), 1TB OneDrive cloud storage per user, Microsoft support, and 60 minutes per month Skype calls per user. These subscriptions will include up-to-date applications for up to five users. The one-time fee, however, will only include one install only. There will be no upgrades, support or the additional premium add-ons.
As for the business subscriptions, all packages will come with 1TB of OneDrive storage and Desktop versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, plus Access and Publisher for PC only, with the exception of the Business Essentials package. The Premium package only includes business-class email with 50GB of storage and HD video conferencing. The one-time download only includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for one user only.
What are the extra costs?
Adding online storage via OneDrive can be an additional cost if you don’t buy the annual subscription.
Adding additional users to the online business software can cost $5 to $15 per user depending on which software version you buy.
While optional, some new users prefer a guide to help learn the software. MS Office for Dummies, for example, can retail for $15 to $25.
How can I save money?
Consider downloading a free trial to see if it’s worth the investment.
How Much Does Microsoft Word Cost
Consider free alternatives that are just as good, such as OpenOffice.org, Google Docs or Libre Office if you don’t want to spend the money.
If you are a student or teacher, be sure to take advantage of the student or teacher version to save money.
If you do not want the newer 2013 version, consider using the 2010 version, which can be half the cost. This includes most of the same features in the newer versions. Tvpaint animation pro for mac.
The one-time fee is often the best deal if you don’t want the premium support, multiple users and/or online storage.
eBay has a handful of older versions and software downloads for a fraction of the costs of buying new.
Office.com provides a limited, online-version only of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other tools for 100 percent free. All you will need is a Microsoft account, which is free to create.
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Average Reported Cost: $74
Microsoft Word Costs
Microsoft Word Cost Per Year
How much did you spend?
- Evelyn Parziale (Crossville, Tennessee) paid $74 and said:
$74.35
Was it worth it? Yes