Should you get Microsoft 365 or Office 2024? Here's what you need to know

Microsoft Office has been an essential part of almost any working environment for the past two decades, and while some competition has arisen, it's still a very popular choice. However, the way Office is made available has changed over time.

Today, you can choose between a Microsoft 365 subscription, which includes the Office apps you'd expect and a few extras, or you can buy a perpetual license of Microsoft Office. Currently Office 2021 is the latest version available to consumers, though Office 2024 is already available for commercial users and will become more widely available soon.

Microsoft 365 vs Office 2024: The price

We'll be starting first with the price and the way you'll pay, which is the biggest difference between these two. Microsoft 365 is subscription-based, and Office 2021 isn't, but let's dive deeper.

For consumers

Like your Netflix or Amazon Prime account, Microsoft 365 is subscription-based, but it's also the more affordable way to get Office on your device. There are two core versions. One if you're an individual and another if you're buying for a family. Microsoft also has a more affordable third option, which offers web-based and mobile-based apps.

• Microsoft 365 Personal: $69.99 a year for one person, or at the price of $6.99 a month
• Microsoft 365 Family: $99.99 a year, for up to six people to share, or $9.99 a month.
• Microsoft 365 Basic: $19.99 per year for one person, or $1.99 a month. This does not include access to the desktop Office apps.

On the other hand, Office 2021 is more expensive as far as a single payment goes. This is a one-time purchase, what's known as a perpetual license that you get as a one-time fee, without a subscription or expiration dates to worry about. You buy it and own it for life on one computer without worrying about having to renew your subscription. This comes in three main variants:

• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 costs $150 and includes Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but it's not meant for use in commercial scenarios.
• Office Home and Business 2021 costs $250 and has the same general terms as Home and Student. It's meant for commercial scenarios and it also includes Outlook.
• Office Professional 2021, which costs $439.99 and also includes Access and Publisher.

Pricing for the 2024 version of the apps isn't officially known yet since it's only available for commercial customers. However, Office 2024 no longer includes Publisher, as Microsoft is discontinuing the program, so pricing may change for the Professional package. It's also worth noting that Outlook is now a free web-based app, so its inclusion in some plans isn't as meaningful as it once was. We're also not mentioning OneNote here because, again, it's a free app.

For businesses

For businesses, there are also options for both perpetual licenses of Office with Office LTSC 2024 or a subscription-based model with Microsoft 365. The subscription options are as follows:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $6/user/month: Includes web versions of Office apps, plus access to Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange.
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50/user/month: includes desktop Office apps, Microsoft Loop, Clipchamp, plus all of the above.
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $22/user/month: includes everything as Microsoft 365 Business Standard and additional security and data control with Intune, Entra ID, and more.
• Microsoft 365 apps for business $8.25/user/month: includes desktop versions of Office apps.

If you want to have the perpetual licenses of Office, however, you can get Office LTSC 2024. Pricing for these versions is only available upon requests, however. These versions are kind of similar to the ones available to consumers feature-wise:

• Office LTSC 20204 Standard (pricing available upon request): Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
• Office LTSC Professional 2024 (pricing available upon request): Includes Words, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access.

Microsoft 365 vs Office 2024: The updates

Each of these versions of Office has different features and methods of service. Microsoft 365 gets updates every month, and these updates can be very significant, adding new features, changing up the design, and more. It's the best way to get the latest features as they're developed.

With Microsoft Office 2024 (or 2021) you won't get any new features after the initial purchase. Any updates released for Office are only focused on security, and the features you have at the start are what you'll have forever. If you know what you want out of Office and don't need anything more, this is probably fine.

Microsoft 365 vs Office 2024: What you get with each version

Now, we'll dive deeper into what's included in these versions of Office. That's how many devices you can use it on, which apps you'll get to use, and how you'll get to use those apps. We'll also cover the bonuses, too.

What's included in Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365, is a bit like Windows 365 since you have to provide your credit card info (or a code for a subscription) and pay for it each month (or year) at the prices we described above. The benefit of this, though, is that you end up getting more open access to your Office apps, and more frequent updates that aren't just security features. With Microsoft 365, you can access Office on five different devices, including Windows 11 and Windows 10 PCs, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

You also can share this with up to 6 people with Microsoft 365 Family. Other bonuses include access to 1TB of data in OneDrive per person, and additional features in the Family Safety mobile app. Microsoft 365 comes with access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Defender (to guard your PC and family against online threats), OneDrive, Outlook, Microsoft Editor (like Grammarly), Clipchamp (a video editor like iMovie), OneNote, and Family Safety. Best of all, you end up getting the latest version of these apps, as they're updated from Microsoft.

There's also Microsoft 365 Basic, which doesn't include most of these benefits, but it does give you 100GB of OneDrive storage, an ad-free experience in Outlook for the web, and access to Microsoft support experts. This is more of a OneDrive plan than a proper Microsoft 365 plan.

What's included in Office 2024 (or 2021)

On the other hand, Office 2024 has a lot less. You only can access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. You don't get access to storage in OneDrive. You can only use Office 2024 on a single device and there's no sharing. You also won't get any new features with Office 2024.

This release includes new capabilities like Dynamic Arrays in Excel and support for recordings in PowerPoint, but even at launch, Office 2024 won't include all the features that are already available in the Office apps for Microsoft 365. The feature set was locked down months ago, so many newer additions just didn't make it to Office 2024, and the discrepancy is only going to increase as time goes on.

As for what you get with Office 2021 Professional, it's essentially the same, but with added apps. You get Microsoft Publisher, so you can create graphic designs for ads, flyers, or business cards, for example. You also get Microsoft Access, so you can create and manage databases. You'll still have to wait and pay for the next perpetual release to get new features, however.

The big benefit here is that you'll never lose access to what you bought. With Microsoft 365, you have to pay to keep using the apps, but Office 2024 will keep working forever with no additional cost.

Microsoft 365 is better for most people

If you choose between Microsoft 365 and Office 2024, Microsoft 365 is clearly the better pick here. Microsoft 365 includes access to many more features and apps than Office 2021 does. You get OneDrive storage and access to family safety apps. Microsoft Defender, and even a video editing service like Clipchamp. All of that for an affordable price of $70 a year for individuals or $100 a year for families.

On the other hand, if you're the type of person who doesn't like subscribing to something, and only needs access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook and don't mind missing out on OneDrive storage and other features, then Office 2024 (or 2021) is for you. It's also ideal if you only own one PC. Office 2024 will be available soon and we'll be sure to add the link here once it's available, but for now, you can buy the 2021 version below.