Pays Microsoft 365 Premium? What you get for $20 a month – and how it compared to ChatGPT Plus is

Now Redmond tries to sell the same subscribers for a new plan, Microsoft 365 Premium, which costs $200 a year. That's 54% more than the price of Microsoft 365 Family. There's a tempting discount for existing subscribers -- $100 for the first year, which is 50% off. In essence, Microsoft offers existing family subscribers $30 to test the new edition for one year. But after that promo runs out, Satya Nadella's marketing team is hoping that you'll keep paying. I've seen a lot of documentation and paid a premium subscription to find out exactly what you get with this edition. I compiled the results in this post. What is Microsoft 365 Premium? At the beginning of 2025, when Microsoft stumbled over the renaming and price increase of Microsoft 365, Copilot Pro was an add-on that cost 20 US dollars a month or 200 US dollars a year. Subscribers received priority access to the latest ChatGPT-Models as well as access to AI functions in the free web versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and Outlook. If you had a paid subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, you got those AI features in the desktop Office apps as well. Microsoft has never announced how many people have paid for Copilot Pro, but it is certain that the number was very low. In November, Copilot Pro has abandoned and Microsoft 365 Premium, which is practically a bundle of the old Copilot Pro with the Microsoft 365 family. What features are included in Microsoft 365 Premium? I have compiled a table so that you can see at a glance what is included in Microsoft 365 Premium and how it cuts off compared to the other subscription plans in the Microsoft 365 group. Microsoft calls it on the website of the service M365 Copilot, so I have also adopted this nomenclature here. Plans

Costs

What you get

M365 Basic

2 $/month; 20 $/year

100 GB OneDrive memory, Office web applications and promotion-free Outlook.com email for a user

Personal

$10/month; $100 per year

1 TB OneDrive memory, Office desktop apps on up to five PCs, ad-free Outlook.com email, 60 copilot credits per month, “comprehensive usage” by Copilot Chat and 15 Deep Research Credits

M365 family

13 $/month; 130 $/year

Everything personally, for up to six users; Each user receives 1 TB private OneDrive storage space and Office desktop apps on five PCs, but only the account holder gets access to AI functions

M365 Premium

$20/month; $200/year

Everything in the family for up to six users; The account holder receives access to “exclusive AI functions” and increased AI usage beyond standard credit limits

Overview of Microsoft 365 editions

From today, these “exclusive AI functions” include three agents – a researcher, an analyst and a photo agent that is still in the preview. These options are available in the M365 Copilot Web app only to the owner of an M365 Premium subscription. Are some of these features not free? Copilot functions are in Windows, in Edge and in the mobile copilot app as part of the free copilot plan for free. This plan has some usage restrictions – 15 boosts per day to generate images, and access to the latest AI models is only possible outside peak hours. The extended AI functions are only available with a Microsoft 365 subscription. Copilot Pro was originally a direct competitor of ChatGPT Plus, the main paid offer of OpenAI designed for consumers. The change to Microsoft 365 Premium keeps the same price of $20 per month as ChatGPT Plus, but additionally offers the benefits of a Microsoft 365 Family subscription. Copilot in Microsoft 365 uses the same OpenAI models as ChatGPT Plus and has similar usage restrictions, but allows you to interact directly with Word, Excel and other Office files. If you are already Microsoft 365 subscribers and frequently use ChatGPT Plus, you should try out the Microsoft variant, in particular with the current action offer. If your primary work environment Google Docs or another non-Microsoft alternative is, the arguments for Microsoft 365 Premium are less convincing. Who is Microsoft 365 Premium designed for? The target group for this product is people who have already subscribed to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, who like to interact with an AI chatbot or make AI-improved images and regularly encounter usage limits with ChatGPT or other commercial options. If you are already a subscriber to a consumer edition of Microsoft 365, including the basic plan for $2 per month, you are entitled to a one-year premium subscription at a discounted price of $100. It includes all features of Microsoft 365 Family. So if you already have a family subscription, you can get a one-year extension for $30 discount and test the AI functions for a whole year. Testeditions do not have a claim to the discount, but you can pay 2 US dollars for a one-month subscription to Microsoft 365 Basic and then upgrade to a one-year M365 Premium Plan at a discounted price. To redeem the offer, go to https://account.microsoft.com, log in to the Microsoft account of the subscription owner and click the Manage Microsoft 365 Family, Personal or Basic link above. Read the conditions carefully. The remaining time of your current plan is proportionally estimated and added to the new subscription. If the extended subscription ends, the full fare will be charged to you. You can make sure that this does not happen by deactivating the recurring billing. If you reach the end of the runtime, you need to sign up again to return to your old subscription type.