Up until very recently, home users had two options when it came to Microsoft 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based Office and storage offering: get the personal plan, for a single user, or the family plan, which allowed up to six users to use the service.
Personal, the cheaper option, gave users several benefits, including access to all Office apps on up to five devices, one terabyte of online space, access to Microsoft Copilot, and more. Family increased the user limit to six, and allowed every user to install the apps on up to five devices. Also, each user got 1 terabyte of cloud data for their files.
Now, Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 Premium. It is a brand new plan for individuals that costs more than twice as much as the personal plan.
For around $200 per year, with an introductory offer of paying just $100 for the first year, home users gain every benefit of the family plan, plus two additional features exclusive to the premium plan:
- Highest usage limits for select Copilot features
- Access to Copilot features currently exclusive to Premium
As you can see, premium is all about Microsoft’s Copilot AI. The two main benefits are increased limits and access to features that the cheaper Microsoft 365 plans do not support at all.
In short, Microsoft is combining Microsoft 365 Family with Copilot Pro to form a single subscription: Microsoft 365 Premium.
Here is an overview of what premium plan users get regarding limits and features:
| Copilot AI feature | Microsoft 365 Personal | Microsoft 365 Family | Microsoft 365 Premium |
| Agents | 15 Deep Research tasks | 15 Deep Research tasks | 25 tasks divided between Analyst, Researcher, and Deep Research |
| Actions (automate tasks) | None | None | 10 tasks per month |
| Audio overview in Notebooks, Podcasts | 6 users per day | Extensive use | Extensive use |
| Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps (Draft, Rewrite, Summarize, Analyze data (Excel)), Image generation and more | 60 credits per month | 60 credits per month | Extensive usage beyond standard credit limits. |
| Photos Agent | None | None | Extensive use |
| Vision | 10 minutes per day | 10 minutes per day | 15 minutes per day |
| Voice | 30 minutes per day | 30 minutes per day | 60 minutes per day |
| Exclusive access to Advanced AI features | No | No | Yes |
Some notes:
Certain AI features are only available for the account holder. That is bad news for Family plan or Premium plan users who are not, as they may not access these AI features.
Microsoft uses the term “extensive use” several times, but fails to provide specifics. It does not reveal what extensive use means in minutes or tasks.
In another overview, Microsoft reveals that premium plan subscribers gain the highest usage in certain features, including AI image generation. It is again unclear how this differentiates from the limited usage of personal and family plans.
Is Microsoft 365 Premium the right account? It might be, but only if you are heavily interested in AI features, have run into usage limits with a free account or the other two plans, or want access to exclusive features, which gives users access to Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365.
So, if you are subscribed to Copilot Pro already and use Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, you may take advantage of the introductory offer of around $100 for the first year. Note though that this advantage is lost in the second year when the price jumps to $200.
The only advantage of Copilot is Office integration. Otherwise, it is regularly on the bottom of the AI pack. I guess if you need to work with Office, it is worth it?
Probably of interest to rich business users who don’t have to keep an eye on their bank balance, but I’m not one of those. Even so, $200 is nothing short of a ripoff whichever way you look at it.
Worse still, you’ve got CoPilot AI peering over your shoulder all the time watching everything you do and recording it all so that it can subsequently bombard you with ads. And they want you to pay an exhorbitant sum of money annually into the bargain? No thanks.