Office Goes Subscription-Only for Home Use Program

The options for buying rather than subscribing to Microsoft Office have diminished as the Home Use Program (HUP) now only offers discounted subscriptions.

Microsoft's popular HUP is aimed at businesses who use Office at work. It allows employees to claim a discount on versions of the office suite for use at home. Until now, that included the option to purchase a perpetual license for Office 2019 ($89.99 at Mr Key Shop) , meaning paying once and using Office for as long as you like. But as Computerworld reports, that option is now no longer available.

Viewing the HUP FAQ confirms the change, with the answer to the question, "What has changed with the Home Use Program" stating:

Microsoft is updating the Home Use Program to offer discounts on the latest and most up to date products such as Office 365, which is always up to date with premium versions of Office apps across all your devices. Office Professional Plus 2019 and Office Home and Business 2019 are no longer available as Home Use Program offers.

Subscriptions to Office 365 were introduced to HUP earlier this year with a 30 percent discount alongside one-time license purchasing, but at the same time Microsoft stated perpetual licenses were going to disappear in the near future. Visiting the HUP homepage today confirms the focus is now squarely on Office 365.

While the removal of the one-time payment option is sure to anger and frustrate some, the Office 365 subscription through HUP is still good value if you need access to Office 2019 at home. Office 365 Home costs $69.99 instead of $99.99 per year and gets you access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access as well as 1TB of OneDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls, all of which is available for up to six users in your family. Alternatively, Office 365 Personal costs $48.99 instead of $69.99 per year and gets you the same, but for just one user.

The 30 percent discount is locked in for as long as you have an active subscription through HUP and even continues if you decide to leave the company that originally made you eligible to sign up. Alternatively, if all you want is an office suite without the extra services, subscription, or even any cost, LibreOffice may suit your needs, or you could use Microsoft Office for free on the Web.

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