Thankfully, that won’t be the case - at least for the immediate future. However, it remained unclear for quite some time if it would be the last perpetual release and if Microsoft would transition to a subscription-only model for the Office suite. If you’d rather pay just once for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, you can still get Office 2019 for $150.
While you can use some of those apps for free online with a Microsoft account, you won’t be able to install them on your PC like you’d be able to if you pay for a subscription.
This subscription-based version of its suite gives you access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other apps for a monthly payment. The company has been pushing Microsoft 365 for years now as the main way to get its Office apps. “Microsoft Office will also see a new perpetual release for both Windows and Mac, in the second half of 2021,” the tech giant’s Exchange team wrote (as spotted by Windows Central), confirming that a new version of Office you can purchase with a one-time payment is coming next year. In a blog post announcing the next version of its Exchange Server, Microsoft has slipped in a single line that’s bound to make those who hate paying subscription fees for Office apps happy.
