Microsoft 365's July 1, 2026 price rise takes Business Standard to $168/user a year — OnlyOffice does the same document work, self-hosted, for nothing.
On July 1, 2026 Microsoft’s new commercial pricing takes effect: Business Basic climbs from $6 to $7 per user per month and Business Standard from $12.50 to $14, the first across-the-board Microsoft 365 increase in years and widely read as a Copilot “AI tax.” Announced back on December 4, 2025, it lands on every seat whether or not you use the new AI features. If what your team actually needs is documents, spreadsheets and slides — not the whole Exchange-and-Teams stack — OnlyOffice covers that ground for free when you self-host it.
OnlyOffice was built around Microsoft-format compatibility, so it opens and saves .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files with high fidelity rather than the rough conversions older open-source suites were known for. It supports real-time co-editing, comments and track changes, and the self-hosted Docs server (or the DocSpace bundle) gives your team a browser suite reachable from any device, backed by desktop and mobile apps. For the day-to-day of writing, budgeting and pitching, it does what most people open Office to do.
The honest limit is scope: you are replacing the office suite, not all of Microsoft 365. There is no Outlook/Exchange mail, no Teams, and no OneDrive-grade sync unless you add them separately — Nextcloud pairs well for storage. Heavy VBA macros, some advanced PivotTable behaviour, and a few niche formatting edge cases can drift between the two. And self-hosting means updates, backups and uptime are now yours to run.
For a small team, budget about a day. Stand up the OnlyOffice Docs container with Docker, point it at your storage or a Nextcloud instance, invite users, and open your most complex existing documents first to spot-check formatting. Keep a single Microsoft 365 seat alive through the transition for anything that will not convert cleanly, then cancel the rest once the suite has earned your team’s trust.