How to upgrade Office 365 Licenses

When you purchase your Office 365 licenses direct from Microsoft (or via a Microsoft Partner under the Advisor model), you can upgrade your Office 365 licenses in the Microsoft Online services portal.

There are three main steps

1. Purchase the new Office 365 plan
2. Replace the user’s licenses
3. Reduce the old licenses or Remove the subscription.

Here’s how to do it.

Purchase the new Office 365 plan

1. Log into https://portal.office.com as a Global Administrator or Billing Administrator
2. Click the App Launcher
3. Click the Admin tile
4. Click Purchase Services on the left menu
5. Find the plan that you want to upgrade some or all of your users to. Then click Buy Now
6. Order enough user licenses for the users you want to upgrade, and then proceed through the billing steps.
7. Once you’ve purchased the licenses, return to the Admin center to assign them to users. Note that it may take 10 – 20 minutes for the licenses to become available.

Replace users’ Office 365 Licenses

In the Admin center, Click Users, then Active Users.

Upgrade license for one user at a time

1. Click the user
2. Click Edit under Assigned License
3. Deselect the current Office 365 plan, and select the new plan you’ve purchased:
4. Once done, skip ahead to Reduce Office 365 Licenses or Cancel Office 365 Subscription.

Upgrade license for multiple users

1. Select the users you want to upgrade
2. Click Edit
3. On the Bulk Edit Users‘ Details page, scroll down to Next
4. Click Next again on the Settings Page
5. Use the Assign Licenses page to Replace existing license arrangements
6. Choose the new licenses that you’d like to be assigned to these users. Don’t select the old licenses.
7. Click Submit

Removing the old Licenses

Reducing Office 365 Licenses

1. Under Billing on the left menu, click Subscriptions
2. Select your subscription under the Active list, and click Add/Remove
3. Under the slide out menu on the right, type in the new number of licenses that you’d like to have and click Submit.

Cancel an Office 365 Subscription

If you’ve signed up to an Office 365 plan on an annual commitment, and are NOT upgrading your Office 365 plan, cancelling your subscription may incur extra charges. This is called an Early Termination Fee, and is equal to one month’s subscription fee.

The Early Termination Fee won’t apply if you are upgrading all users to a different subscription, are transitioning to a different licensing program, or are changing between Microsoft Partners.

1. Under Billing on the left menu, click Subscriptions
   
2. Select your subscription under the Active list, and click More Actions
3. Click Cancel Subscription
4. Read and understand the Important dates information. Note that in this example, not all users are upgrading, so the Early Termination Fee applies. If you are upgrading all users, the Early Termination Fee will not apply.
5. Click Cancel Subscription