Microsoft 365 prices go up July 1.
If you run your business or your nonprofit on Microsoft 365, your bill is about to climb. On July 1, Microsoft raises list prices on most of its commercial plans. Business Basic goes from $6 to $7 per user each month. Business Standard, the plan most small offices actually run, goes from $12.50 to $14. The enterprise plans move too: Office 365 E3 jumps 13% to $26. Microsoft announced all of this back in December, but now we are only a month away.
The increase hits the suites, the bundles of apps and services you pay for per person (Business Basic, Standard, and the E3 and E5 enterprise plans). Standalone Teams and the Copilot add-on aren't in this round. Microsoft is also folding some features into the lower tiers starting in June: an extra 50GB of mailbox space, "Copilot Chat" access, and on Basic and Standard, URL time-of-click protection (a phishing defense that re-checks a link the moment you click it, not just when the email arrived in your inbox). It's the kind of protection that catches the business-email scams I wrote about here a step later in the chain.
One number didn't move: Business Premium stays at $22. Microsoft just narrowed the gap between Standard ($14) and Premium ($22) from twelve dollars to eight, and Premium is the one that actually includes business-grade security and device management.
Here's the part that decides what you pay: existing customers stay on their current price until their plan renews. So whether July 1 costs you anything comes down to your renewal date. Renew on June 30 and you hold today's price for another full term. Renew on July 2 and you're on the new one. On most annual plans bought through Microsoft or a partner, you can renew early to lock the current rate. So now might be the time to take a look at your billing and usage to see if something different makes sense.
Here's what this means
I own one of these packages as well, and the advice I'd give: go find your renewal date before you do anything else. The per-seat increase looks small. A dollar here, a buck-fifty there. Across ten or twenty people, billed every year, it adds up.
The other thing I'd push back on: the new features are not a reason to jump tiers. Copilot Chat is fine to have. You don't need to move from Standard to Premium to get it, and you shouldn't let a sales conversation talk you into a plan you weren't going to buy a month ago. (My standing advice on AI features holds here too.)
If you were already looking for better security, that's a different conversation. Premium didn't get more expensive this round, which makes it cheaper relative to Standard than it was, and it bundles protection.
What to do
Find your renewal date first. Microsoft 365 admin center, then Billing, then Your products. Or ask your provider. Everything else depends on this one fact.
Renew before July 1 if yours falls after it. On annual plans you can usually lock the current price for another term. Audit your seats first, though: an annual commit locks your license count too, and most shops are paying for a handful of accounts nobody uses anymore. Confirm the early-renewal option with your billing channel.
Don't get talked up a tier for features alone. The bundled additions are nice to have. They aren't worth a plan change you weren't already considering.
Price out Premium only if security was already on your list. The Standard-to-Premium gap shrank, and Premium ($22, unchanged) includes Defender and device management.
Nonprofits: check your exact plan. Your pricing is pegged to commercial rates through a fixed discount. Business Basic stays free and Premium holds at $5.50, but nonprofit Standard still climbs about 17%.
Locking in early only delays the increase by one term. It buys time, not immunity. And to be fair to Microsoft, some of what's arriving is good to have: URL time-of-click protection on the cheaper plans is a genuine upgrade for a small business running with no security layer at all. At renewal, the price going up is the obvious thing to notice. The better question is whether you'll use what you're now paying more for.
Source: Microsoft 365 pricing and packaging updates (Microsoft Licensing)
The announcement: Advancing Microsoft 365: new capabilities and pricing update (Microsoft 365 Blog, December 4, 2025)
