How much does Microsoft 365 cost in 2026?

Business Basic: $7 per seat a month on annual billing ($8.40 billed monthly); Business Standard: $14 per seat a month on annual billing ($16.80 billed monthly); Business Premium: $22 per seat a month on annual billing ($26.40 billed monthly). Checked October 26, 2026.

What is a cheaper alternative to Microsoft 365?

Google Workspace Business Starter ($7/user/mo billed yearly), Zoho Workplace (Standard from $3/user/mo billed yearly), LibreOffice (Free). Free desktop word processor, spreadsheet and slides; it has no email, cloud storage or Teams, and complex Office files can look different.

Email, Office apps, storage and Teams suite

Should you build your own Microsoft 365?

Q: Should you build your own Microsoft 365?

Buy it. Five people on Business Standard pay about $2,520 over 3 years. That covers Exchange email, Teams chat and meetings, desktop Word and Excel, 1 TB of OneDrive per person, plus Bookings and Forms. Microsoft raised Business Basic from $6 to $7 and Standard from $12.50 to $14 on July 1, 2026, so it now matches Google Workspace on price. A home-built stand-in would cost over $22,000 over 3 years and still lack real mailboxes and Office apps.

Buy it. At $14 a user you get email, Teams, desktop Office apps and 1 TB each, and nothing home-built comes close.

BUY

Short answer

Five people on Business Standard pay about $2,520 over 3 years. That covers Exchange email, Teams chat and meetings, desktop Word and Excel, 1 TB of OneDrive per person, plus Bookings and Forms. Microsoft raised Business Basic from $6 to $7 and Standard from $12.50 to $14 on July 1, 2026, so it now matches Google Workspace on price. A home-built stand-in would cost over $22,000 over 3 years and still lack real mailboxes and Office apps.

Buy for 3 years: $2,520
Build and run for 3 years: $22,645
Verdict: BUY

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Cheaper options

CheaperGoogle Workspace Business Starter$7/user/mo billed yearlyHalf the price of Business Standard, with Gmail, Meet and Drive; you move from Office files to Google Docs and lose call recording and booking pages.CheaperZoho WorkplaceStandard from $3/user/mo billed yearlyThe cheapest full suite, with custom-domain email, docs, chat and meetings; file storage is small and it has no desktop Office apps.Open sourceLibreOfficeFreeFree desktop word processor, spreadsheet and slides; it has no email, cloud storage or Teams, and complex Office files can look different.

Microsoft 365 pricing in 2026

Plan	Billed yearly	Billed monthly
Business Basic	$7/seat/mo	$8.40/seat/mo
Business Standard Typical	$14/seat/mo	$16.80/seat/mo
Business Premium	$22/seat/mo	$26.40/seat/mo

Paying too much? Business Basic ($7 a user) is enough if web and mobile Office apps work for you. You keep email, Teams and 1 TB of OneDrive, and lose the desktop apps and Loop.

Per user, paid yearly, from Microsoft’s US pricing page. The monthly figures are for a month-to-month subscription. Basic and Standard went up on July 1, 2026; Premium did not. Checked October 26, 2026.

Run your own numbers

Defaults are a typical small team at $30/hour. Change anything.

If you buy Microsoft 365

Plan

Seats

If you build it

Your time, $ per hour

Hours to build

Upkeep, hours per month

Hosting and services, $ per month

Buy

$2,520

Build

$22,645

Buying is about $20,125 cheaper over 3 years.

3-year totals. Building includes your time, upkeep, running costs and one month of an AI app builder ($25). Change any number to match your situation.

What you’d build

Browser editors for documents and spreadsheets, without full Office compatibility
File storage with share links on cheap object storage
A team calendar with a booking page
Team chat and a video room built on hosted services
Email forwarding into a rented mailbox

A small server for files and docs, backups and a paid mail relay. You still rent real mailboxes on top.

What you’d give up

Desktop Word, Excel and PowerPoint with full file compatibility
Exchange mailboxes with spam and malware filtering
Teams meetings with recordings and transcripts
Admin controls, device management and file recovery

Risks the price doesn’t show

Email deliveryHigh

Mail from a new server lands in spam until it builds a reputation, and one blocklist entry can stop all your email.

Office file compatibilityHigh

Opening and saving .docx and .xlsx files without breaking layout and formulas is a long list of edge cases.

Security and data lossHigh

You own patching, backups and account takeovers, and one mistake can lose company files.

When the verdict flips

There is no realistic flip to BUILD. Switch to Google Workspace or Zoho if you do not need desktop Office apps and the bill matters more than a migration.

Sources

Microsoft 365 business plans and pricing · Office Watch on the July 2026 price rise

Build hours are our estimates for one person using an AI app builder. How we score. Spotted a wrong price? Tell us on X @BuildictHQ.

Related verdicts

Google Workspace

Docs & productivity

BUY

Buy it. Email, docs, storage and video calls for $14 a user is hard to beat, and none of it is worth building.

Buy, 3 yrs: $2,520
Build, 3 yrs: $22,045

Grammarly

Docs & productivity

SWITCH

Switch to LanguageTool if spelling and grammar are what you use. It costs about half as much as Grammarly Pro.

Buy, 3 yrs: $432
Build, 3 yrs: $3,265

Notion

Docs & productivity

BUY

Buy it. A shared editor with databases is hard to build, and Notion Plus is only $10 a user.

Buy, 3 yrs: $1,800
Build, 3 yrs: $9,025