Microsoft 365 now has Copilot onboard and costs a bit more
Back in 2011, when Microsoft started selling Office 365 subscriptions, this pattern of distribution was not really popular. As time has shown, the move was a good one: by 2017, revenue from subscriptions surpassed that from traditional license sales. Nowadays, owning by subscription is an ordinary thing, and while it’s understood that eventually you pay more than for a one-time license fee, the monthly or even annual costs aren’t something to fret about.
Microsoft has kept the price tags on the office suite subscription plans basically unchanged since the very beginning. On January, 16 2025, the company announced that it would be adding Copilot to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans, and makes them $3 more expensive, $9.99 a month ($99.99 a year) and $12.99 a month ($129.99 a year), respectively.
The announced purpose is to support the continued development of the products. The new pricing affects US customers only, but it is likely the company will roll it out worldwide in several phases. For those not willing to change anything, Microsoft introduces Personal Classic and Family Classic plans, which are essentially the old deal with a clear expiration date: they will only be available through this year.
Microsoft 356 with integrated Copilot: features
Microsoft’ claims that Copilot, its artificial intelligence, enhances Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. Basically, it all boils down to the following:
- text drafting and summarization (Word, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint);
- advanced data analysis (Excel);
- generation of visuals (PowerPoint).
In addition, the new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans now include Microsoft Designer, an AI-driven image editing tool.
What deserves a special mention is the natural-language processing capabilities of Copilot: you can ask it the way you would a human assistant, and it will deliver as expected. This is especially nice in the case of Excel, which is notorious for the steep learning curve.
There are rumours about further price hikes in the Microsoft ecosystem; if you believe it is time to look for alternatives to the Office suite, check the respective section of the Informer catalog:
