Mandy, a reader of financial tips website MoneySavingExpert, saved herself a little extra cash after making a simple change which took minutes
A woman has pocketed an extra £30 a year thanks to advice from Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert (MSE) . Mandy, a reader of the financial guru’s site, outsmarted the rising costs of Microsoft 365 essentials like Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote by making one key change.
This year, Microsoft hiked up the prices for its ‘Family’ and ‘Personal’ plans by a hefty 31 per cent and 42 per cent respectively, following the addition of AI features to its software, MSE explained. For Personal subscribers, this meant a jump from £5.99 to £8.49 per month, while Family users saw their bills rise from £7.99 to £10.49 month – both marking a £30 annual increase.
This price surge automatically kicked in from January 16 for anyone set on auto-renewal, meaning it could go unnoticed if you are not up to speed. But thanks to a heads-up from MSE, Mandy saved herself ‘a little cash’ after reverting her account.
“Thank you so much for highlighting how to beat the Microsoft 365 price increase,” she said in a letter to MSE. “I’ve just switched back to Classic and saved myself £30/yr. Your email not only saved me a little cash but got rid of the annoying AI.”
For those eager to save on the ad-on too, it is vital to figure out what your subscription type is and check whether it is set to renew automatically. To do this, you will need to login to Microsoft before locating the ‘Subscriptions’ tab, followed by ‘Manage’.
Here, you will see either one of two things. The first will be an option to ‘Cancel’, which means that auto-renewal is on. However, an option to ‘Turn on recurring billing’ suggests auto-renewal is not on and you will not incur new charges unless you opt back in.
MSE advises that if you do have a subscription, you can avoid the £30 price increase by switching to the ‘Classic’ plan, like Mandy did. This version allows continued use of apps like Excel and Word but leaves out the new Copilot and Designer.
Copilot is an AI tool aimed at enhancing creativity and efficiency, offering help with tasks in Word, whereas Designer helps create high-quality imagery content for social media and other purposes. To switch to Classic mode, select ‘Cancel subscription’ in your Microsoft account under ‘Subscriptions’.
Advice from MSE adds: “If your plan doesn’t switch over automatically, it will do so on your next billing date. If you’ve already been charged the new price for Microsoft 365 and you downgrade your plan, you can request a partial refund by contacting Microsoft’s support team.”
It is also worth noting that you can use a range of Microsoft software, including PowerPoint and Word, for free online. While it may not always offer the ‘most up-to-date modern productivity tools from Microsoft’, it can still serve similar functions.
For more information on specific subscriptions, visit Microsoft’s website here.