Microsoft kills standalone SharePoint and OneDrive plans, because they’re not suite enough
- Reference: 1770099193
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/03/microsoft_retires_sharepoint_onedrive_standalone/
- Source link:
The software giant [1]delivered the news in a note for its partners, which explains it is “evolving its cloud storage and collaboration offerings and is retiring the standalone SharePoint Online (SPO) plan 1 and plan 2 and OneDrive for Business (ODB) plan 1 and plan 2 SKUs.”
SharePoint Online is a web-based version of Microsoft’s collaborationware suite. Plan 1 costs $5 per user per month and includes 1TB of cloud storage. Plan 2 doubles the cost and adds unlimited cloud storage and more advanced features.
[2]
OneDrive for Business Plan 1 offers a terabyte of cloud storage at $5 per user per month. Plan 2 includes up to 5TB of storage, adds tools including data loss prevention, and can extend to provide 25TB of storage for users who are part of a team.
[3]
[4]
Microsoft says its decision to kill the services “reflects low customer demand for standalone offerings, increased instances of unintended or nonstandard usage, and higher operational costs associated with maintaining these plans.”
The Register fancies the phrase “unintended or nonstandard usage” refers to users who sign up for these products just to access cheap cloud storage, a theory we advance as Microsoft users of our acquaintance have told us these services offer more capacity, for less cost, than some of Redmond’s other storage offerings.
[5]
Which could be why Microsoft’s announcement also mentions “higher operational costs associated with maintaining these plans.”
[6]Microsoft shifting to cloud management software brings possibility of it peeking into your estate
[7]Microsoft 365 boosts prices in 2026 … to pay for more AI and security
[8]Microsoft's data sovereignty: Now with extra sovereignty!
[9]Schleswig-Holstein waves auf Wiedersehen to Microsoft stack
The software behemoth points out that its Microsoft 365 suites “remain the primary way customers access SharePoint and OneDrive capabilities.” The suites are also more expensive than the plans Microsoft intends to snuff.
The post for partners urges them to steer customers to Microsoft 365 Business or E3/E5 suites.
Thankfully, partners and users alike won’t need to rush to sort this out, because service will continue until December 2029. Sales will cease on May 31st, 2026, and Microsoft won’t renew contracts for the services as of January 2027.
“We recommend that partners proactively identify impacted customers, communicate key dates early, and guide customers toward the most appropriate Microsoft 365 suite or storage alternative to ensure continuity and a smooth experience,” the post states. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2026-january#retirement-of-standalone-sharepoint-online-and-onedrive-for-business-plans-plan-1-and-plan-2
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYHVUtrGNh2rd-GIfOf2uQAAAhA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYHVUtrGNh2rd-GIfOf2uQAAAhA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYHVUtrGNh2rd-GIfOf2uQAAAhA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYHVUtrGNh2rd-GIfOf2uQAAAhA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/23/microsoft_shifting_to_cloud_management/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/microsoft_%20365_prices_up_2026/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/microsoft_announces_strengthening_of_sovereignty/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/schleswig_holstein_open_source/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
'further enshittifying our cloud offerings.'
It's not raining turds already ?
because they’re not suite enough
No point in sugar-coating the news.
Presumably Microslop are cancelling these as it was too difficult to think of a way to ram ClippyPilot into the offering.
Great. And I also received yet another email on a price hike for MS 365 (Small) Business.
Glad I'm already working on getting rid of it, but thought "hey, 1TB is fine, maybe I'll keep only that".
F*ck you, MS!
...adds tools including data loss prevention,...
"That's a nice bit of data you got there. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
Know what I mean, guv?"
Drug pushers
really.
Good luck if you have decided to commit to MS - because there's no going back now.
Wish the title read...
Microsoft kills SharePoint and OneDrive, because they’re shit.
Re: Wish the title read...
What is better ?
Re: Wish the title read...
I suspect this is like a lot of storage offerings even down to options as prosaic as those self-store units. It starts with good intentions but ends up as the place which stuff goes to avoid the delete function since 'it may be needed one day'.
This type of online storage model is used based on price and simplicity and was probably selected on the basis they already had other MS stuff so why not. There is of course an XKCD https://xkcd.com/1360/ which shows exactly what the stuff stored looks like but the reason it got stored is the same reason it will never be checked. Having recently gone through the process of checking all my digital photos (those that I could find at least) I was horrified to see that in some cases I had 8 copies of the same photo in different locations/drives. De-duping brought the total storage down from almost 100GB to just 16GB. I am sure if I continued that to remove junk images it would be half that figure.
Out of sight storage just encourages junk collecting and everyone is guilty but in this day and age nobody seems to have time to clean it up
The cost of Copilot
RAM is hit worst (so far) but all storage prices are rising: the more one side of Microsoft shove the totally unwanted "free" Copilot on us, the more the other side is told to raise our costs to compensate.
I have this special backup system. It consists of some spinning rust in small boxs (OK, a couple of them are SSDs).
These drives, including some older 5 inch drives, store my last 25 years worth of work and personal files.
I find that the smaller ones can easily be transported in my pocket and plugged in as and when I need them.
I have never had a requirement to store my stuff in the cloud and use e.g. dropbox if I need to transfer large files.
And yes, there are at least 2 backups for all the important stuff.
“evolving its cloud storage and collaboration offerings"
That's a good euphemism for, 'further enshittifying our cloud offerings.'
“reflects low customer demand for standalone offerings, increased instances of unintended or nonstandard usage, and higher operational costs associated with maintaining these plans.”
'Low customer demand' is probably because these plans weren't pushed as aggressively as the suites so people missed them.
'Unintended or nonstandard usage' will be people choosing these as it's just cheaper cloud storage, not because of the quality of the service.
'Higher operational costs associated with maintaining these plans.' Nope, it's because MS have identified an area where customers product aren't getting price gouged yet, and that needs remedying.
There's probably also not enough AI rammed into these areas either, so naturally this also needs addressing paying for so just sit back, shut up and enjoy the new offerings. We're doing you a favour mate.