
Office as a service offered by Microsoft 365 Whether you purchase a single copy of Office 2021 at a retail store or download hundreds of them through bulk licensing, Microsoft refers to this as a “one-time purchase” since you only pay once for a Microsoft product, rather than monthly. Perpetual License – A lifelong license for Office 2021 Unless we’re referring to a specific plan, we’ll use “ Microsoft 365” as shorthand for all “365” subscriptions in this story. Both Office 365 and Microsoft 365 programs are offered at the enterprise level. It was later renamed Microsoft 365 for personal and small business subscribers. When this version was first released in 2011, Microsoft referred to it as Office 365. Then there’s the cloud-based subscription version, for which you pay a monthly or annual charge. Support for Microsoft 365 subscriptions, on the other hand, never expires – as long as you keep paying. That’s just five years of support, down from seven in Microsoft Office 2019 and ten in previous iterations. Office 2021 and Office LTSC 2021 will only get security upgrades until October 13, 2026. There is a “perpetual” edition of Microsoft Office 19 that may be purchased once the most recent version is Office 2021. There are other ways to obtain Microsoft products or, more precisely, the license to use them. However, there are no upgrade options like Microsoft 365, so if you want to move up to the next major version, you’ll have to pay full price for it.

Both PCs and Macs support past purchases. Office 2021 is offered as a one-time purchase, so you just need to pay a one-time fee in advance to obtain Microsoft products for a single machine.

This productivity suite is used by individuals working in 106 languages in virtually every country on the planet, and it is accessible in personal, small business, corporate, and educational editions. Billions of people across the world use Microsoft products to work and learn, whether they do so from home, an office, a classroom, or a mix of the three.
