Microsoft 365’s Deceptive Price Hike

If you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you may have seen their significant price increase in January 2025. Oh, you didn’t notice? Microsoft 365 Personal jumped from $70/yr to $100/yr, while Microsoft 365 Family increased from $100/yr to $130/yr. If this came in below your radar, that’s because Microsoft did it on the QT. And that’s just the start of Microsoft 365’s deceptive price hike…

This $30/yr increase was applied to all active “For Home” 365 subscriptions without fanfare or notifications. Or your explicit permission. Microsoft just made the change, and you can see your new auto-renewal pricing by logging in to your Microsoft Account or going to the Office website. The news media did report on this a tiny bit, but mainly to explain that the increase is due to the addition of CoPilot and AI into all of the Microsoft apps in 365. I don’t know about you, but many of my customers didn’t ask for and don’t want Copilot and AI in their Word and Excel programs.

But this is not the whole scheme. Microsoft is hiding their full pricing details from you. Not only has Microsoft raised prices, but they are hiding the lower prices for 365, that are still available to everyone!

Dark Patterns: Hidden Pricepoints

When you go to the 365 website to review prices and Home plans, you generally see this:

But what if I told you there are 4 plans and pricepoints for home users? That you actually have the choice of:

• Microsoft 365 Personal for $99.99/yr
• Microsoft 365 Family for $129.99/yr
• Microsoft 365 Personal Classic for $69.99/yr
• Microsoft 365 Family Classic for $99.99/yr

The two classic plans are more affordable, because they do not have the built-in AI and Copilot. That is the only difference between a classic 365 subscription and a new 365 subscription. All plans still offer Word, Excel and all of the other Microsoft apps you know and love.

These Classic 365 plans are hidden from all Microsoft websites! You cannot find them by simply perusing Microsoft.com or Office.com. It doesn’t matter if you are an existing customer or just window-shopping. Microsoft will only show you the newer, pricier options. The only way for you to defeat this dark pattern and get the price you want is to go through the motions of cancelling your subscription.

Pretending to Cancel

If you want to shift your 365 pricepoint from a new plan to a classic one, and save that $30/yr, you will have to start to cancel your 365 subscription. DON’T PANIC. You won’t actual cancel anything, and I will show you how this goes. It is a safe process that will not put anything at risk.

First, you need to visit the Microsoft Account website and log in with the account that governs your 365 plan. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see something like this:

Click on “Manage” and you’ll move to this screen:

At the bottom, click “Cancel Subscription”. On the next screen, Microsoft will implore you to think about the consequences. They will worry you over all of the apps you are about to lose, and the OneDrive storage you are about to forsake. Ignore the fear-based marketing, and also disregard the offer to switch your billing frequency. Scroll down a bit and you will finally see what you came here for:

On the left is your current plan, and on the left is the “classic” plan, which is $30/yr cheaper and omits the AI and Copilot nonsense. If you click the Switch Plan button, then you are done. On your next renewal date, Microsoft will charge you the lower price.

---

All that said, if you are a new customer to 365, you would have to sign-up for a new 365 plan and then immediately go through this cancellation process to switch to a classic plan. Some people report that this reveals the classic prices, while others state that this trick doesn’t work for newcomers. If you are a new 365 customer and can’t find the better pricing through the Cancel button, try turning off your recurring billing. This will cause Microsoft to offer you other options, including the lower-price plans.