Microsoft Office Subscription Vs Permanent License
When you buy a subscription to Microsoft 365 for business, you sign upfor a set of apps and services that you pay for on either a monthly oran annual basis. The applications and services that you receive as partof your subscription depend on which product you purchased, such asMicrosoft 365 Apps for business or Microsoft 365 Business Standard. Youcan see what comes with each product on the Microsoft 365 for small and medium-sized businesses page.
Office 2016 Home & Business will set you back $230 per license, while Office 2016 Professional (which includes Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Access) will cost $400 per license. If you are looking to upgrade many computers at once, going with the perpetual (one-time-purchase) license will be. 4 Microsoft 365 Family subscription required for location alerts and drive safety features. Availability varies by operating platform and market. Location permissions must be active to receive automatic arrival and departure alerts. Drive safety only available in US, UK, CA, and AU. 5 Authenticated through your Microsoft Account. And that’s what Microsoft thinks it has in Office 365. The next natural step from here is Windows as a service. I don’t know when Microsoft will finally switch over to a Chrome OS-style. Review the details under the Services & Subscriptions heading. If you see a circle arrow, then your subscription is set up for recurring billing, unless you turn recurring billing off or cancel it beforehand. The next charge info shows you when you’ll be charged next, and for how much. If you see Expires on date, then your subscription will expire on that date, unless you renew.
When you buy a subscription, you specify the number of licenses that youneed, based on how many people you have in your organization. After youbuy a subscription, you create accounts for people in your organization,and then assign a license to each person. As your organizational needschange, you can buy more licenses to accommodate new people, or reassignlicenses to other users when someone leaves your organization.
If you have more than one subscription, you can assign licenses todifferent people for each subscription. For example, you can assign all of your users to all Microsoft 365 applications and services as partof a Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription. You can also assign a subset of users to Visio Online through a separate Visio subscription.
How many devices can people install Office on?
If your subscription includes any of the following products, each person can install Office on up to five PCs or Mac, five tablets, and five phones.
- Microsoft 365 Apps for business
- Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Microsoft 365 A3
- Microsoft 365 A5
- Microsoft 365 E3
- Microsoft 365 E5
- Office 365 A1 Plus
- Office 365 A3
- Office 365 A5
- Office 365 E3
- Office 365 E5
What happens when you assign a license to someone?
The following table lists what automatically happens when you assign a license to someone:
| If the subscription has this service | This automatically happens |
|---|---|
| Exchange Online | A mailbox is created for that person. To learn about the SLA for this task to be completed, see 'Setting up...' messages in the Microsoft 365 admin center. |
| SharePoint Online | Edit permissions to the default SharePoint Online team site are assigned to that person. |
| Skype for Business Online | The person has access to the features associated with the license. |
| Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise | The person can download Office apps on up to five Macs or PCs, five tablets, and five smartphones. |
Microsoft Office Subscription Vs Permanent License Renewal
Understand licenses for non-user mailboxes
You don't need to assign licenses to resource mailboxes, room mailboxes, and shared mailboxes, except when they are over their storage quota of 50 gigabytes (GB). For more about non-user mailboxes, see the following articles:
- Shared Mailboxes in Exchange Online for all other Microsoft 365 plans.
Who can assign licenses?
Different types of admins can work with licenses in different ways, depending on their roles. The following table lists the most common options. For a complete list of admin roles and privileges, see About admin roles.
Microsoft Office Subscription Vs License
| Admin role | Assign a license | Unassign a license | Buy more licenses | Delete an account |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billing admin | No | No | Yes | No |
| Global admin | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| License admin | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Service Support admin | No | No | No | No |
| User admin | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Related content
Buy or remove licenses for your business subscription (article)
Assign licenses to users (article)
Unassign licenses from users (article)
Remove a license from a shared mailbox (article)