Using Office 365 service is connected with buying a subscription for the users.
What to do if you are looking to test, play with or learn about Office 365?
There are several ways to get Microsoft Office 365 products for free. I will share with you a few ways to get Office 365 subscriptions for free. Thanks to that you play with it, learn more about it and build your first solutions.
If you are Office 365 Power User, Business Champion or Office 365 users your own Office 365 environment will give you the possibility to deep dive into Microsoft Cloud. Moreover, your Office 365 “Development” environment will be totally separated from other Office 365 so you can hard anyone else.
You can use additional Office 365 free tenant for:
- pandemic of Covid-19 and remote work from home (point added after the article were prepared)
- presentation / PoC environment
- testing Office 365
- development environment
I want to encourage you to get your own Office 365 tenant and use available apps.
? Some of the links below are “affiliate links”. It means if you will order in next 30 days the licenses or trial subscriptions from Microsoft I will receive a small commission. No extra cost for you.
Get the free trial Office 365 subscription
The simplest way to get free access to Office 365 is to sign up for the Office 365 Trial license.
Key parameters of the service:
- Microsoft offers 30-days fully-functional trial subscriptions for a few available plans.
- You will be allowed to setup up to 25 user accounts during the trial period.
- Data and services could be commercially used
During registration to the subscription, you will be asked your credit card. After 30 days you will be charged with the license costs. You need to cancel your subscription before the 30 day trial period will finish.
Sign-up for the Microsoft Office 365 Trial license:
? Office 365 Business 30 days Trial Subscription
? Office 365 Business Premium 30 days Trial Subscription
? Office 365 E3 30 days Trial Subscription
? Office 365 E5 30 days Trial Subscription
6-months Office 365 E1 Tral License
Microsoft prepared a special option for the companies that need to face remote work-related with the Covid-19 pandemic. Subscription will work from March 2020 to August 2020. To receive this license you need to contact your local Microsoft office.
? Office 365 E1 180 days Trial Subscription
If you decide to continue with Office 365 in a commercial model you automatically move from trial to production tenant.
Get the free Office 365 Developer subscription
An alternative way to get your own Office 365 subscription is to sign for the Office 365 Developer program.
Key parameters of the service:
- Microsoft offers a 90-days fully-functional Office 365 subscription.
- You will be allowed to setup up to 25 user accounts
- Service could be used for the development, testing of Office 365. It cannot be used for production usage.
If you will actively use the service your subscription will be extended for the next 3 months period of time.
? If you will actively use and build solutions on Office 365 Developer tenant it will be renewed every 3 months.
It is a great scenario for setting up a developer or testing tenant.
Sign-up for the Microsoft Office 365 Developer license:
? Office 365 Developer Subscription
Remember this solution for non-production use. You will be able to use it as long as you will execute activity on it.
Get the free Office 365 from your school
Microsoft offers free Office 365 for Education licenses for students who own school email address.
Key parameters of the service:
- You can use a free Office 365 license for the education period of time.
- The license will be assigned only for you based on school licenses
- Data and services could be used during education.
To register for Office 365 for Education your school needs to join Microsoft program and you have to own a school email address.
Sign-up for the Microsoft Office 365 Education license:
Remember that you can use the license during studying. When you will lose your student status your account will be turn-on into read-only mode and removed after 6o days.
Get the free Office Online services for individual
Microsoft offers also a free version of most Office 365 services for an individual. If you are a freelancer it could a good solution for you.
Key parameters of the service:
- You can use free services and share with others
- The license will be assigned only for you
- Data and services could be used without time limitations. Services have some limitations and are not interconnected.
To register for free Office services you will need Microsoft Account.
Sign-up for the Microsoft free Office Services:
The Office solutions for an individual have limitations but could be a simple alternative if you don’t need a complex app package. The mixture of OneDrive, Teams and Office Online will help you to improve your productivity.
