There’s always something new happening at Microsoft.
And I must say that Microsoft is usually pretty good at getting the word out, especially when the news impacts both Microsoft Partners and their customers. Such is the case with the news surrounding Microsoft 365 pricing (M365), pricing, policy, and the NCE (New Commerce Experience). In that same spirit, Basileia Consulting Group wants to ensure that these changes are being clearly communicated to our clients. That’s why we have prepared this summary.
What Is the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 New Pricing?
The commercial product pricing increases listed below will go into effect on March 1, 2022. I should note that all prices are per user per month for a 1-year subscription. And Microsoft noted that these changes mark the first substantive Office 365 pricing update since was launched a decade ago.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic increases from $5 to $6
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium increases from $20 to $22
- Microsoft 365 E3 increases from $32 to $36
- Office 365 E1 increase from $8 to $10
- Office 365 E3 increases from $20 to $23
- Office 365 E5 increases from $35 to $38
These increases will apply globally with local market adjustments for certain regions. There are no changes to pricing for education and consumer products currently.
The justification for these increases is the increased value that Microsoft has delivered over the past 10 years. Since introducing Microsoft 365, 24 apps have been added—Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard to name a few—and 1,400 new features and capabilities have been released.
Price increases are never popular. In this case, however, it does feel like the increases were overdue.
What is NCE?
NCE stands for New Commerce Experience. NCE introduces a set of new offers, policies, and functionalities that expand the current experience in CSP. In NCE, customers can buy through the breadth, enterprise, and self-serve purchase motions that have a consistent and standardized set of policies, agreements, and procedures across all Microsoft purchase motions.
Previously, Microsoft 365 was an outlier, in as much as the policies governing activities for its purchase, renewal, cancellation and the like did not conform to other Microsoft commercial products. The alignment of M365 in NCE eliminates confusion.
How Does NCE Benefit Me?
The benefits of NCE include:
- More and easier options for trying new products through free trials and addons
- New telco offers
- Ability to upgrade to Enterprise offers at midterm
Future NCE releases will include several new features, such as the following offers and options1:
- 20 % discount on One and Three-year terms for other seat-based products in addition to the current Dynamics 365 one and three-year term offers
- Home Use Program (HUP) that would allow a customer’s employees to receive a discount on the purchase of certain Microsoft 365 consumer offers
- Multi-geo add-ons for Microsoft 365 so that a user on a subscription can tap into the Microsoft datacenter nearest to their location
Stop, Collaborate & Listen with Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
Microsoft 365 collaboration solutions from Basileia give you the tools to compete in today’s mobile marketplace. And the New Commerce Experience makes it even easier.
Got Questions?
Contact Basileia Consulting Group (BCG) by calling 949-329-3524 or via our contact form so we can get acquainted!
