Software3.02.2025

Microsoft price pain in South Africa

The pricing of Microsoft 365 has increased by around 165% in South Africa in the past 12 years.

However, South Africans should look closer to home for what is to blame for the big increases.

Microsoft 365 is the subscription-based version of the software giant’s popular productivity suite Microsoft Office, which includes popular apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote.

Initially called Office 365, it allows users to subscribe to these apps monthly or annually rather than buying new versions of the software every few years.

The service requires an Internet connection to download the apps, continuously update them with improved features, and ensure the user’s subscription is active.

Microsoft first launched Office 365 for businesses in South Africa in June 2012, followed by Office 365 for homes in January 2013.

Initially, it only offered Office 365 Home Premium, which included access to its productivity tools on up to five PCs. This offering would evolve into the Microsoft 365 Family plan.

At launch, the Home Premium subscription cost R74.99 per month or R749.99 per year.

With the launch of its single-user Office 365 Personal plan in early 2014, Office 365 Home Premium was renamed to Office 365 Home.

Office 365 Personal debuted at a price of R59.99 in South Africa, just R15 cheaper than the Office 365 Home subscription.

In the years that followed, the pricing of these plans changed five times before the latest hikes.

The first was a R20 jump in the Home package about a year after its launch.

At the end of December , the Home package for slapped with another R20 hike, while Personal’s price jumped by R30.

A year and a half later, the Personal package got a negligible 99-cent cut while Home’s price increased by R5.

The annual prices of the products are equal to 10 times the monthly price. That means the percentage-based increases for the annual plans are identical to those on the monthly plans.

The table below summarises the changes in prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family in South Africa.

Date of changeMicrosoft 365 Personal
(formerly Office 365 Personal)
Microsoft 365 Family
(formerly Office 365 Home)
30 January 2013Not yet launchedR74.99 (Launch price)
15 April 2014R59.99 (Launch price)No change
7 May 2014No changeR94.99
15 December 2015R89.99R114.99
27 June 2017R89.00R119.90
19 February 2020R99.00R129.00
1 August 2023 R109.00R139.00
18 March 2025R159.00R199.00
Overall change in rand+R99.01+R124.01
Overall percentage change+165%+165%

Microsoft not the one to blame

Microsoft had not adjusted prices on these products in the US until the latest hike, which was announced in mid-January and will take effect in March 2025 for existing users.

The big difference is that the latest adjustment includes the addition of the company’s AI-powered Copilot tool and Designer app.

The company has blamed exchange rate fluctuations for its previous price adjustments in South Africa, which offered more iterative feature improvements.

In the year that Office 365 for home users launched in South Africa, the rand was trading at an average of R9.62 to the dollar.

The US version of the Home/Family package has cost $9.99 since its launch, converting to about R96 in 2013. That is slightly higher than the South African price at launch.

The last year in which Microsoft adjusted prices based on the currency exchange rate — 2023 — a dollar cost an average of R18.45.

Despite remaining at its $9.99 price, the converted price of the package had increased to R184, higher than the R139 that South Africans had to pay from August 2023.

The rand’s value against the US currency plunged by about 92% in a decade. Over the same period, the price of the Microsoft 365 Home subscription increased from R74.99 to R139.00, an 85% hike.

This supports Microsoft’s justification for the price adjustments, at least until its latest increases of up to 46%.

Microsoft added two products — Copilot and Microsoft Designer — and increased the prices of its plans in the US for the first time ever.

The Microsoft 365 Personal plan was bumped from $6.99 (R130) to $9.99 (R186), while the Family product increased from $9.99 (R186) to $12.99 (R245).

That means South African Microsoft 365 users still pay less for the products than those in the US.

While it has gone to some lengths to try and hide the option, Microsoft offers a Classic version of the subscriptions with the same monthly and annual prices as the plans without Copilot and Designer.

However, these will only be available for an unspecified “limited” period.

The company also sells a cheaper Microsoft 365 Basic plan, which provides access to web-based versions of all its productivity apps and 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage, for R39 per month.

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