Microsoft 365 Personal vs. Family vs. Business: Full Comparison & Verdict 2024

Microsoft 365 for Personal & Family

If you are an individual or a family, the Microsoft products you may need to buy mainly include the following three:

• Microsoft 365 Personal                
  

• Microsoft 365 Family

• Office Home & Student 2024

So what is the difference between the three of them?

Office Home & Student 2024

Office 2024 is a one-time purchase version that grants you a perpetual license. It is not even called a non-subscription version, it is called the "perpetual" version of Office. But it does not provide free upgrades for each new version. Therefore, if you purchased Office 2019 and want to jump to Office 2024, you must spend money to purchase a new license.

• $149.99 one-off purchase
  

• For one PC or Mac only

• View, share and edit documents online

• Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams

  
  

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is the new marketing name for the subscription-based service that replaces Office 365.  With Microsoft 365, upgrades are always included with your subscription.
The service, previously called Office 365 — In April 2020, Microsoft transitioned it into Microsoft 365, a subscription service that added features to the tools suite but required a monthly payment — $7 for an individual plan or $10 for a family of up to six.

Microsoft 365 vs. Office 2024

Office Home & Student 2021 comes with a classic version of Office applications installed on PC or Mac. If you only want to use the three basic Microsoft Office programs on your PC, namely Word, Excel and PowerPoint, then it is best to choose it. In the long run, it can save you money. Therefore, Office Home and Student 2024 is more suitable for students and families who want to use classic Office desktop applications. You will get a one-time purchase to install. The key card contains an activation code with detailed installation instructions. Microsoft support includes 60 days at no additional cost.

But Microsoft 365 follows a software-as-a-service business model, where customers pay regular subscription fees to access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc. Although in the long run, Office 2021 may be cheaper. However, the disadvantage of choosing Office 2024 instead of Microsoft 365 is that the feature set will only be kept up-to-date for a limited time (that is, until the next version is released), and Microsoft 365 users will always enjoy the latest updates and features. If you need better features and better cloud services, you should choose Microsoft 365!

Office 365 Education-free version for students

Office 365 Education is a special version of Microsoft 365 for students and university faculty and staff.

Students and teachers can register for free network access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint OneNote and Microsoft Teams under the Office 365 A1 plan. However, you need a university email address or other identification to apply.

If you want desktop access to the application, there is also the Office 365 A3 plan, which costs $2.50 per month for students and $3.25 per month for teachers and staff. The top Office 365 A5 plan, with a monthly fee of US$6 for students and US$8 per month for teachers, provides desktop and network access and additional security features.

But Microsoft 365 is divided into two versions, so how to choose?

Microsoft 365 Personal and Family are subscription plans that provide access to Microsoft 365 apps in the cloud. These apps make it possible to easily use Office products, OneDrive, Outlook, and Skype for non-commercial purposes. Besides, you can use Microsoft 365 in a web browser so that you don’t have to install anything on your PC or Mac.

However, both the subscriptions are made for different people and there are minor differences in the features you will be getting with each subscription.

Microsoft 365 Personal vs Microsoft 365 Family

Here are some of the key differences between the Family and Personal plans:

• Pricing:
  

• Microsoft 365 Personal costs $59.99/year (or $5.99/month) while Microsoft 365 Family $79.99/year (or $5.99/month).

• Free trial:

• You can try Microsoft 365 Family for 30 days for free, but Microsoft 365 Personal doesn’t have a free trial.

• Number of users:

• The most significant difference between Microsoft 365 Family and Personal is the number of people allowed on each subscription. Microsoft 365 Personal, as the name suggests is for a single person. It can be installed on one machine and can be used by a single person.

• Microsoft 365 Family, on the other hand, allows up to 6 installs. So, it can be installed on 6 different devices making it perfect for a family who can share the licenses and do not want to pay extra for separate licenses.

• OneDrive cloud storage:

• Both the Personal and Family come with OneDrive storage. However, Personal users will get just 1 TB of storage along with their subscription which can be used by one person. Family users, on the other hand, will get 6 TB of storage which can be divided among 6 users and each getting 1 TB of storage.

  
  

Microsoft 365 Personal

• $69.99 per year or $6.99 per month
  

• For 1 PC/Mac across unlimited PCs/Macs, tablets and phones

• 1TB cloud storage per user for 1 user

• 60 minutes monthly Skype calls for 1 user

• Ongoing access to updates

• Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher (PC Only), Access (PC Only), OneDrive, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Family Safety

Microsoft 365 Family

• $99.99 per year or $9.99 per month
  

• For 6 users at at time across unlimited PCs/Macs, tablets and phones

• 1TB cloud storage per user for 6 users (6TB total)

• 60 minutes monthly Skype calls to mobile and landlines

• Ongoing access to updates

• Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher (PC Only), Access (PC Only), OneDrive, Skype, Microsoft Teams

• 1-month free trial

Should I buy Microsoft 365 Personal or Family?

The choice depends on your use case. The cost of Microsoft 365 Personal is $69.99/year, while the cost of the family plan is $99.99/year. Therefore, even if you are two people who intend to use it, you should choose the family plan because it is cheaper than the individual plan. It all boils down to whether more than 1 person plans to use the subscription. In this case, Microsoft 365 Home Edition is a better choice. However, if you are an individual, then you should get Microsoft 365 Personal because it provides the same benefits to individuals.

Both the Personal and Family can be purchased from the Microsoft Store. As noted above, the Personal plan will cost you $69.99/year while the Family plan will cost you $99.99/year. Alternatively, you can also pay for it monthly in which case, the Personal plan comes down to $6.99/month and the Family plan comes down to $9.99/month. You can also try out the Personal plan for free for a month if you are unsure about purchasing it.

• Microsoft 365 Personal ($69.99/year or 6.99/month) (Yearly license recommended)

• Microsoft 365 Family ($99.99/year or $9.99/month) (Yearly license recommended)

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Microsoft 365 for Business & Enterprise

If you are a company, Microsoft 365 has long been available in two types of packages: Microsoft 365 Business Edition (for "small businesses") and Microsoft 365 Enterprise Edition (for "enterprise").

Even though both of these types of offerings give you access to basic functionality, there are some big — and small — differences between Business and Enterprise.

Here are the packages and their prices:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic – $5 per user per month.

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard – $12.50 per user per month.

• Microsoft 365 Business Premium – $20 per user per month.

• Microsoft 365 F3 – $10 per user per month.

• Microsoft 365 E3 – $32 per user per month.

• Microsoft 365 E5 – $57 per user per month.

The top three are the Business plans, and the bottom three are the Enterprise plans.

Microsoft 365 for business

There are three versions of Office 365 for small businesses. You may be attracted to these plans because they tend to be cheaper while still providing basic functionality. Not every company needs the same features or levels of support. And if you’re only using half the features in a business suite, you probably don’t want to pay full price.

The specific plan you choose depends primarily on whether you need email and whether you want to install an application on your computer.

Microsoft 365 is an all-inclusive suite of cloud-based productivity and engagement tools. All Microsoft 365 plans include cloud-hosted Exchange (email server), OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams which is the basic requirement of the small and medium businesses. So, both Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Standard are the good choices for SMEs based on your requirements.

The most important thing to remember about Microsoft 365 for business is that if you have only 300 employees or fewer, you can only purchase one of these plans.

Microsoft 365 Business Basic

Microsoft 365 Business Basic is very cheap, only $5 per user per month per year. However, we cannot recommend it to most companies because it only contains web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The Business Basic plan does include cloud services such as Teams, Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint. It also has the same security and compliance tools as other bundles. But most traditional businesses with any office employees will be annoyed by not being able to access the desktop version of the Office suite. As you might expect, there is no PC and mobile device management or advanced threat protection in this bundle. It also lacks Microsoft Bookings. If your business is highly mobile and your users do not need desktop-level Office applications, the Business Basic plan can save you money. But for most companies in 2024, this is not the right plan.

Microsoft 365 Apps for business

Microsoft 365 Apps for business Another budget plan from Microsoft is called Microsoft 365 apps. The annual commitment of the plan is $8.25 per user per month. This is a mid-tier plan available on Microsoft 365. It allows you to use functions between Microsoft 365 Basic and Microsoft 365 Standard. The pricing difference is because Microsoft Office 365 Apps for Business comes with offline desktop Office applications. However, it does not come with other features, such as unlimited online meetings, email and Sway in this subscription. Services available on the platform include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Publisher and Access. Like Microsoft Office 365, Publisher and Access can only be used as desktop applications. However, many things are missing here. You won’t get Teams, corporate email, exchange support, or many other advanced features. Essentially, this is a bundle for companies that lack digital transformation. If you only need the Office suite and nothing else, the Microsoft 365 application may be your ideal choice.

Microsoft 365 Business Standard

In terms of pricing, the Microsoft 365 Business Edition standard is standard. It is priced at $8.25 per user per month and allows up to 300 users. In this plan, you can access all basic Office desktop applications, such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel Outlook, and OneNote (Publisher and Access forware).

In addition, you can also use 50 GB of mailboxes and custom email domains to host emails, and you can access 1TB of OneDrive storage space and access to the web version of all basic Office applications. The most attractive aspect of the program is that it has access to Microsoft’s powerful desktop applications. These applications not only have powerful features, but Microsoft has done a great job in developing their features and additional advantages, because they have been the standard for many workflows for many years.

Therefore, companies looking for a stronger plan should first consider Microsoft 365 Business Standard Edition.

But in these two full-featured business plans, Business Standard removed some advanced features in exchange for lower costs. In other words, the missing features of the plan may be truly transformative, and they are included in Business Premium!

Microsoft 365 Business Premium

The Microsoft 365 Business Premium Edition includes all the content that the Microsoft 365 Business Standard Pack must provide as well as additional add-ons for advanced cyber threat protection and device management, thereby improving the security of the business environment. Microsoft 365 Business Premium is the most expensive and powerful of the four plans, at $20 per user per month per year. The plan can be tried for free for one month. However, the decision to choose Business Standard or Business Premium depends to a large extent on your budget, and whether you need additional security protection, additional Teams, corporate email support, and whether you are a regular user of SharePoint.

Which one should I choose for business?

Each plan has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you are looking for an affordable option that will allow you to achieve excellent web-based productivity, then the best program you can use is Microsoft 365 Business Basic. If you want to implement a full-featured option that includes all desktop applications, then Microsoft 365 Apps for Business is the second-best affordable plan. If you are looking forward to a complete package in almost all aspects, Microsoft 365 Business Standard Edition should be a good choice. Although it may be a bit expensive, it does give you access to the complete suite that Microsoft provides for you, even better than Google! If you pursue higher security, then the best choice is Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Currently, the Microsoft 365 Business Standard Package does not provide any advanced protection for the included applications/services, so the risk of data leakage and overall threats to the organization will increase. Microsoft 365 Business Advanced Edition can provide better protection for your work environment. As cybercriminals are aware of the vulnerabilities in Microsoft's lower-level software packages, the work environment is now facing greater risks. Given the level of threats in today’s era, we strongly recommend that you upgrade, because it’s important to do your best to protect your Microsoft 365 tenants. This is a small cost compared to the degree of damage that may be suffered.

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