Microsoft 365 for Free Comes in Three Very Different Shapes
TechPP's guide sets out the price you avoid by going free. It says paid plans start at $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year for Microsoft 365 Basic and go up to $19.99 a month or $199.99 a year for Microsoft 365 Premium. Those prices can change, so check the checkout page before you pay. The free routes do not give you a free copy of any of those plans. They give you three separate products that happen to share the name.
| Route | Who qualifies | Desktop apps | Storage | How long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| School license (Office 365 A1, A3, A5 and related SKUs) | Students and staff at a school that has signed up and been verified | Depends on the license your school assigns | Set by the school's OneDrive for Business plan | While you are enrolled or employed there |
| Microsoft 365 for the web and mobile apps | Anyone with a free Microsoft account | No | 5 GB of Microsoft cloud storage | No end date |
| Consumer trial (Personal, Family, Premium) | New trial accounts with a payment method | Yes | 1 TB | One month, then paid unless you cancel |
The table points to the right order for most people. Check whether your school already covers you. Next, see whether the web apps do the job. Save the trial for a short stretch when you truly need the desktop apps.
Office 365 A1 Is Free, but Your School Holds the Key
TechPP's description of the education route is broadly right. You enter an institution-issued email address on Microsoft's education portal, then sign in or follow a verification link, and you get whatever apps your school's plan includes. Microsoft's education page confirms that educators and students with an eligible education email address can get Office 365 A1 for free. Microsoft calls A1 a donation to eligible institutions.
The important word is institutions. Microsoft's admin documentation on Microsoft Learn shows that verification happens at the school level. A school administrator starts an Office 365 A1 trial, submits the school's domain through an eligibility wizard, and waits for approval. Most schools get an immediate answer. If Microsoft needs more information, it sends a questionnaire and runs a manual review, which the Learn article says can take up to 10 business days. Microsoft's consumer-facing education page gives a different figure: some institution verifications can take up to a month. The two pages disagree. Either way, your address works only if your school has already been through this process.
Eligibility doesn't last forever. Microsoft says you can use the plan as long as you work at or are enrolled in a qualified school, and it may re-verify your eligibility at any time. When the plan ends, the installed apps drop to a reduced-functionality mode where you can view documents but not edit or create them. Services tied to your school address, such as Office for the web and OneDrive, stop working. Microsoft's fix is to re-verify your status or move to a personal plan. Graduating students should copy their files out of school OneDrive before their account goes away.
Microsoft's education page also advertises a separate college student offer. College students who sign up with their college email get 12 months of Microsoft 365 Premium free. Microsoft says the offer is for a limited time and that terms apply. This is a consumer promotion, not a school license, and it can suit a student whose college only provides web access.
Office 365 A1 Usually Means Web-Only, but Not Every A1 Plan
TechPP says schools most likely offer A1 because it's free, some offer A3, and the key difference is that A1 is web-only while A3 lets you download the apps. Microsoft's pricing agrees. Office 365 A1 includes the web versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, plus PC-only versions of Microsoft Access and Microsoft Publisher. Office 365 A3 adds the full Office desktop apps. Each user can install them on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones. Microsoft Learn also says A1 users on mobile can view documents and do basic editing.
For schools, Microsoft lists Office 365 A3 at $3.25 per user per month for faculty and $2.50 for students. Office 365 A5 costs $8.00 and $6.00. A5 adds unified communications, advanced analytics such as Power BI Pro, and advanced security and compliance tools.
The "A1 means web-only" rule has one exception. Microsoft's education service description, last updated April 21, 2026, lists Office 365 plans and Microsoft 365 plans separately. In the Office 365 table, Office 365 Education A1 has no Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise, which is the desktop suite. A3, A5 and the A3/A5 Student Use Benefit all include it. In the Microsoft 365 table, a license called Microsoft 365 A1 for devices does include Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. So the letter and number alone won't tell you whether you can install Word on your laptop. The exact license name will.
To find out, sign in to your school account at Microsoft365.com and look for an option to install the apps. If you don't see one, ask your school's IT team which license you've been assigned. You can't upgrade a school license yourself for free. Only the school decides which license you get.
Microsoft 365 for the Web and Mobile Apps Cover Most Everyday Documents
The route with no end date is Microsoft 365 for the web. It runs in the browser, so you install nothing. TechPP's steps are simple. Sign in at the Microsoft 365 portal with a Microsoft account, creating one if you need to. Open the app launcher, pick Word, Excel, PowerPoint or another app, and work on files stored in OneDrive. Changes save to the cloud automatically.
Microsoft's support pages agree and add some detail. The free tier includes 5 GB of cloud storage, and OneDrive files, photos and Outlook.com attachments all draw from it. Outlook.com email has its own 15 GB allowance on top of that. The web apps support real-time co-authoring and sharing, and they suit collaborative work well. The trade-off is connectivity. TechPP notes that the web apps stop working completely when you lose your internet connection.
TechPP names three common reasons to pay instead: creating and running VBA macros in Excel, installing the apps on several devices, and working fully offline. Treat those three as the usual deal-breakers, not a complete list. If a workflow depends on a desktop-only feature, test it in the browser before you rely on the free tier.
The mobile apps sit between the browser and the desktop. TechPP says the Word, Excel and PowerPoint mobile apps have limited features like the web versions but work partly offline. You can open a cached copy or edit local files without a connection. That offline behavior varies by app and file, so check it on your own device before you travel. Microsoft's mobile guidance also sets a hardware limit. Free core editing applies to phones and tablets with screens of 10.1 inches or smaller. Larger devices, including the iPad Pro, need a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan to create and edit documents, though all users can still view files.
The One-Month Microsoft 365 Trial Is a Subscription With a Timer
TechPP calls it a "30-day free trial" with "full, unrestricted access." Microsoft's wording is narrower. Its current offer page advertises a free month of Microsoft 365 Family, which includes the latest AI-powered Office apps, 1 TB of cloud storage, and advanced security features. The trial covers one consumer plan. It doesn't unlock every Microsoft 365 service. Microsoft's page also says AI features included in Microsoft 365 Family and Microsoft 365 Premium plans are only available to the subscription owner and cannot be shared with others.
Signing up requires a Microsoft account. As part of signing up for a trial or purchasing Microsoft 365, you will be prompted to sign in with a Microsoft account. You must be signed in with this account to install and manage your Microsoft 365 subscription, or to use some subscription benefits, including cloud storage. TechPP adds that you'll need a valid payment method if the account hasn't used a trial before.
The payment method is what turns a trial into a charge. Microsoft's offer page says the subscription can be easily canceled by turning off recurring billing. Canceling a consumer trial works like this:
- Sign in to the Services & subscriptions page of your Microsoft account. Use the Microsoft account that's associated with your Microsoft 365 trial.
- Find the Microsoft 365 trial and select Manage.
- If you see a Cancel link or an option to turn off recurring billing, use it and follow the prompts.
- If the subscription shows no payment method or recurring billing is already off, Microsoft says your trial will end on the Expires on date. You don't need to cancel because no future charges will be made.
Setting a reminder, as TechPP suggests, is sensible, but a reminder cancels nothing. Look for the recurring-billing status in your account. After the trial ends, you can continue to use Office for a short time after your trial ends. Eventually, Office will run in View Only mode and will show Unlicensed Product notifications. You also lose the extra storage. Plan for this if you've put more than 5 GB into OneDrive during the trial.
Business trials work differently and use different tools. For Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft says when your trial ends, your trial subscription will automatically convert to a paid subscription. You cancel business trials in the Microsoft 365 admin center, not on a personal account page. Microsoft Learn states that if you don't turn off recurring billing, after your one month free trial ends, you're charged the applicable subscription fee. If your trial subscription doesn't have a payment method associated with it, you can just let it expire at the end of the trial period, and you won't be charged. Don't use the consumer steps above for a business tenant, and don't use the business steps for a personal subscription.
What this means for you
Pick your route by where your files need to live and for how long. Students and staff should first ask their school which license they have. Home users with light document needs can stay on the free web apps for good. The trial is worth starting only when you have a specific short project that needs desktop Excel, macros, offline work or 1 TB of storage.
- Sign in with your school account at Microsoft365.com first, and ask IT for the exact license name, because Office 365 A1 is web-only while Microsoft 365 A1 for devices includes the desktop apps.
- College students whose school only offers web access should check Microsoft's limited-time offer of 12 months of Microsoft 365 Premium, keeping in mind that terms apply.
- The free Microsoft account tier comes with 5 GB of shared cloud storage and web apps that don't work offline, so keep local copies of anything you need on the road.
- Free editing in the mobile apps applies to devices with screens of 10.1 inches or smaller, so large tablets need a subscription to edit.
- After starting a consumer trial, open Services & subscriptions right away and turn off recurring billing if you don't plan to keep it. Your access still runs to the expiry date.
- Before your trial or school license ends, move files out of the storage you're about to lose, because the apps will drop to view-only.
For most readers, free Microsoft 365 means the browser apps and 5 GB of storage, with no time limit and no billing risk. The desktop apps stay free only while a school pays for them or a trial is running. When either ends, the installed apps become view-only and your files are only as safe as the storage you moved them to.