Introduction
Microsoft’s business model for Office has shifted heavily towards subscriptions over the past decade. Microsoft 365 is marketed prominently, renewals are automatic, and the perpetual licence option requires actively seeking it out. This framing benefits Microsoft — recurring revenue is more predictable and ultimately more profitable than one-time sales.
But the question of whether a subscription or a perpetual licence is better for you depends on your specific situation. For most home users, small businesses, and professionals who simply need a reliable, full-featured Office suite, the numbers strongly favour a one-time purchase. Let us work through the maths and the practical considerations.
The Actual Cost of Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 comes in several tiers. The most relevant for individuals:
- Microsoft 365 Personal: £59.99/year (1 user, up to 5 devices)
- Microsoft 365 Family: £79.99/year (up to 6 users)
These prices are for the subscription alone, not including any Office licence fees. You pay every year, indefinitely. If you ever cancel or stop paying — whether by choice or because Microsoft raises the price — you lose access to the full Office applications. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint switch to read-only mode.
| Microsoft 365 Personal | Cost |
|---|---|
| Year 1 | £59.99 |
| Year 2 | £119.98 |
| Year 3 | £179.97 |
| Year 4 | £239.96 |
| Year 5 | £299.95 |
Microsoft has increased the price of Microsoft 365 subscriptions twice in recent years, so assuming the current price holds for five years is optimistic.
The Cost of a Perpetual Office Licence
At GetRenewedTech, a perpetual licence for the full Office 2024 Professional Plus suite costs £29.99 — a one-time payment. You install it, activate it, and use it for as long as the software runs on your operating system, with no further payments.
Cost comparison over five years:
| Option | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 | Total after 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Personal | £59.99 | £179.97 | £299.95 | £299.95 |
| Office 2024 Pro Plus (one-time) | £29.99 | £29.99 | £29.99 | £29.99 |
| Saving | £30.00 | £150.98 | £269.96 | £269.96 |
Even if you were to upgrade to a new perpetual licence every three years (which is generally not necessary), you would still spend less than a subscription:
- Office 2024 in year 1 (£29.99) + Office 2027 in year 4 (estimated £29.99) = £59.98 over five years
- Microsoft 365 Personal over five years = £299.95
The difference is £240 per user — enough to buy a refurbished laptop.
What You Get with a Subscription That You Do Not Get with a Perpetual Licence
A fair comparison requires acknowledging what Microsoft 365 includes that a perpetual licence does not:
- 1 TB of OneDrive storage — cloud storage for documents. If you do not already have a cloud storage provider, this is worth something. Google Drive offers 15 GB free; iCloud offers 5 GB free; Dropbox free tier is 2 GB. If you need 1 TB of cloud storage independently, you would pay around £15–£20/year for it.
- Access on up to 5 devices — a Microsoft 365 Personal subscription allows installation on up to five devices. Perpetual licences are typically tied to one machine.
- Always-current software — Microsoft 365 subscribers receive feature updates continuously. Perpetual licence users have a fixed feature set until they choose to upgrade.
- Web versions of Office apps — free with any Microsoft account, subscription or not. These are the browser-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — entirely functional for basic use, and available without any paid licence.
What You Do Not Actually Lose
The subscription model is often marketed around features that, in practice, most users never need or can get elsewhere:
Continuous feature updates: Office perpetual licences are very capable. The jump from Office 2021 to Office 2024 added GROUPBY and PIVOTBY in Excel, improved Designer in PowerPoint, and a refreshed Outlook interface. These are real improvements, but the 2021 version of Excel with XLOOKUP, FILTER, and dynamic arrays is already significantly more capable than what most users need. The marginal value of every new feature update is declining.
Collaboration features: Co-authoring (editing a document simultaneously with colleagues) works in Office 2024 perpetual when documents are saved to OneDrive or SharePoint — it does not require a Microsoft 365 subscription on the editing side. If your organisation uses Microsoft 365 and you want to collaborate on shared documents, you can do so with a perpetual licence.
Mobile apps: The Office mobile apps for iOS and Android are free for basic use on devices with a screen smaller than 10.1 inches. You do not need a subscription to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on your phone.
When a Subscription Does Make Sense
To be balanced: Microsoft 365 is the right choice in some situations:
- Multi-device households: If you genuinely need Office on five personal devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, two phones), a family subscription at £79.99/year shared across six users works out at approximately £13/year per person — competitive.
- Business Teams users: If your workplace pays for Microsoft 365 Business, there is no reason to also purchase a personal licence.
- Copilot users: Microsoft 365 Copilot AI features are subscription-only and cannot be added to perpetual licences. If AI integration within Office is a priority, a subscription is currently the only path.
- IT-managed environments: For businesses with IT departments managing deployments, Microsoft 365 Business plans include device management, security tools, and admin controls not available with standalone perpetual licences.
Mac Users: The Same Logic Applies
For Mac users, Office 2024 Home and Business for Mac at £49.99 compares to Microsoft 365 Personal at £59.99/year. The perpetual licence pays for itself within the first year, with every subsequent year being pure saving.
What About Older Versions?
If your budget is extremely tight, Office 2019 Professional Plus is available for £22.99. It lacks dynamic arrays and newer Excel functions, but handles word processing, email, and standard spreadsheet work entirely competently. It is worth noting that Office 2019 reaches end of extended support in October 2025, however — meaning no further security patches. At the same price point as a single month of Microsoft 365, it is still exceptional value for a machine where cost is the primary consideration.
Office 2021 Professional Plus at £29.99 extends support to October 2026 and includes the full dynamic array function set in Excel — a strong choice if you want meaningful longevity beyond Office 2019.
The Bottom Line
For most individual users and small businesses, a perpetual Office licence saves hundreds of pounds over a three-to-five-year horizon compared to a subscription. You own the software, it never expires, and your files remain fully accessible regardless of whether you continue to pay Microsoft anything.
The practical recommendation: buy Office 2024 Professional Plus for £29.99, use it until Windows no longer supports it (likely seven or more years from now), and invest the money you save elsewhere.
