Microsoft 365 vs. Office 2024: What's the Difference?

At first glance, Microsoft 365 and Office 2024 appear very similar to each other, as they both give you access to Microsoft's well-known and well-used apps. However, once you delve deeper, it doesn't take long to notice that they're actually very different.

Office 2024—the successor to Office 2021—is Microsoft's one-time-purchase alternative to Microsoft 365. In this article, we'll break the two packages down, helping you choose the one that's right for you. Since Office 2024 includes both Office Home 2024 and Office Home & Business 2024, we'll compare these to Microsoft 365's Personal and Business subscriptions.

What is the Difference in Cost and Payments?

In short, Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based service, while Office 2024 requires a one-off purchase. Here are some more specific details.

Personal

Microsoft 365 Personal is a subscription-based package, and costs $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year. There is no upfront cost other than your first subscription payment. Office Home 2024 requires a one-off upfront payment of $149.99, and once you've paid, there are no further costs.

Business

Microsoft 365's Business packages range in cost from $6 per user per month to $22 per user per month (paid annually), depending on whether you need the Basic, Standard, or Premium version. Once your free one-month trial has elapsed, you'll be billed for the whole year. Office Home & Business 2024 costs $249.99 upfront, with no further charges thereafter.

What Apps Are Included?

Whether you go for Microsoft 365 or Office 2024 primarily depends on which apps you want to use.

Personal

Microsoft 365 Personal comes with desktop apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Defender, OneDrive, Outlook, Clipchamp, and OneNote. You can also benefit from Microsoft Editor, an AI-powered service that helps you with grammar, spelling, style, and other writing essentials, if your language is supported. Office Home 2024 offers Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote desktop apps. When you install and download Office Home 2024, you get the latest versions of these apps, but they will not be updated with new features. Office 2024 does not include Microsoft Editor, and there's no Copilot support.

Business

Which apps you receive with a Microsoft 365 Business subscription depends on which level you purchase. Microsoft 365 Business Basic includes Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange as cloud-only services, and Word, Excel, PPT, and Outlook as web and mobile apps. Microsoft 365 Business Standard comes with all services offered through the Basic package as desktop, web, mobile, and cloud services, plus Clipchamp and Loop. The Microsoft 365 Business Premium package offers all the services you get with the Standard package, plus Extra ID, Intune, Defender, and Purview. All business packages include Microsoft Editor. With Office Home & Business 2024, you get the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook as desktop apps without Microsoft Editor or Copilot.

Office 2024 Doesn't Come with Cloud Storage

If you use Microsoft's cloud storage a lot, Office 2024 is a tough sell.

The Microsoft 365 Personal package comes with 1TB of cloud storage for one subscriber, while the Microsoft 365 Business accounts come with 1TB per employee. You can also purchase 200GB, 400GB, 600GB, 800GB, or 1TB of additional storage if required, with the cost added to your existing subscription. Neither Office Home 2024 nor Office Home & Business 2024 offer cloud storage, and files stored locally only.

Both sets of software receive security updates, but that is the extent of the similarity.

Apps used through the Microsoft 365 Personal or Business subscription are continually updated with the latest features and security updates. Office 2024 is "locked-in-time," meaning you receive security and bug fixes only. Customers who choose the one-off-payment package do not receive the latest app updates.

Can You Use Them on Multiple Devices?

Both Microsoft 365 Personal and Business are compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, and, given its cloud-supported accessibility, you can easily jump between devices for on-the-go use.

On the other hand, Office 2024 can only be installed on one PC or Mac, regardless of whether you're a Home or a Home & Business customer.

Summary

Office 2021 vs. Office 2024

If you already purchased Office 2021, you might be considering whether it's worth upgrading to Office 2024.

The 2024 version includes most of the features introduced to Microsoft 365 subscribers in recent years, which the 2021 version doesn't. For example, the newer apps have a more modern interface, including a new color scheme and improved accessibility tools. In terms of the individual programs, 2024's Excel has many additional functions and improved performance, Outlook (for business users only) has improved search capabilities, OneNote has new drawing and ink tools, and Word includes improved document recovery processes.

If you're looking to upgrade, while going from Office to 2021 to Office 2024 might seem the obvious jump, it's certainly worth considering the benefits of subscribing to Microsoft 365 instead.

Both Microsoft 365 and Office 2024 give you access to Microsoft's comprehensive productivity tools. Despite this, the packages differ significantly. Microsoft 365 is better if you prefer a subscription-based payment structure, want to access the apps on the go through the cloud, and need more than Microsoft's core apps. On the other hand, Office 2024 is ideal if you want to make a one-off purchase, don't require multi-device access, and need only the traditional programs.