The Pros And Cons Of The Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE)

As of March 1, 2022, Microsoft has announced a relatively hefty price increase of 9% to 25%. The current flexible monthly subscriptions will be converted to annual subscriptions of 1 or 3 years. Monthly subscriptions remain available only at an additional cost of 20%. People call this New Commerce Experience (NCE).

NCE Subscription	Current price (EUR)	New price (EUR)– 12 or 36 months	New price (EUR)– 1 month (+20%)
Microsoft 365 Business Basic	€ 4,20	€ 5,04	€ 6,05
Microsoft 365 Business Premium	€ 16,90	€ 18,59	€ 22,31
Microsoft 365 E3	€ 31,46	€ 35,39	€ 42,47
Office 365 E1	€ 6,80	€ 8,50	€ 10,20
Office 365 E3	€ 19,70	€ 22,66	€ 27,19
Office 365 E5	€ 34,40	€ 37,35	€ 44,82

If your organization uses Microsoft 365, depending on your existing subscription and renewal date, you will ultimately need to make a decision about how your organization pays for Microsoft 365 licenses.

Essentially, you have 3 options to choose from:

1. From month to month
2. Annual
3. Three years

Here are the pros and cons to consider before implementing the New Commerce Experience.

MONTH TO MONTH

Benefits

The big advantage of month-to-month is flexibility. If your organization has seasonal workers or contractors, it makes sense to pay a 20% premium for a monthly subscription.

Disadvantages:

The obvious drawback is the 20% increase you incur if you choose this option. Because the only recurring anniversary date is the ^1st of each month, you have only 72 hours to receive a pro rata refund. Once the 72 hours is up, you will be billed for the full month.

ANNUAL

Benefits

Annual is the way to go for full-time employees, just for the 20% cost savings and the ability to lock in your price for 1 year. In addition, having one anniversary date per subscription makes it easier to budget and keep track of your licenses.

Cons

Once you are locked into an annual agreement, you pay for all the seats you have purchased for the entire year. (Please note that more seats are allowed mid-term and will be prorated for the remainder of the term).

3 YEARS

Benefits

The main benefit of the 3-year term is the 20% cost savings and the ability to lock in your price for 3 years. We recommend this to organizations with low employee turnover.

Cons

Just like the annual plan, once you have committed, you are stuck for 3 years and cannot reduce your number of seats to the rest of that term.

What to do.

We see that with most customers, licenses are not often cancelled. There are usually only additions. It is likely that most customers will choose to convert licenses to 12- or 36-month subscriptions. We will contact you about this when the time comes.

Current(legacy) subscriptions can still be ordered until March 1, 2022, after which only new NCE subscriptions can be purchased.

Existing legacy subscriptions can still be renewed for one year until July 1, 2022. Microsoft always talks about one year with respect to the duration of a subscription. After that year, i.e. after the final renewal date, the subscription stops and you should already have an NCE subscription.

Source: louisvillegeek