MICROSOFT 365 PRICE INCREASE · JULY 2026
Microsoft's raising prices.
Your M365 bill doesn't have to.
ShareGate Protect helps you reduce Microsoft 365 costs with license optimization. Find unused licenses, clean up inactive workspaces, and reclaim storage. Before your renewal costs more.
Trusted by 100,000+ IT pros
Microsoft's pricing update makes waste more expensive to ignore
Unused licenses, over-provisioned users, and inactive workspaces inflate your Microsoft 365 spend. Without proper Microsoft 365 license optimization, these inefficiencies only get more expensive after the price increase. That means, you’ll be paying the increase on top of the waste you haven’t found yet.
What’s changing?
- Microsoft prices rise up to 33% across seven SKUs on July 1, 2026
- New contracts and renewals after that date are affected
Why it matters
- Higher prices mean unused licenses become more expensive to ignore
- Over-provisioned users quietly eat away at your Microsoft 365 budget
- Inactive and duplicate workspaces inflate storage
Get ahead of the increase. See your waste. Fix it.
With ShareGate Protect, you can see license usage, clean up inactive workspaces, and reclaim storage. No scripts or admin-center hopping.
See every license in your tenant
The license report shows your entire M365 footprint in one view.No more spreadsheet audits or manual cross-referencing.
- Quickly understand how licenses are allocated across your tenant with key details and filtering
- See which licenses include Copilot
- Reduce unnecessary spend by spotting unassigned licenses and those assigned to inactive users
Take action on inactive workspaces and reclaim storage
ShareGate Protect turns insight into action with built-in remediation tools that let you clean up confidently.No switching tools, no scripting.
- Get ahead of storage costs by cleaning up inactive and redundant workspaces
- Archive workspaces (sites, groups, and teams) without losing important content
- Reclaim storage by reviewing archived workspaces and deleting what you no longer need
.webp)
Uncover waste. Fix it fast.
See every license and who’s using it
Clean up inactive workspaces
Reclaim storage before costs add up
Add governance before your M365 bill goes up.
While you're optimizing costs, don't overlook these
FAQs
Think of it this way: any waste that exists in your tenant today, such as unused licenses, over-provisioned users, and inactive workspaces,will be come more expensive after July 1, 2026, when Microsoft’s pricing updates will take effect. That means you'll be paying the increase on top of the waste you haven't found yet.
The good news is the window to act is still open. If you can identifyand remove unused licenses before your renewal,you're not just avoiding the increase on those seats, you're removing them entirely. Same goes for storage: cleaning up archived or orphaned content now means you're not paying inflated rates to store things nobody needs.
Our blog on Microsoft 365 pricing changes walks through the specific SKUs affected and how to think about your footprint before renewal.
The increase takes effect July 1,2026 and applies to contracts renewing on or after that date. If your agreement renews before July 1, your current pricing holds for that term. Month-to-month subscriptions typically reflect new pricing in the first billing cycle after July 1, 2026. Check your renewal date in Microsoft 365 Admin Center under Billing. For more information, refer to Microsoft’s documentation on managing subscriptions in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Removing a Microsoft 365 license from an inactive user doesn’t immediately delete their data. The user loses access to services, but their data is retained for a period of time depending on the workload and your organization’s retention settings. Check out Microsoft’s documentation on removing a user’s license for more information.
Before removing a license, decide what needs to be preserved and migrate it to a licensed OneDrive, a SharePoint site, or an archive. ShareGate Protect helps you spot these orphaned accounts before you act, so nothing disappears by accident.
The real cost impact of Microsoft’s pricing increase depends less on the percentage increase and more on how many licenses you’re carrying and how many of them are actually in use.
For enterprise customers, even a modest per-user increase can translate into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. For example, a $3/user/month increase across 5,000 users results in an additional $180,000 per year.
If 10–20% of licenses are assigned to inactive or underutilized users, the price increase compounds that waste. Meaning you’re paying more for licenses you don’t need.
In practice, the “real” cost impact isn’t just the increase itself. It’s the increase applied to your total license footprint, including unused capacity.
Trusted by IT pros like you
