Microsoft is pulling the free MS365 Business Premium licenses granted to non-profits and replacing them with Business Basic and discounts for its other services.
The announcement was made this week and surprised many users.
Teams is still there, but many other services, such as Intune, are absent…
According to Microsoft, which reported net income of $25.8 billion in its earnings release for FY25 Q3 ended March 31, 2025, “Our goal in Tech for Social Impact (TSI) is to ensure nonprofits can benefit from the industry leading solutions that are critical to ensuring the highest level of organizational security and productivity.”
As such, it is generously removing the ten licenses for Microsoft 365 Business Premium that it previously granted to non-profits. The replacement? “We are transitioning to provide up to 300 licenses of Microsoft 365 Business Basic and discounts of up to 75 percent on many Microsoft 365 offers to nonprofits.”
So if a non-profit wants to keep using Business Premium, which includes desktop versions of Microsoft’s Office applications, and management services such as Intune, they must start paying once their subscription is up. The discount – up to 75 percent – is substantial, but it will still be a jump for organizations which, by their nature, sometimes have to watch every penny.
Business Basic lacks many of the features of Business Premium. The desktop versions of the Office applications are gone, replaced by web apps. Teams is still there, but many other services, such as Intune, are absent.
A Register reader got in touch about the impact. His organization had recently shifted its tech back-office to Microsoft 365 non-profit, and was now faced with some unexpected and unwelcome extra costs. “The short notice period is pretty unhelpful,” he added, “and sadly becoming too common with Microsoft.”
“Unfortunately, with Google doing much the same (the reason we migrated to MS), this is just the new reality we face.”
Social media reaction to Microsoft’s change has been less than supportive. In a post entitled “What the fuck Microsoft,” a user described the move as “Yet another money grab.”
The amounts involved are, at face value, relatively trivial and smack of a mean-spiritedness on the part of Microsoft. We asked the company how many customers would be affected by the change, and how much it expected to save. After all, the figures concerned are unlikely to be more than a rounding error in terms of the company’s finances. The tech giant has yet to respond.
As the original poster said, “The Lord Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away.” ®
