Excessive price increase

Anonymous
2025-01-09T08:29:55+00:00

This email came from you today....."Starting on 14/05/2025, the price for your Microsoft 365 Family subscription will change from AUD 139.00/year to AUD 179.00/year. "
This is totally excessive and wholly unjustified. I am completely uninterested in using your copilot system. All I want is the Word Excel and PowerPoint on my Mac.

I've seen some responses that suggest I can cancel and subscribe to MS 365 classic for cheaper.. But this not available in Australia. Are we Guinea pigs here to see how much you can gouge out of ordinary people. Shame on you and your ethics.

I think this move by you signals my final association with Microsoft and its products after nearly 40 years.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-01-17T08:50:40+00:00

    I have found a “solution” of sorts that might help a few people.

    Log into your Microsoft Account

    Find where to cancel the automatic renewal of your current subscription (not easy to find!!!)

    Once you’ve cancelled then magically the option to subscribe to Microsoft 365 Classic appears and is identical to the current price. 365 Classic is what you have now Word, Excell, PowerPoint etc and importantly NOT CoPilot the AI intrusion!

    Still can comprehend the deliberate deception and obfuscation in hiding this and the money grab in flogging us an AI system I don’t want. I repeat - shame on you and your ethics

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-16T21:13:03+00:00

    My first reaction was the same as yours...... couldn't believe the magnitude of the increase. Then I googled the topic and saw that they have not increased prices for the past 12 years. So, putting it in that perspective I suppose its not so bad...... as long as they hold this new price for several more years......doubtful .

    I know there are alternatives but really, after using word, Excel and powerpoint for a few decades....I'm locked in. I'm not much interested in switching to something else just to save $35 a year here in Canada. My yearly subscription is going from C$79 to C$115. Hell, we can barely get a mediocre lunch out and a coffee for that these days!

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-01-16T20:59:20+00:00

    The core features of Word, PowerPoint and Excel remain unchanged since the 1990s.

    For the average user, even Word 6.0 for Windows 3.1 will do 100% of what you require.

    You don't need to upgrade. Office 2007 in particular supports all the current file formats and will do everything you require sans the cloud and AI rubbish. Purchase an older version off eBay, pay once and own your software.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-16T20:48:17+00:00

    It is definitely excessive and unacceptable, however, you can opt to keep the classic version for $109 (single user) or the family at $139. They just make it convoluted. You need to go to cancel subscription, and then you should see the option to "downgrade" to classic without AI for the lower price. I just did it myself.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-01-16T11:35:22+00:00

    Refusing to kowtow to Microsoft, super annoying they don't even provide the Classic alternative in Australia. So I've now downgraded to Basic ($29 annual) which loses me functionality in Word and Excel, but I'm doing a free trial of Polaris, which seems a very good system to manage those necessities. Annual cost $39 for the level I need.

    We should all look around, there are several alternatives.

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