Subscription increase

There is an option to switch to 'Microsoft 365 Personal Classic' which is the same as 'Microsoft 365 Personal' without the AI features, and will not be subject to the price increase.

This can be done by going to 'cancel subscription' within your account. The option to switch to Personal Classic will then be displayed.

I requested a call back to talk about this issue but after 2 days...nothing.
Today I succeeded to get in contact with MS via the chat function on the MS webpage that compares the different versions of MS 365.
I got in contact with Maria who was very helpful to manually cancelling and halting as of today my MS subscription that was Microsoft 365 Personal which was running till late April. She than helped me to buy the MS 365 Family classic which comes without the intrusive Copilot. She also turned off the Auto-renewal for me.
After uninstalling MS 365 personal which was "upgraded with Copilot beyond our blessings" and installing the Microsoft 365 Family I finally got rid of Copilot!
Happy to be able to work with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook in a focused way, without being pestered by the intrusive Copilot.

By my calculation, my Microsoft 365 subscription will increase by 28% when it next falls due. This is largest increase since 2016 (33.7%) and vastly more than the two roughly 10% increases between 2018 and 2023.

I personally am not interested in the CoPilot AI inclusions, which I currently suppress. I know how to use all the tools in the Office suite without assistance.

I think this increase is out-of-proportion and can't be justified by reason of cost increases and financial pressure. Microsoft is enjoying one of the most prosperous periods in its entire operating history - riding on the back of the change to the subscription model.

Ahead of October, I'll be considering what the consequences of terminating my subscription might be - i.e. do I have to change to another suite of products? Can I live without the online components such as One Drive (which I value)?

I think that Microsoft needs to be held accountable by collective agitation and action from its customer base.

Rick Stocker

Cancelled my subscription. At least I have until May to decide on what alternative I want to use. It's frustrating that they want us to pay such a drastic amount more for so much that we don't want.

I totally agree with you and I also do have Google paid account. Best move would be to just switch to Google and pay to only 1 service.
I do not mind paying to 2 services when it is the price you agreed to, but if Microsoft thinks they can do whatever they want. I would rather do whatever i want too.