July 14, 2026
Microsoft 365 Price Hike 2026: What NJ Businesses Should Do
July 14, 2026
Starting July 1, 2026, Microsoft is raising prices on Microsoft 365 across the board. Some plans are going up as much as 43%. That's not a typo. Microsoft is bundling Copilot AI features into existing plans and calling it added value, but if you're a 20-person accounting firm in New Jersey who has zero interest in an AI assistant, you're still paying for it.
I've talked to plenty of business owners who don't even know what Copilot is yet. They're going to find out when their renewal invoice lands.
Microsoft is folding Copilot, Security Copilot capabilities, and expanded Intune device management into several Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise tiers. The argument is that you're getting more product for the higher price. That's technically true. Whether you need that product is a different question.
For a small business with 15 to 50 seats, even a $6 per user per month increase adds up fast. At 30 users, that's $2,160 more per year. At 50 users, you're looking at $3,600 or more annually depending on your current plan. These aren't catastrophic numbers, but they're real, and most owners I work with aren't budgeting for them right now.
The first thing I'd tell any business owner is to pull up your current Microsoft 365 plan and figure out exactly what tier you're on. A lot of companies are on plans that made sense three or four years ago but haven't been reviewed since. You might be paying for features you don't use, or you might be on a lower tier that actually fits your needs and could be switched before the pricing changes hit.
If you're on Microsoft 365 Business Premium, for example, you're already getting Intune and advanced security features. The price increase there may be more justifiable because you're actually using those tools. If you're on Business Basic and mostly using email and Teams, you need to look hard at whether the jump to the next tier makes sense for your workflow.
This matters more than most people realize. If you're on monthly billing, you're already paying a premium over annual commitment pricing, and the 2026 increases apply to both. If you lock in an annual commitment before July 1, 2026, you can hold your current pricing through the end of that term. That's a real option worth considering if your seat count is stable.
I'm not saying sign a long contract without thinking. But if you're already planning to stay on Microsoft 365 and your team size isn't changing, locking in before the increase is a straightforward way to save money.
Honestly, it depends on the business. I've seen it be genuinely useful for drafting emails, summarizing long meeting recordings, and helping staff who aren't strong writers produce cleaner output faster. I've also seen companies pay for it and have nobody actually use it after the first two weeks.
If you're going to be paying for Copilot whether you want it or not, at least make a real effort to test it. Assign someone to actually run it through its paces for 30 days. If it saves even one hour of work per week per person, the math starts to work in your favor. If nobody's touching it after a month, that's useful information too.
Do a license audit before the end of 2025. Figure out what you're paying, what plan you're on, and what features your team actually uses. Compare that against the new pricing tiers. If you have an IT partner, ask them to run the numbers for you. If you don't, this is a good time to have that conversation with someone who knows Microsoft's licensing structure well.
The July 2026 date feels far away, but annual renewals sneak up on you. If your renewal hits in March or April of 2026, you may have very little time to react.
Exine works with small and mid-size businesses across New Jersey and New York City on exactly this kind of planning. If you want someone to look at your current Microsoft 365 setup and tell you straight what makes sense, we're happy to do that.
