New Pricing for Microsoft 365

With how fast the business world is evolving, it can feel like a never-ending race just to keep up. While the pace of digital transformation brings challenges for practically every organization, Third Octet and Microsoft are deeply committed to putting our customer needs first by equipping you with the right resources and support to help you meet the needs of business and technology, helping you transform your organization and build resilience.

In order to continue building on the value they’ve delivered over the past decade by always providing innovation that helps customers succeed and thrive today and well into the future, Microsoft announced changes to their commercial pricing model for Microsoft 365 – the first substantive pricing update since they launched Office 365 a decade ago.

A decade of continuous innovation

Since launch a decade ago, Office 365 has grown to over 300 million commercial seats. Along the way, they have continuously re-invested to meet the changing needs of your businesses. In fact, Microsoft has introduced 24 applications to Microsoft 365 since launch, including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps and OneDrive to name a few, as well as over 1,400 new features and capabilities across communication, collaboration, security, compliance, AI and automation. 2020 alone saw over 300 new capabilities to Microsoft Teams, including collaborative applications to empower people and organizations for hybrid work, all while keeping security at the forefront to address a complex and everchanging cybersecurity landscape and to keep you, your employees, and your business safe.

What you need to know

Effective March 1, 2022:

• Microsoft is updating list pricing for the following commercial products: Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5, and Microsoft 365 E3. These increases will apply globally with local market adjustments for certain regions. Pricing increases range from 10% – 25% and do not include education or consumer products at this time.
• Microsoft is transitioning to a New Commerce Experience (NCE) ‘per seat’ model for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows 365, and Power Platform subscriptions, the latest in the evolution of their CSP program. This new model offers better cloud governance tools for spend optimization. It also provides Third Octet with new tools to simplify and manage subscriptions for our customers. There are discounts available on annual plans, some on a limited time basis.
• Barracuda is moving toward Usage (Consumption) billing model, similar to Microsoft, as they can now automatically determine usage based on a customer’s Microsoft’s usage. They are aligning licenses with actual user mailboxes, not licenses in Microsoft 365. Pricing will remain the same.

How we can help

Third Octet is committed to transforming the commerce experience to ensure you, our customers, have the best possible experience. We will help you to assess your licensing situation and optimize your monthly subscriptions, while highlighting underutilized technology included in the licenses. We can also help reduce costs by removing unused licenses and making sure to choose the right SKU for your needs. We will evaluate the benefits vs. risks of signing up for multi-year plans that will reduce flexibility and increase your commitment to Microsoft, and review spend to help you understand what you’re being billed for each month.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us.