The Microsoft 365 Business Premium Grant Ended: Your Options and Costs

Microsoft's free Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant for nonprofits is gone. Grant licenses expired at each organization's next renewal on or after July 1, 2025, and they do not renew. The replacement is up to 300 free Business Basic licenses plus discounted paid plans, with Business Premium at $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly.

By October 2026, almost every annual grant has passed its renewal date. If you haven't confirmed what your users are licensed for now, check this week.

What changed, in Microsoft's words

Microsoft's nonprofit updates page, under July 1, 2025, says:

• The Business Premium grant is discontinued. "Your licenses will expire on your next renewal date and will not renew."
• The Office 365 E1 grant is discontinued on the same terms.
• What remains: "up to 300 granted licenses of Microsoft 365 Business Basic and discounts of up to 75% on many Microsoft 365 offers to nonprofits, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft 365 Business Standard."
• License moves are manual. Microsoft recommends moving users to Business Basic or another nonprofit offer before the old subscription is canceled, to avoid disruption and data loss.

The grant covered up to 10 Business Premium seats per organization, according to partner sources such as Pax8. Microsoft's updates page doesn't restate the seat count.

What you lose moving from Premium to Basic

Business Basic is free for up to 300 users and includes web and mobile versions of Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Copilot Chat, and 1 TB of cloud storage per user (Microsoft Nonprofits).

It does not include:

• Desktop Office apps. People who rely on installed Word, Excel or Outlook will notice first.
• Business Premium's security and device management. Organizations that used Premium to manage laptops or apply advanced protection need to replace that capability or pay for it.

The data deadlines

If grant licenses lapsed without a replacement, Microsoft's subscription lifecycle article explains what happens next. For most offers bought directly from Microsoft:

Status	How long	What it means
Expired	30 days	Users still have normal access; admins can reactivate
Disabled	90 days	Users lose access; only admins can reach and back up data
Deleted	Final	Data is deleted; the subscription can't be reactivated

Important details from the same article:

• Deleted means gone. "Adding a new subscription of the same type doesn't restore the data."
• Explicitly deleting a subscription skips the grace periods and immediately deletes SharePoint and OneDrive content.
• Different channels, different clocks. Subscriptions bought through a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) follow Partner Center rules, and as of February 9, 2026, the Expired state no longer applies to license-based subscriptions bought directly under a Microsoft Customer Agreement. Ask your partner which applies to you.

Many nonprofits got the Premium grant through a partner, so if you don't know where your licenses came from, check the billing section of the Microsoft 365 admin center or ask your IT provider.

Your options and what they cost

Prices as of October 2026, per user, from Microsoft's offers page:

Option	Per user per year	10 users per year
Business Basic (grant)	$0	$0
Business Premium (nonprofit)	$5.50 × 12 = $66	$660
Microsoft 365 E3 (nonprofit)	$9.75 × 12 = $117	$1,170
Business Premium (commercial, reported)	$22 × 12 = $264	$2,640
Google Workspace for Nonprofits	$0	$0

Microsoft's offers page doesn't list a nonprofit price for Business Standard, which also includes desktop apps; ask Microsoft or your partner for a quote. The commercial Premium price comes from secondary coverage, not Microsoft's site.

Option 1: Everyone on Business Basic ($0)

Best for teams that already work in the browser. Cost: $0. Risk: anyone who needs desktop Office or managed devices is left without it.

Option 2: Mixed licensing (usually the cheapest that works)

Put only the people who need desktop apps or Premium security on Business Premium, and everyone else on Basic.

Example: an organization had 10 grant seats. Three staff (finance director, development director, executive director) need desktop Excel and managed laptops; seven don't.

3 × $66 = $198 a year, compared with 10 × $66 = $660 for everyone on Premium. That's $462 a year saved by not over-licensing.

Option 3: Everyone on Business Premium ($66 per user per year)

Simplest to administer and keeps every feature you had. For 10 users: $660 a year.

Option 4: Move to Google Workspace

Google Workspace for Nonprofits is free for up to 2,000 users. Switching platforms is a real project (every mailbox, calendar and file moves), so it rarely makes sense just to avoid a few hundred dollars a year. Compare both in Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 for nonprofits.

What to do now: a checklist

1. Find your renewal date and status. In the admin center, check whether your Business Premium subscription is Active, Expired, Disabled or gone.
2. List who uses desktop apps. Ask staff directly; people often use desktop Excel or Outlook without thinking of it as a separate license.
3. Activate the Business Basic grant if you haven't. Microsoft's steps: select the grant, confirm the licenses are in your tenant, replace users' Premium licenses, then cancel the old subscription.
4. Buy Business Premium only for the people who need it, at $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly.
5. Back up data for anyone whose subscription is Disabled before the 90 days run out.
6. Don't delete the old subscription until every user has a new license and their data is confirmed.
7. Put the next renewal on the calendar. Discounted plans renew yearly.

If you have more than 300 users, Basic won't cover everyone; Microsoft points E1 organizations above 300 users to a Microsoft representative, and a partner can model options.

Questions we can't answer from Microsoft's pages

• Exact grace periods for partner-bought subscriptions. These follow Partner Center rules; your partner can confirm.
• Whether a lapsed grant subscription can be reactivated as a grant. Microsoft says the grant does not renew, so assume you'll need Basic or a paid plan.

For the full current Microsoft price list and eligibility, see the Microsoft 365 nonprofit page. To find the cheapest license mix for your staff and check the rest of your software, run the free audit.