Office 2024 vs Microsoft 365: One-Time Purchase or Subscription?
Microsoft sells Office two ways. Microsoft 365 is a subscription: $99.99 a year for one person or $129.99 for a family, with Copilot, 1 TB of OneDrive and new features every month, for as long as you keep paying. Office 2024 is a perpetual license: you pay once, own the desktop apps for life, and receive security updates until October 9, 2029. For one PC that mostly writes documents, keeps spreadsheets and runs email, Office 2024 is far cheaper. If you live in OneDrive, want Copilot or need the apps on five devices, Microsoft 365 earns its fee.
Side by side
| Feature | Office 2024 (perpetual) | Microsoft 365 Personal / Family |
|---|---|---|
| Payment | One-time purchase | $99.99 or $129.99 per year |
| Apps | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote (Access in Professional Plus) | Same apps plus Teams, Defender, Clipchamp and the web apps |
| Copilot | No | Yes |
| OneDrive storage | 5 GB free tier only | 1 TB per person |
| Devices | 1 PC per license | 5 devices per person |
| New features | Fixed at release | Monthly |
| Security updates | Until October 9, 2029 | While subscribed |
| Cost over 3 years, one PC | From $119.99 (license key from us) to $249.99 (Microsoft retail) | $299.97 to $389.97 |
What you give up with Office 2024
Three things, and you should be honest with yourself about whether you use them. Copilot, the AI assistant inside Word, Excel and Outlook, is subscription-only. OneDrive’s terabyte of storage is subscription-only; the perpetual version gets the same free 5 GB anyone can have. And the monthly feature drops stop: the Office 2024 you install is the Office 2024 you keep, which many people consider a benefit because nothing moves around on a Tuesday.
What you keep
Everything that matters for the actual work. Office 2024 includes the 2024 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote with the features Microsoft shipped at release: the fourteen new Excel functions such as TEXTSPLIT and VSTACK, dynamic charts, Recording Studio and cameo in PowerPoint, session recovery in Word, the rebuilt Outlook search. Files open in Microsoft 365 and vice versa. The apps work offline and never ask for a card number.
Which Office 2024 edition?
Office 2024 Home & Business is Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, licensed for home and commercial use. Office 2024 Professional Plus adds Access. The two are within a few dollars of each other as license keys, so Professional Plus is the safe pick for anyone who might ever open a database file. If you only need one app, Word 2024 and Excel 2024 are sold on their own.
The three-year math
Microsoft 365 Personal over three years is $299.97; Family is $389.97. Office Home & Business 2024 at Microsoft’s list price is $249.99 once. An Office 2024 Home & Business license key from us is $119.99 once, less than half of the list price. Even against Microsoft’s own retail price the perpetual version wins for anyone who keeps a PC for more than two years, and most people keep a desktop for four or five.
Who should subscribe anyway
Households with several people and devices who share files in OneDrive, anyone who wants Copilot inside their documents, and small teams that co-author documents live. For everyone else the question is not whether to buy Office 2024 but which edition, and our guide on the FAQ page covers the delivery and activation details.
Frequently asked questions
Can Office 2024 and Microsoft 365 be installed together?
Not on the same PC; the 365 licensing takes over. Remove the 365 trial before activating Office 2024.
Will Office 2024 stop working in 2029?
No. Security updates stop; the software keeps running, as Office 2016 and 2019 still do today.
Does Office 2024 run on a Mac?
The retail Home & Business edition exists for Mac. The keys in our store are for Windows PCs unless the product page says otherwise.