What's the difference between Office 365 and Office 2016?

Applies To: Office 2016 Office for business Office for home

Office 365 is a subscription service that ensures you always have the most up-to-date tools from Microsoft. There are Office 365 plans for home and personal use, as well as for small and midsized businesses, large enterprises, schools, and nonprofits.All Office 365 plans for home and personal use include Office 2016 with the fully installed Office applications that you’re familiar with, like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, plus extra online storage, ongoing tech support at no extra cost, and more. You can choose to pay for your subscription on a monthly or yearly basis, and the Office 365 Home plan lets you share your subscription with up to four members of your household.Most of the Office 365 plans for business, schools, and nonprofits include the fully installed applications, but Microsoft also offers basic plans with the online versions of Office, file storage, and email. You decide what works best for you: Smaller business, Enterprise, School, or Nonprofit.Office 2016 is also sold as a one-time purchase, which means you pay a single, up-front cost to get Office applications for one computer. One-time purchases are available for both PCs (such as Office Home & Student 2016) and Macs (such as Office Home & Student 2016 for Mac). One-time purchases don’t have an upgrade option, which means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you’ll have to buy it at full price.

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Compare Office 2016 as a one-time purchase to an Office 365 subscription

One-time purchase (Example: Office Home & Student 2016)	Office 365 subscription (Example: Office 365 Home)
Cost	*Pay a single, one-time cost*	*Pay a small monthly fee, or save by paying for a full year*
Office applications	Get Office 2016 applications, like Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Your apps won’t be updated when new features are released.	Get the latest version of Office applications, like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Right now that’s Office 2016, but your version will continue to receive new feature updates. PC users also get Access and Publisher.
Feature updates	Security updates are included, but you won’t get new features that are added to Office 2016. Upgrades to major releases aren’t included.	Your version of Office will always be improving. Get the latest features and updates from Microsoft. Major upgrades to future versions are included.
Install Office on more than one computer (Mac or PC)	One-time purchases are designed for a single operating system, so your copy of Office is good for either one Mac or one PC.	With Office 365 Home, you can install Office desktop applications on up to 5 computers, which can be a combination of Macs and PCs. If you don’t need all of those installs, share them with members of your household.
Install Office and get advanced features on tablets and phones	Get basic editing features only on your tablet or phone.	Get extra features when you sign in to Office apps on your device. With Office 365 Home, you’ll get these extra features on up to 5 tablets and 5 smartphones.
Extra online storage	Not included.	Securely store your files in the cloud and access them from anywhere. Get 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage per user, for up to 5 users (Office 365 Home).
Technical support is included	Initial technical support is included for installing only.	Contact us throughout your subscription at no extra cost for help with technical issues, or for subscription and billing support.