

The consumer, education, and Microsoft 365 E5 versions of Microsoft 365 will not increase in price. The largest increase is for a Microsoft 365 E3 subscription, which will go up by $48 per year per user. The increased prices will go into effect on March 1, 2022. Consumer and education subscriptions won't be affected either.Microsoft announced changes to the prices of several Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The company won't be adjusting the cost of certain Office subscriptions, including Microsoft 365 E5 ($57 per user per month), Microsoft 365 F1 ($2.25) and Microsoft 365 F3 ($8), a spokesperson told CNBC in an email. Office 365 E5 includes features such as cloud-based phones, a Pro version of the Power BI data-visualization software and Teams data-loss prevention. The E5 tier represents 8% of the Office 365 installed base among commercial customers, chief financial officer Amy Hood told analysts in July.

The company is making progress there, too, even leaving aside the coming price increases. Increasing the amount of money coming from each Office subscriber is the other way Microsoft expands its Office cloud business. That has helped widen the base of Office users, and now there are over 300 million commercial Office 365 paid seats, Spataro wrote.

