Which Licenses Are Affected?

Only two donated licences will be affected:

• Donated Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences.
• Donated Office 365 E1 licences (legacy plan).

Note: The discounted Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Office 365 E1 licences will remain; it's only the donated versions of those licences that are being removed. The following licences are not impacted by this change:

• All discounted Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licences.
• Donated Microsoft 365 Business Basic licences.
• Any on-premises or device-based Office 2024/21/19/16 etc. licences that you own.

What You Can Expect

If your not-for-profit is using either of these licences, here's what to expect:

• You won't be able to renew affected licences on or after 1 July 2025. Microsoft will automatically cancel any affected licences upon your next renewal. You should switch to a different licence type before your licences are cancelled. If you do not switch and your licences are cancelled, you'll lose access to any data associated with your cancelled licences after 90 days.
• Any annual renewal that takes place before 1 July 2025 will be valid for a full year, after which you'll need to switch to different licences. For example, if your current subscription renews on 5 June 2025, it will be valid until 4 June 2026. However, if your current subscription expires on 5 July 2025, any affected licences will be cancelled on that date.

What Should I Do Next?

First, it's a good idea to check which licences your organisation has, where they're coming from and when they expire. Microsoft sent an email out to affected organisations on 15 May 2025 with most of that information, but if you can't find that, you can follow these steps:

• 1. Sign in to your Microsoft 365 global administrator account at admin.microsoft.com.
• 2. Choose the "Billing->Your Products" menu option from the menu on the left.
• 3. Click on any of the affected licence subscriptions from your list of licences. The page will be updated with information about your subscription's next renewal date, purchase channel (whether you receive these licences from Microsoft directly or from a provider) and licence quantities.

Next, consider your options and plan out your next steps. If you're getting your licences from a provider, make sure you're speaking to them too. We've outlined some pathways below for both licence types and a comparison table of different Office 365 and Microsoft 365 licences.

Moving from the Microsoft 365 Business Premium donation

Before you decide what to do, it's worth considering which features of the Business Premium licence you use and what you consider critical.

• Switch to a discounted licence, e.g. Business Premium or Business Standard. If you'd like to keep using the Microsoft 365 suite and retain access to the desktop Office applications, then switching to a discounted licence is the way to go. If you're making good use of Business Premium's extra security and mobile device management features (e.g. Microsoft Defender for Business, Purview, or Intune), then it makes sense to switch to the discounted Business Premium licence.
  However, if you're not making use of those features but still need the desktop Office suite, consider switching to Business Standard instead. It's less expensive – see our comparison table below for more information.
• Switch to the Business Basic donation. If you can make do with the Office web apps and don't need the extra security and mobile device management features, then the Business Basic licence is a good fit. It's still free, so it's a cost-effective option, and you still get access to Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. The Office web apps don't have all of the features that the desktop suite does, so keep that in mind and try out the web versions before you switch to ensure they'll meet your needs.

• Get on-premises licences. If your chief requirement is for the desktop Office suite and you don't make much use of or care to use the other features of Microsoft 365, you can get discounted on-premises (a.k.a. device-based) licences of Office as a once-off purchase for Windows and Mac devices. We have a guide on how to order those licences here. These licences come with a larger upfront cost and are licensed per-device, not per-user.
  If those options are cost-prohibitive, you can also consider open-source alternatives such as OnlyOffice, LibreOffice, or WPS Office. While these alternatives are cost-effective, take care to ensure they have the features you need and that they correctly handle the formatting of your documents – this is especially important if you're working with other people or groups who are still using the Office suite to edit or view your documents.

Moving from the Office 365 E1 donation

The main factor here is how many E1 licences you're currently using. If it's less than 300 licences, you should switch to the Microsoft 365 Business Basic donation instead, as it's similar in function and you can get up to 300 licences for free. If you're using more than 300 licences:

• Switch to discounted E1 licences, either by converting all licences entirely, or by maxing out the 300 Business Basic licence donation limit, then moving the remainder to the discounted E1 offer. This gives you the same set of features but will come at a cost – see the table below for pricing. The 'Frontline Worker' plans are also worth considering if you need less expensive licences, as these are also discounted.
• Migrate to an Enterprise Agreement (EA). If you already have a significant quantity of Enterprise licences, you can consider moving to a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. To get started, please submit an inquiry directly with Microsoft.

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365 licence comparison table

*Pricing below in AUD and for comparison purposes only. Some products below may not be available through TechSoup NZ*