Microsoft 365 vs. Office 365: What’s the dif­fer­ence?

Since its rebrand, the Microsoft 365 office and cloud service combines all the functions of the Office 365 suite. Thanks to automatic con­ver­sion, not much changed for existing Office sub­scrip­tions. New customers, in turn, can choose between different Microsoft 365 sub­scrip­tions for private or business use.

Why did Office 365 become Microsoft 365?

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tools like Word and Excel have a long history dating back to the 1980s. In 2010, Microsoft made a sig­nif­i­cant move by bringing together all their essential ap­pli­ca­tions into one plan called Office 365. As tech­nol­o­gy evolved, with ad­vance­ments like cloud in­te­gra­tion, machine learning, and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, Microsoft adapted. This adap­ta­tion led to the re­brand­ing of Office 365 as Microsoft 365 in April 2020. The goal was to create a rep­re­sen­ta­tive complete solution that includes these new features and Microsoft’s cloud services in a unified plan.

For a detailed ex­pla­na­tion of the dif­fer­ences between Office 365 and Microsoft 365, see our articles “What is Office 365?” and “What is Microsoft 365?”.

Table com­par­i­son of Microsoft 365 vs. Office 365

The company plans to complete the full tran­si­tion to Microsoft 365 in 2023. This tran­si­tion includes not only the new design but also all the Office ap­pli­ca­tions that were part of the Office 365 offering. This en­com­pass­es previous sub­scrip­tion plans, popular Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, and Pow­er­Point, and the Office mobile app. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Microsoft is already an­nounc­ing new features, such as improved OneDrive security, enhanced real-time col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Teams app, and AI in­te­gra­tion in Microsoft services.

The new Microsoft 365 and the former Office 365 are quite similar, with most of the familiar Office 365 features in­te­grat­ed into the new all-in-one solution. We’ve sum­ma­rized the few remaining main dif­fer­ences in the table below:

In the long term, it can be assumed that Microsoft will also transfer existing Office plans such as Office 365 E1, E3 and E5 and Office 365 Education to Microsoft 365. To find out which Office version you have check “File” and “Account” in a Microsoft app like Word.

What are the Microsoft 365 sub­scrip­tion plans?

To buy Microsoft 365, find the sub­scrip­tion plan that suits you best. Microsoft offers tailored sub­scrip­tions including Microsoft apps for the following target groups and cat­e­gories.

Updated: July 2023

Family and in­di­vid­u­als

Microsoft 365 sub­scrip­tion models for private use include plans for families or in­di­vid­ual users.

• Microsoft 365 Family: For up to 6 people and 5 end devices at the same time + up to 6 TB OneDrive cloud storage (1 TB per person) - $99.99/year (annual payment).
• Microsoft 365 Personal: For 1 person on up to 5 end devices at the same time + 1 TB OneDrive cloud storage - $69.99/year (annual payment).

Small and medium en­ter­pris­es

Sub­scrip­tion models for small and medium-sized companies include popular Microsoft apps and col­lab­o­ra­tion tools such as Word, Excel, Pow­er­Point Teams, Outlook, Exchange Server and OneDrive. Depending on the plan, ad­di­tion­al security features and ad­min­is­tra­tive man­age­ment and reporting tools are added. Since sub­scrip­tion prices are subject to change, we only provide ap­prox­i­mate values here.

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: Approx. $7 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: Approx. $14 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium: Approx. $23 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 Apps for Business: Approx. $11 per month per account/person

Large companies

En­ter­prise sub­scrip­tion plans for Microsoft 365 are specif­i­cal­ly tailored to large business needs. In addition to the usual range of services from Microsoft 365, they include, among other things: diverse back office functions, security features, com­pli­ance and access rights man­age­ment, analysis tools and work man­age­ment.

• Microsoft 365 E3: Approx. $40 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 E5: Approx. $65 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 F3: Approx. $8 per month per account/person for an annual sub­scrip­tion
• Microsoft 365 Apps for Business: Approx. $11 per month per account/person

School and studies

For eligible ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions such as schools or uni­ver­si­ties, Microsoft offers free Microsoft 365 Education plans. Depending on your needs, the plans include the basic tools in the form of common Microsoft apps, advanced security and analysis functions as well as optimized tools for ad­min­is­tra­tion, security and licensing.

• Microsoft 365 A1 (also as Office 365 A1): Free
• Microsoft 365 A3 (also as Office 365 A1): Pricing available on request
• Microsoft 365 A5 (also as Office 365 A1): Pricing available on request