Office Professional Plus: Choose Between 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016

Office Professional Plus: every desktop app in one license

Office Professional Plus is the business edition of Microsoft Office: it brings together all the desktop office applications in a single perpetual license, paid for once. You rarely see it on shop shelves, yet it is the edition you find on many office computers.

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote: the core shared by all editions.
• Outlook: email, shared calendars, contacts and sorting rules, installed locally.
• Access: the only Office application that creates and edits .accdb databases without a third-party tool.
• Publisher and Skype for Business in the 2016, 2019 and 2021 generations.

Do not confuse it with Office Professional (without “Plus”): a separate product with a very similar list of applications, so check the exact name on the product card. Since Access only exists on Windows, Professional Plus has no macOS equivalent. If Access is the reason you are here, our page on how to buy Microsoft Access goes into more detail.

2024, 2021, 2019 or 2016: the generations compared

The four generations still on sale work on the same principle: one payment, one activation, no recurring charge. They differ mainly in Microsoft support and in system compatibility.

Note that Microsoft ended support for Publisher on 13 October 2026: it still installs and runs in the older generations, but it no longer receives fixes and is not part of Office 2024. Its presence in an older generation should therefore no longer weigh on your decision.

Which generation for which use?

A computer you use every day

Choose the 2024 generation, the only one still covered by security updates, until October 2029. It also brings better responsiveness, an extended dark mode and support for the OpenDocument 1.4 format. On a machine that opens attachments from outside every morning, the extra cost is easy to justify. Our Office 2021 vs Office 2024 comparison details the differences.

A tight budget on a recent PC

For everyday use, the 2021 generation is very close to 2024: same ribbons, same file formats, complete Outlook and Access. Keep in mind that its security updates ended on 13 October 2026: the applications keep working and can be reinstalled normally, but without new security fixes.

A secondary or offline computer

The 2019 and 2016 generations have not received fixes since October 2025. They remain perfectly suitable for an isolated use (workshop machine, data-entry station, backup computer), provided they are not the main computer you use to exchange documents.

What Office Professional Plus does not include

Being honest about the limits avoids unpleasant surprises. A Professional Plus license installs on one computer and includes no online services: no extra cloud storage and no feature updates. It is also fixed to its generation: moving from 2021 to 2024 requires a new license, as there is no upgrade pricing.

If you need the same suite on several machines, or on a Mac and a smartphone as well, a subscription may suit you better: see our page on how to buy Microsoft 365. To equip a small team with perpetual licenses, our Office for 5 PCs guide compares the options.

Why Office Professional Plus costs less here

These licenses are pre-owned: European organizations buy them, then release them when they migrate to the cloud, merge or close down. Their resale is governed by the UsedSoft ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (case C-128/11), which allows a perpetual license to be transferred once the first owner stops using it. The key then activates on Microsoft’s official servers, without any third-party utility.

Activation is straightforward: install the suite with the official link from your delivery email, open Word, then enter your 25-character key under File, then Account. Uninstall any older version of Office first, to avoid conflicts between the two suites.