Microsoft Teams free for companies will cease to exist next April 12. This has been officially announced by Microsoft, so companies that used this service have two months to find an alternative solution or use another corporate videoconferencing application.
Companies will have to pay from next April 12, 2023 to use Microsoft Teams
During the coronavirus pandemic, the rise of teleworking caused Microsoft Teams to double the number of users – to 115 million daily – but after the end of the health emergency Microsoft now decides that companies have to pay to use the service.
Those who decide to switch to a paid plan will be able to keep their meeting history, files, chats… but those who decide to look for an alternative solution will have to migrate all their files if they don’t want to lose them.
If the paid plan is not accepted, all the information will be lost and the free Microsoft Teams account for companies will no longer be active on April 12. It will still be possible to use the free version of Teams, but it will require a new registration.
With the free version, some of the features are limited. For example, the number of participants in a meeting is limited to a maximum of 100 people, and each call has a maximum duration of 60 minutes. In addition, the use of most of the additional functionalities that the corporate version allowed is limited, although it does offer 5 GB of cloud storage.
Microsoft Teams for Business payment options
If you decide to continue paying for Microsoft Teams, these are the options available to you:
-Microsoft Teams Essentials. It allows unlimited group meetings of up to 30 hours in duration, a limit of 300 participants per meeting and 10 GB of cloud storage. All for a cost of €3.40 per month per business user.
-Microsoft 365 Business Basic. In addition to offering all of the above, you will also have access to Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It costs 5.10 euros per month per user.
