Microsoft sells Office two ways: pay once and keep it, or pay every year. Most comparisons online are written by whoever benefits from one answer. Here is the version that is not.
The two models
Perpetual licence (Office 2021, Office 2024). You pay once. It is yours. It runs on one PC. You get security updates until the support date, then nothing. No cloud storage. It never becomes a newer version.
Microsoft 365 (Personal, Family, Business). You pay every year. You get whatever the latest version is, on several devices, with a terabyte of OneDrive storage per person. Stop paying and the apps drop into read-only mode.
Three questions that decide it
1. How long will you use this machine? A perpetual licence is cheaper the longer you keep it. Over one or two years the subscription is often competitive. Past three or four years, buying once is usually well ahead on cost.
2. Do you actually want the cloud storage? A terabyte of OneDrive per user is a real product with real value, and it is the strongest argument for the subscription. If you already pay for Google Drive or Dropbox, you are paying twice.
3. How many devices? Microsoft 365 Family covers up to six people. If you are equipping a household, the subscription maths shifts sharply in its favour. For a single desktop that never moves, it does not.
Where perpetual wins
- One machine, kept for years
- You want a fixed cost, not a recurring one
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are all you need
- You already have cloud storage elsewhere
Where the subscription wins
- A household or team with several devices
- You want the storage anyway
- You want to stay on the current version without buying again
- You replace machines often
The trap to avoid
Buying a perpetual licence for a version that is near its end of support. You pay a once-off price for a shorter runway than you think you are getting. Check the support date before you buy — we have written up the current Office support dates.
Our once-off Office and Windows licences start from R299. If you tell us how many machines you are covering and how long you plan to keep them, we will tell you honestly which of the two makes more sense — including when the answer is the subscription.