Office 365 Home Premium vs. Office 2013: Which Makes More Sense for You?

As I wrote in my Office 365 Home Premium review, Microsoft’s new consumer-oriented cloud service is a tremendous value for families and others with multiple PCs and devices. But individuals may be able to save money, or get the exact Office 2013 products and services they want, by purchasing a standalone Office suite instead. Here’s a comparison of what’s available, so you can make the right decision.

Office 365 Home Premium

License: Subscription
Cost: $99.99 per household per year
Installs: 5 PCs/devices

Office 365 Home Premium comes with five licenses to Office Professional 2013, which includes the core Office applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—as well as Outlook, Access, and Publisher. It also includes Office on Demand, 20 GB of additional SkyDrive storage, 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month, and perpetual upgrades for the life of the subscription. The cost is $99.99 per year in the US, with per-household licensing. Again, check out my Office 365 Home Premium review for the details.

Office 365 Small Business Premium

License: Subscription
Cost: $149.99 per user per year
Installs: 5 PCs/devices

Despite the naming similarity, Office 365 Small Business Premium has some important differences with Office 365 Home Premium, from both technological and licensing perspectives. It comes with five licenses to Office Professional Plus 2013, which includes the core Office applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—as well as Outlook, Access, Publisher, Lync, and InfoPath. It also includes Office on Demand, shared calendars and a 25 GB inbox in Exchange Online, 10 GB plus 500 MB per user in SharePoint Online, public-facing and intranet web site capabilities with custom domains, and perpetual upgrades for the life of the subscription. (If it’s not clear, where Office 365 Home Premium utilizes SkyDrive, Office 365 Small Business utilizes traditional, business oriented Office 365 cloud services.) The cost is $149.99 per year per user in the US: This entry is aimed at businesses with multiple users. So those 5 PC/device licenses are per-user, not per household.

Office Home & Student 2013

License: Perpetual
Cost: $139.99
Installs: 1 PC/device

Office Home & Student 2013 is a traditional version of the Office suite which provides only the core Office applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—and, new to this version, can only be installed on one PC. (Previous versions allowed for three installs.) It retails for $139.99 and comes with a perpetual license, meaning you buy it once and use it as long as you want.

Office Home & Business 2013

License: Perpetual
Cost: $219.99
Installs: 1 PC/device

Office Home & Business 2013 is also a traditional version of the Office suite which provides the core Office applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—as well as Microsoft Outlook. It too can only be installed on one PC and retails for $219.99, so that copy of Outlook adds $80 to the price. Like Home & Student, Home & Business comes with a perpetual license.

Office Professional 2013

License: Perpetual
Cost: $399.99
Installs: 1 PC/device

Office Professional 2013 is analogous to the version of Office you get with Office 365 Home Premium. But it is a traditional version of the Office suite, and comes with the core Office applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—plus Outlook, Access, and Publisher. It can only be installed on one PC and retails for $399.99, with a perpetual license.