Microsoft Teams users are extremely angry at new banner asking them to pay

A UI tweak in Microsoft Teams is frustrating users worldwide, raising fresh questions about design choices and user control.

Microsoft Teams is heavily used in enterprise environments, which is not surprising considering the breadth of functionalities that it offers, along with integration with other services in Redmond's ecosystem. However, a recent change has been annoying many Teams customers across the globe.

When you sign into a workplace Teams account, the app's title bar shows a three-dot icon from where you can access some broad settings like zoom level, pinning, feedback, and more. Nested inside it is also the option to unlock Teams Premium, a paid add-on which costs $10/user/month. This three-dot menu is not something that automatically grabs attention, which is good since it basically hides optional complexities behind its UX. This is how unnoticeable it looks, we have obscured parts of the UX to preserve privacy:

However, a recent update has modified the appearance of this three-dot menu with a rather distinctive change that has sparked customer backlash. Basically, if you open the Teams app as a full-screen interface, you'll notice that Microsoft has unnested the "Unlock Premium" option and is now showing it as a sort of a banner next to the three-dots, complete with a diamond icon. You can check it out below:

If you click on Unlock Premium option, you're presented with a pop-up that shows you all the benefits that you receive through this paid add-on license, along with the ability to utilize a 60-day trial for free without needing a credit card. If you sign up for the trial, it activates instantly.

There are a few problems with this approach. For starters, many people aren't happy that they're being asked to pay more in a software that they already pay for, via their organization. The second problem is that there is no way to get rid of the Unlock Premium text and just restore the three-dot menu. Finally, and most importantly, most Teams users obviously aren't really in a place to decide if they can enable Teams Premium within their entire organization. This is a decision that is primarily reserved for management and IT.

Of course, Microsoft's rationale behind this could be that if enough users within a tenant try out Teams Premium, they'll be impressed by it and convince their management to pay more for additional benefits.

That said, Teams customers really aren't happy with this "ad" for Teams premium, with the dedicated feedback portal filled with comments like:

• I WANT TO REMOVE THE UNLOCK PREMIUM BUTTON
• As everyone else has said, the majority of us are not in a position within our organization to authorize a premium subscription, so please remove it from the interface/allow it to be dismissed. It makes it difficult to find teams settings, because the "..." menu is attached to the unlock premium button. Delete delete delete.
• This is especially annoying because in most cases, it's a decision that would be made by one specific person or team. In other words, I'm not someone who can make that decision to "upgrade" anything within our company, yet I have to look at this stupid "ad" in Teams every single day.
• This is just bad UX that leads to mistrust. Most importantly, this advertisement makes settings very hard to discover - who would think to click "unlock premium" if they want to change notification settings? Second, "Unlock" implies that this is just a locked feature that can be unlocked. It is not, it is a subscription that must be purchased. Both of these feel like dark patterns that make my relationship with the product and with Microsoft feel more adversarial. Nothing new there, but market dominance only saves you for so long.
• STOP ALL POP UPS AND DISTRACTIONS
• This is rather annoying. It doesn't look professional, and it is a distraction for users.
• PLEASE!! the amount of hours i have to spend explaining to the staff we are poor and can't afford the product!!! please allow us to hide the up sell button!

Microsoft has been drawing criticism for this UX modification for the past month or so, ever since the change went public. However, it will be interesting to see if the company decides to reverse course or continue with its upselling tactics.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.

Posted Wednesday 29 April 2026 at 7:30 am AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of March) 1,297

RIP Matrix