Microsoft has raised Microsoft 365 prices by 22 to 40% since 2021, and each extra user adds a licence. Moving to open source software is paid once. After that, Nextcloud and LibreOffice have no per-user licence, and no vendor can raise your prices. The city of Échirolles reports savings of about €350,000 a year.
Microsoft 365 price increases
Microsoft raised its list prices twice in four years, in March 2022 and in July 2026.
| Plan | 2021 | July 2026 | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $5 | $7 | +40% |
| Office 365 E3 | $20 | $26 | +30% |
| Microsoft 365 E3 | $32 | $39 | +22% |
List prices per user and per month, in dollars. Sources: Petri, August 2021, and Microsoft announcement of 4 December 2025, prices reported by the trade press.
Since April 2025, an annual subscription paid monthly also costs 5% more than the same subscription paid upfront.
Savings of organisations that moved to open source
| Organisation | Reported savings |
|---|---|
| Échirolles (Isère, 37,000 inhabitants) | About €350,000 a year, according to the head of digital (May 2024) |
| State of Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) | Over €15 million in licences a year, for €9 million invested in 2026 (Digital ministry, December 2025) |
| French Gendarmerie | 40% lower total cost of ownership on desktops (2013) |
In Schleswig-Holstein, nearly 80% of the state administration's computers have moved to LibreOffice. Échirolles has described its approach, which we summarise in our article on Zorin OS.
The cost of leaving
Leaving Microsoft 365 involves four expenses.
- The audit, 2 to 5 days: inventory, choice of software, migration plan and quote.
- The migration: servers, copying files and mailboxes, pilot, switchover.
- Training for users and champions, just before each change.
- Operations: server hosting, then support, maintenance or managed services.
The first three are paid once. Hosting and operations replace the Microsoft subscription. An extra account adds nothing to the hosting bill as long as the server is large enough.
Where the savings come from
Savings come from three things: no per-user licence, an end to increases imposed by a single vendor, and computers kept longer on Linux. Open source software rented with online licences does not bring all of them. In Zurich, in 2025, online openDesk licences were estimated to cost more than Microsoft's.
The audit compares your current subscription with the proposed hosting and operations, over three or five years, before any decision.
Further reading
- Migrating from Microsoft 365 to open source software
- Replacing Exchange and Outlook
- Moving your computers from Windows to Linux
Sources
- Microsoft announces price increase for Microsoft and Office 365, Petri, 19 August 2021
- Advancing Microsoft 365: new capabilities and pricing update, Microsoft, 4 December 2025
- Microsoft 365 price increases for businesses and the public sector, Next, 5 December 2025
- Microsoft monthly billing, RCPmag, 12 November 2024
- Savings from free software in Échirolles, LinuxFr, May 2024
- Schleswig-Holstein licence savings, heise, 7 December 2025
- French Gendarmerie: open source desktop lowers TCO by 40%, from Joinup, October 2013
- BFH project for the city of Zurich, Bern University of Applied Sciences, 2025