Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Guides

What is Microsoft 365? Here’s the cloud software suite, explained

By

Microsoft Office free apps.
Microsoft

Microsoft 365 is the brand’s suite of cloud-based productivity apps that can be used for word processing, group collaboration, data analysis, presentation development, storage, and email. Many may be familiar with Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive as separate applications at one point; however, many high-performance users may utilize more than one of these programs for work, hobbies, or their everyday lives.

Recommended Videos

This could serve as a reason to consider Microsoft 365, to get more comprehensive access to the brand’s app library. Here is a look at what you need to know about the Microsoft 365 productivity suite.

Related

Microsoft 365 paid subscriptions 

Microsoft Office Home prices.
Microsoft

There are several Microsoft 365 paid subscription options available. For home use, you can opt for the Microsoft 365 Personal plan, a single-user option for $7 per month. Or you can consider the Microsoft 365 Family plan to share with up to five people for $10 per month. 

For small- and medium-sized business use, you can opt for the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan for $6 per user per month, the Business Standard plan for $13 per user per month, or the Business Premium for $22 per user per month. Additionally, there is the Microsoft 365 Apps plan for $9 per user per month as another cheaper option. Larger businesses and enterprise teams can contact Microsoft sales teams for custom services and price quotes. 

You can also opt for the annual payment plan for any of these options. They typically come with an upfront cost but tend to have a slight discount overall compared to the month-to-month pricing. 

What apps are available in Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 356 apps.
Microsoft

Application availability may vary depending on the plan you choose; however, many apps are commonplace across the range of Microsoft 365 options. These typically include:  

  • Microsoft Word: Word processing and text document editing.
  • Microsoft Excel: Spreadsheet creation and data analysis.
  • Microsoft PowerPoint: Creating and organizing slideshows.
  • Microsoft Defender: Antivirus and cybersecurity.
  • Microsoft OneDrive: Cloud Storage support starting at 1TB.
  • Microsoft Editor: Writing assistant available in apps, including Word, Outlook, and Web apps.
  • Microsoft Clipchamp: Video editing app.
  • Microsoft Outlook: Email storage, calendar, organizer of personal information.
  • Microsoft OneNote: Note-taking and short-form documentation.

Certain business plans may offer some applications only as Web and mobile applications. Other business plans may have additional applications to mean more intricate needs, such as Teams (group collaboration), SharePoint (content management), Exchange (email server), and Loop (collaboration workspace), Intra ID (cloud access), Intune (cloud software), and PurView (data management). 

What you get with a Microsoft 365 subscription 

Microsoft 365 services and features also vary depending on the plans you choose. The Microsoft 365 Personal plan allows a single person to use their account on up to five devices at once, including PCs, Macs, phones, and tablets, on and offline access to the Microsoft 365 applications, 1TB of cloud storage with OneDrive, ad-free secure use of Outlook, and Identity, data, and device security features. The Family plan increases the amount of users and the amount of storage associated with the option. 

The Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan provides support for up to 300 employees, with custom business emails (you@yourbusiness.com), Web and mobile access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, device access to Microsoft Teams, 1TB of cloud storage per employee, customized access over 10 additional business-specific apps, phone and Web support, and Copilot for Microsoft 365 as an add-on. The Business Standard and Business Premium plans add enterprise-tier productivity and security apps and services to match the specific needs. 

How to get Microsoft 365 for free 

Microsoft 365 free apps.
Microsoft

While subscribing to Microsoft 365 might provide a more premium experience with lots of storage, fewer ads, and greater security, you can still use several apps for free by accessing them via web browsers or mobile apps. 

Microsoft 365 web apps include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and Outlook. Additionally, you get 5GB of cloud storage with OneDrive and ad-supported email. You can easily register for an account with a Microsoft-associated email or a third-party email and begin using the apps and services. If you already have a seldom-accessed account, you can log in and begin reaping the benefits. 

How to add AI features to Microsoft 365

Microsoft’s Copilot Pro paid AI chatbot is now available and can be integrated into Microsoft 365 as an add-on feature. For Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plans, Copilot Pro costs $20 per month a subscription, which must be purchased separately from the productivity plan. If you have a shared family account, each person who wants to use Copilot Pro will have to register their own subscription.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 add-on.
Microsoft

For Business plans, there is the Copilot for Microsoft 365 add-on, which costs $30 per month and includes various administrator-level features such as Copilot in Teams, Microsoft Graph Grounding, enterprise-grade data protection, and Copilot Studio.  

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Fionna Agomuoh
Fionna Agomuoh
Computing Writer
Fionna Agomuoh is a Computing Writer at Digital Trends. She covers a range of topics in the computing space, including…
Best Microsoft Office deals: Get Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for free
Students using Microsoft Office software on their laptops outside.

There is almost always going to be a discussion between Microsoft vs. Google and which one has the best business and productivity tools, but Microsoft has certainly been around longer and ingrained itself in a lot of businesses, making it a standard. As such, you may want to grab yourself a copy or subscription, although Microsoft Office can get quite pricey, and while there is a free trial of Microsoft Word, it's not really the same thing. Luckily, there are a few Microsoft Office deals with grabbing, which is why we've gone out and collected some of our favorites for you below.
Best Microsoft Office deals
Microsoft Office is a pay once, receive once service. You don't have to pay recurring monthly fees to use it, but the software also never updates. For what it's worth, the Microsoft Office packages are labelled "2021", so they're all fairly recent but also ripe for a good deal. With the exception of AI integrations, not much has really changed in the past couple of years when it comes to your basic document creation and these programs should continue to be effective for years to come. Depending on what package you get, you'll get access to different apps, based on the needs of the target audience. For example, Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 keeps it lean and cool and with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint being the only apps included.

Here are our favorite deals for the classic Microsoft Office experience:

Read more
Microsoft Word may delete your files — here’s how to avoid it
Windows 11 logo on a laptop.

There's a new bug in Microsoft Word that may delete your files, and according to user reports, they're not always recoverable through the Recycle Bin. Fortunately, Microsoft is aware of the problem, but it's unclear when the issue might be fixed. If you want to make sure that your files stay safe, we've got a few workarounds to help you out.

In the last few days, the Microsoft community boards have been flooded with reports of people complaining about their files randomly being deleted, with one user saying: "I use Word. Today, it deleted eight hours of work." Further reports quickly made it clear that the affected files have a few things in common.

Read more
Microsoft Copilot now has a voice and can ‘see what you see’ on the internet
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announces updates to the company's Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

You might want to start treating your web browser like you're always at work, at least if you want to use Microsoft's new Copilot Vision feature. The feature, which is natively built into Microsoft Edge, is able to "see what you see, and hear what you hear" as you navigate your browser, according to Microsoft's Executive Vice President Yusuf Mehdi.

All of this AI snooping isn't for nothing. Copilot Vision looks at what you're doing online to answer questions, provide recommendations, and summarize content. It can work with the new Copilot Voice feature, for example. Microsoft demoed the capabilities on Rotten Tomatoes, showing a user chatting with Copilot while browsing the website and looking for movie recommendations. Ultimately, Copilot settled on an Australian comedy for the Australian speaker, saying it made the choice because, "well, you're Australian." I guess that's taking personal context into account.

Read more