Microsoft doesn’t put its office suite on sale very often. Microsoft 365 (which until recently was known as Office 365) includes all the usual office apps, an hour per month of Skype calls to landline phones, and a full terabyte of OneDrive storage. The Personal flavor is intended for a single user and usually costs $70 per year. But for a limited time, you can get one year of Microsoft 365 Personal for $59.
That’s a pretty solid deal, especially if you “must” have Office and can’t make do with a free alternative. One could argue, in fact — and I am definitely making the argument — that a terabyte of OneDrive is worth $59 all by itself. Then the Office apps — Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher — are gravy.
The Personal version is for a single user, but you get to install the suite on up to five devices and access the OneDrive from anywhere. If you actually need to support multiple users, like a spouse and kids, you should check out Microsoft 365 Family instead.
Intrigued? Be aware that this is an autorenewing subscription, so you’ll automatically be charged $59 each year unless you cancel. But that’s actually good news — the subscription persists at $59 rather than reverting to $70 after the first year.
And if you already have a subscription at the regular $70, fear not; you can still get in on the $59 gravy train. According to the Microsoft Team that responded to that very customer question on the product page, “You can purchase Office 365 on Amazon and then add the time to your existing subscription.” The details are explained in this Microsoft Support article.
If you’re averse to paying an ongoing subscription, it looks like there’s some good news on the horizon. Microsoft has announced that it’ll be releasing a standalone version of Office that comes with a good old-fashioned perpetual license in the second half of 2021.
And of course, don’t forget that there are completely free alternatives to Office out there. You can use Office online for free, and there are open-source office suites like LibreOffice and WPS Office that offer all the important bits from Office without the price tag. If you want to know more about free Office alternatives, be sure to check out this week’s Cheapskate Show podcast below.
This article was first published earlier this week.
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