Office 365 is getting better & better. You can now switch plans very easily from the portal.
One of the pain points for admins who were getting familiarized with Office 365 was the lack of option to move from one plan to another seamlessly.
Most of the time, admins started on the wrong plan or as the company grew, they wanted to move to an advanced plan. The only option was to sign up for the required plan and move all users and data from the existing plans manually.
This has been addressed by the Office 365 team and you can now move from one plan to another (upwards) from your portal. Small Business subscribers can switch to both Midsize & Enterprise plans and Midsize Business subscribers can switch to Enterprise plans. You still have to contact the O365 support if you want to downgrade a plan.
In order to move to a plan higher up, login to the admin centre & navigate to Licensing -> Subscriptions.
If your plan is eligible for an upgrade, a “Switch Plans” option will be visible. Click on the option and proceed with the steps.
The following happens during the switching:
- There will be no interruption to your service and users are still able to access their data.
- Admins will not able to use the Office 365 portal.
- Users on your existing subscription are automatically moved to the new subscription.
- The Office 365 licenses are reassigned and any remaining amount on the old subscription will be credited to the new plan.
The switch plan option will not be exposed if you are on a trial. If you started the trial with the wrong plan, purchase the plan and then switch to the one you need.
