Buy Microsoft 365: 12 Months on Up to 5 Devices

Buy Microsoft 365: what the subscription includes

When you buy Microsoft 365, you are not buying software once and for all: you get a subscription that gives access to the Office applications for as long as it is active. The offer on this page covers 12 months on up to 5 devices. Office 365 is the former name of Microsoft 365, which is why our product card still uses it.

The applications install locally, on the devices of your choice:

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, usable offline once installed;
• continuous feature updates, with no new version to buy;
• the 5 installations shared out as you wish between Windows PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.

This is the fundamental difference with a perpetual license: you pay for the use of the software over a given period, not for the software once and for all.

Microsoft 365 or a lifetime license: the comparison

The right calculation is not based on the displayed price alone, but on how long you plan to use Office and on how many devices you need to equip. Here are the benchmarks, at the prices currently shown in our catalog:

The rule of thumb is simple: over several years on a single computer, a perpetual license usually works out cheaper; for a shorter need, or as soon as three or more devices are involved, Microsoft 365 often takes the lead. We detail this calculation in our article Microsoft 365 vs Office 2024: subscription or lifetime license?

Who is Microsoft 365 for?

The subscription is particularly suited to four situations:

• Multi-device households: a desktop computer, a laptop, two smartphones and a tablet fit within one subscription. To equip several separate computers instead, see our Office for 5 PCs comparison.
• Mixed Windows and macOS environments: the same subscription covers both systems, which a perpetual license bought for Windows does not allow.
• Mobile use: Word and Excel on iPhone, iPad or Android, with full editing and automatic synchronization.
• Always the latest version: new Excel functions, co-authoring improvements and design tools arrive as soon as Microsoft releases them.

Conversely, if you work on a single desktop computer, need little more than a word processor and a spreadsheet, and keep your computers for five years, a perpetual license will be more rational: our page on the Office 2024 key compares the lifetime editions.

Activation and the end of the 12 months

Your Microsoft 365 access details arrive by email, usually within minutes, together with step-by-step activation instructions. You then install the applications from Microsoft’s official website and sign in on each device with the account linked to the subscription. Changing computers does not use up an extra installation: you simply sign out of the old device.

When the 12 months are over, nothing is deleted: your files stay on your disk. The applications switch to read-only mode, which lets you open and print documents but not edit them, until a new subscription is activated. To keep working without interruption, order your renewal before the end date; our support team explains the steps by email, 7 days a week, with a reply within 2 hours on average.

Before you install Microsoft 365: four checks

• Remove older versions of Office. Uninstall Office 2016, 2019, 2021 or 2024 from each device first: two Office installations on the same computer conflict, and Microsoft 365 replaces them.
• Check each device. The applications run on Windows 10 and Windows 11, on the three latest versions of macOS, and on recent versions of iOS and Android.
• Keep your access details safe. You will need them to sign in on a new device or after reinstalling a computer.
• Note the end date. Write down when your 12 months end, so that you can renew before the applications switch to read-only mode.