When Office 365 Commercial Makes Sense for an Individual (Premium)

Some readers have asked whether it makes sense for an individual to move from an Office 365 consumer account to an Office 365 or Microsoft 365 commercial account. Generally speaking, the answer is no. But there is one special use case I can think of where it could make sense.

No worries, I won’t make you wait for the answer.

If you want a custom domain, are the only person who needs to use that domain, and you don’t need or want to download and install the Office desktop applications, then there is one Office 365 commercial account that could make sense. Microsoft offers an Office 365 Business Essentials subscription that costs just $6 per month (if paid monthly) or $60 per year that offers 1 TB of OneDrive for Business storage, a 50 GB Outlook on the Web inbox with a custom email domain address, and access to the web-based Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote).

$60 per year is a great price. That’s even cheaper than Office 365 Personal (a consumer subscription that does provide the Office desktop applications), and since you no longer get custom domains in that offering (or in Office 365 Home) it can make a lot of sense.

That’s a lot of ifs. Anyone who does need the Office desktop applications, for example, will need to look elsewhere. Where you will pay more, for the most part. And face unique restrictions, whether you choose consumer or commercial.

For example. Office 365 Home (a consumer subscription) is $100 per year, and it provides access to the Office desktop applications, which can be used on five different PCs a the same time. And you can share Office 365 Home with up to five more people, which is pretty incredible; each gets the same Office application availability, 1 TB of OneDrive (for consumers) storage, and more. But you don’t get custom domains anymore.

On the commercial side, the next offering up from Business Essentials is Office 365 Business Premium. That offering costs $15 per month, if paid monthly, or $150 per year. That’s pretty expensive. But it does provide custom domains, of course, and you get the Office desktop applications, too. The biggest issue is that it’s only for that one user: Every Office 365 commercial account is licensed per user, so you can’t share the offering with others. Everyone has to have their own account.

(The next step up from there is Microsoft 365 Business, which works out to about $20 per month---or $240 per year---with an annual commitment. I’ll be looking at that in the future because there are many more additional features there as well. But nothing for the individual.)

And I’ll add this about Office 365 Business Essentials, or any Office 365 commercial account: Where Microsoft’s previous consumer offerings for custom domains (Outlook Premium when that existed or Office 365 consumer, neither of which is offered anymore) are still around for those who signed up previously, but they’re restricted to GoDaddy as a domain registrar, an...