Two perpetual licences, £10 apart in price, with very different futures. The comparison is straightforward — once you know what each version actually includes and how long it lasts.
Buy Office Professional Plus — UK perpetual licences, instant delivery
What each version includes
Both are the most complete editions of perpetual Office — volume-licensed, no subscription, no Microsoft account required for activation. The app lists are almost identical. Almost.
| Application | Pro Plus 2024 | Pro Plus 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Word | ✓ | ✓ |
| Excel | ✓ | ✓ |
| PowerPoint | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outlook | ✓ | ✓ |
| OneNote | ✓ | ✓ |
| Access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Publisher | ✗ | ✓ (retires Oct 2026) |
| Microsoft Teams | ✗ (separate download) | ✗ (separate download) |
| Skype for Business | Optional install | Optional install |
Teams hasn’t been bundled with perpetual Office since Microsoft decoupled it ahead of EU antitrust scrutiny. For both versions it’s a free separate download — no practical difference either way.
Support: the gap that matters
Office Pro Plus 2021 reaches end of support on 13 October 2026. Office Pro Plus 2024 is supported until 9 October 2029. From today, that’s roughly five months versus forty-one months of security updates.
Months of security support remaining from May 2026. Source: Microsoft Lifecycle documentation.
End of support doesn’t mean the software stops working. It means no more security patches. Running unpatched Office — especially Outlook, which processes external email — isn’t a sensible risk for a £10 saving.
Excel: where 2024 earns its keep
Fourteen new text and array functions, dynamic chart arrays, LAMBDA, and a meaningful performance improvement for workbooks with multiple independent calculation chains. If Excel is central to what you do, the 2024 upgrade pays for itself here.
New functions in Excel 2024
These were Microsoft 365-only until the 2024 perpetual release locked them in:
Dynamic chart arrays are genuinely useful. Charts now reference dynamic array ranges directly — when the array recalculates, the chart updates automatically, rather than being fixed to whatever range you defined at creation. The IMAGE function lets you pull a picture from a URL into a cell and treat it like any other cell value — move it, sort it, filter it without it floating around independently. LAMBDA lets you name and reuse a custom formula without touching VBA. All three have been in Microsoft 365 for a while; 2024 is the first perpetual release to include them.
One thing removed: the Publish to Power BI button is gone from Excel 2024. Publishing now goes through the Power BI service directly, which has more capability — but if your workflow built on that button, it’s worth knowing before you upgrade.
What else changed
Word
Session recovery got a proper upgrade. When Word closes unexpectedly, 2024 automatically reopens every document you had open and puts you back where you left off. Word 2021 recovered individual files; 2024 restores the whole session. If you routinely work across several documents at once, this removes one persistent annoyance.
Outlook
Search is better — messages, attachments, contacts, and calendar entries all surface with improved relevance ranking. Meeting scheduling picks up a small but practical feature: Outlook 2024 can automatically shorten meetings by a few minutes depending on their length, to build in gaps between calls. Useful if your calendar is back-to-back.
ActiveX
ActiveX controls are disabled by default in Office 2024. Legacy documents or spreadsheets that depend on embedded ActiveX controls will need an administrator to re-enable them via Group Policy. They’re not removed — just off by default, which is the correct security posture for most deployments.
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0 carry over without changes, and add-ins compatible with 2021 will work with 2024 without retesting in most cases. The add-in JavaScript API has moved forward — Excel is at requirement set 1.17 (up from 1.14 in 2021), Outlook at 1.14, PowerPoint at 1.5.
The one reason to choose 2021
Publisher. That’s it.
Office Pro Plus 2021 is the only currently available perpetual Office version that still includes Microsoft Publisher. If your business has active Publisher workflows — templates, brochures, newsletters — and you’re not yet ready to migrate, 2021 is the version to buy.
If Publisher isn’t part of your workflow, there is no meaningful reason to choose 2021 over 2024. The £10 price difference is not one.
Installation and activation
Both versions use Click-to-Run and activate via volume licensing — no Microsoft account required, no cloud sign-in. The same activation routes apply to both: KMS for volume environments, MAK for standalone installs.
Office Pro Plus 2024
Two installation paths are available. The quick installer handles the download and installation directly — the simplest option for single-machine deployments. The Office Deployment Tool (ODT) gives you full control: which apps install, language, update channel, and architecture. ODT is the standard choice for IT teams managing deployments via Configuration Manager or Intune.
Office Pro Plus 2021
Installation is via the Office Deployment Tool. Same Click-to-Run infrastructure, same XML-based configuration. If you’re already managing 2021 deployments, the move to 2024 uses an identical workflow.
Which one to buy
Buy Office Pro Plus 2024
Unless you need Publisher for an active workflow and haven’t yet planned your migration, 2024 is the straightforward choice. You get 41 months of security support versus 5, 14 new Excel functions, session recovery in Word, better search and scheduling in Outlook — for £10 more.
If you’re on Office 2021 already, don’t wait until October. The sooner you move, the more support runway you have on your new licence.
Not sure which Office edition suits your needs? The Office Licence Advisor helps you find the right version based on how you actually use Office.
Frequently asked questions
Gary Walsh is the Head of Tech Support at Software Supplies, with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Fully Microsoft-certified and experienced across the full business software stack — from Windows and Office to cloud infrastructure and device management — Gary delivers practical, no-nonsense advice that helps users and businesses get the most from their technology.
