Microsoft 365 is still my favorite Microsoft product, but it is getting way too expensive

Back in 2022, I penned an editorial professing my love for Microsoft 365, explaining how I use it actively in various scenarios on a daily basis. While my feelings for this piece of software haven't changed, I now have one big complaint against it that I'd like to vent about.

Microsoft 365 is getting way too expensive. In 2022, it cost me PKR 15,000/year ($65/year on 2022's exchange rates) for the Family package, which was lower than the U.S. price tag of $99.99/year. However, fast-forward to today and the same bundle now costs $129.99/year. I felt the full force of this price hike when I was charged PKR 28,999 ($102) yesterday to renew my Family subscription.

It is important to note that while U.S. customers saw a price increase for the first time, customers in Pakistan, and presumably other countries, see regular hikes due to weak regional economies and fluctuating currency rates. Even though I paid PKR 15,000 for Microsoft 365 Family in 2022, I paid PKR 17,999 in 2023, followed by PKR 21,999 in 2024, and finally, PKR 28,999 this year. I obviously don't blame Microsoft for Pakistan's struggling economy, so I'm not going to complain about the regional price hikes in the past three years.

But the problem here is that Microsoft's justification for the price bump not just for Pakistan, but for the entire world, is quite ludicrous. The company is charging its customers more because it is bundling Copilot and Microsoft Designer into your subscription whether you require it or not. Basically, you now get access to advanced AI features in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Excel, Outlook, and more.

There is another associated problem, though. You don't get "unlimited" access to AI services governed by fair usage terms. Instead, you just get 60 AI credits per month. Each time you prompt AI in an Office application or Designer, you consume 1 credit. What this means is that you can just issue 60 prompts to AI services per month in Microsoft 365. What's even worse is that unused credits don't roll over into the next month and they can't even be used by members other than the owner of the Family plan. If your family members want their own credits, they should opt out of the Family plan and switch to Personal, whereas if you want more credits, you should purchase the $20/month Copilot Pro add-on. That's insane.

It's one thing if you don't want to use AI services, but it's another matter altogether that the AI credits that you do get are so woefully few that they make the $30/year price hike seem very unjustified. People who actually do use AI services heavily likely won't be covered with just 60 prompts a month. If you do the math, you're basically paying $1 for every 24 prompts you issue to Copilot. That's expensive.

Granted, there were whispers of a "Classic" plan for Personal and Family subscribers when Microsoft announced the price hike earlier this year, which served as a way to stay on the existing rate by disabling all AI features. You'll find vague mentions of it in Microsoft's documentation, the company won't highlight it as an option in your price hike email, the Microsoft 365 portal doesn't present it as a clear option, and people on forums have been complaining about Redmond giving them the run around when they try to "downgrade" to the Classic plan. It's a limited time offer anyway, and is just available for existing customers apparently.

All in all, there's no doubt that Microsoft 365 is still an excellent service that offers something for everyone, but it's unfortunate that Microsoft has hiked the price so steeply without giving consumers a clear path to a reduced price if they don't want to use the AI features that are being shoved down their throats. This is an inherent risk of subscription-based "managed" services where you can't really control how you want to use a piece of software. That's fine in most cases, but in this scenario, the features on offer just don't make the price hike seem worth it. At times like these, customers like myself are against the wall because we have entrenched ourselves so deeply into the ecosystem that it's impossible to consider canceling a service without risk of devastating effects. Perhaps I should have paid heed to The Document Foundation's repeated warnings about vendor lock-in.

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Posted Sunday 28 September 2025 at 2:11 am AEST (my time).

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