Microsoft Office 2024 is now available, no subscription needed

It’s been three years since Microsoft released the 2021 version of its inescapable Office apps suite, but the company hasn’t been resting on its laurels. The subscription-based, always-online Microsoft 365 has been getting constant tweaks and updates in that time.

But not everyone is keen on software-as-a-service. If you’d rather pay a flat fee for software, here’s some good news for you: Microsoft just released Office 2024 for consumers.

The base version of Office 2024 is called Office Home — I see Microsoft is keeping up its tradition of terrible branding — and it includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for a price tag of $150 on both PC and Mac.

There’s also the Office Home & Business version that adds commercial licensing, which really only matters if your business is big enough to have an HR department, for $250. (If you need to install on five or more machines, talk to Microsoft’s sales department for bulk licensing and be prepared for a hard upsell to Microsoft 365.)

The big draw of Office 2024 is that you can purchase the package once and use it forever — or at least for however long Microsoft keeps its purchase validation servers running.

But it’s also worth considering if you’re a power user because it offers improved performance, updated interface tweaks, and more data analysis and image embedding tools in Excel, as well as support for new features in the OpenDocument ODF 1.4 standard.

Furthermore, PowerPoint’s Cameo feature lets you embed a live camera feed into a slide. (Don’t do that. Please don’t do that. If you’re giving a PowerPoint presentation, you’re either already in the room with someone or you’re on a video call. There’s no reason to do this. Please, for the love of [Editor’s note: Michael continues like this for some time. I’ve decided to spare you the groveling.])

Note that Office 2024 is a locked-in-time version, which means all of the included Microsoft apps have been updated to the latest features for release but won’t be receiving further updates. To stay on top of evolving features, you’ll want Microsoft 365 instead.

Also note that you will need a Microsoft account and an internet connection to initially validate your Office 2024 license, but after that it should work just fine even when you’re offline. It’s compatible with Windows 10 and 11, but you’ll be out of luck if you’re still hanging on to earlier versions. (Then again, if that’s you, you probably still have an older version of Office sitting around.)