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
    2025-01-14T09:18:28+00:00

    Microsoft, this price hike from $139 to $179 is MADNESS. It is not so long ago that the annual subscription was $79AUD

    There is some commentary that this is to pay for the inclusion of CoPilot in the 365 apps like Word, Excel. I resisted the temptation to subscribe to Copilot when it was was priced separatly, and then suddenly it appeared in my apps. Nice one, I thought. Let us basic users have some exposure to AI

    But not to be advised fo this 30% increase paying for features I did not select is UNACCEPTABLE.

    I am actively researching moving to Google apps.

    Please: Reconsider this increase, or possibly lose some of us. $139 up to $149 would be acceptable and still above inflation!

    Kenn Iskov

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-14T10:27:35+00:00

    Lucky people here. My subscription to 365 will go from $AUD109 to $AUD159 from 3rd June. Nice 50% increase based on what?

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