On the contrary to a one-time purchase of Office 2016, you pay a monthly or annual feewith Microsoft 365 and this also includes the Office applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. Publisher and Access are also included for PCs. Unlike with the one-time purchase of the Office 2016 beginner versions 'Home & Student', these programs are also included in the low-cost packages 'Officer 365 Personal' and 'Microsoft 365 Family'. If you decide to pay the yearly fee, it is slightly cheaper than paying the monthly fee for a year. The individual license models and the corresponding prices have already been described in detail in one of our articles.
One of the most important differences between Microsoft 365 and Office 2016 is that with the subscription model, you always get the latest versions of the entire Office programs in addition to the full range of applications. This means that as soon as a new Office version is released, subscription users can upgrade without having to pay again. Regular feature updates are also included as well as the security updates contained in Office 2016.
If many users want to use the software, it is crucial that it can be installed on several devices with only one subscription. For example, Microsoft 365 Family lets you use individual applications on up to five devices, whether it’s Mac or PC. If you’re not using all the licenses, you can legally share them with other household members.
The range of functions is also extended to tablets and smartphones with Android and iOS, which a one-time purchased version doesn’t offer. On mobile devices, you can work with Microsoft 365 in Word using 'Track Changes', edit headers and footers, or insert section and page breaks. With Excel, you can also use shadow and mirror effects or insert WordArt, while PowerPoint’s features include freehand annotations and speaker notes. This extended set of features applies to five smartphones and five tablets. In addition, there is 1TB OneDrive cloud storage for each user on top of this, which isn’t included with Office 2016. Technical support from Microsoft is available during the entire subscription period, instead of only during the installation process.