The features you need in an office suite will depend on your business type. How to choose a free office suite for your business The Microsoft Office desktop version costs around $250, while the Microsoft Office 365 software as a service (SaaS) subscription model costs $6 to $23 a month per user, which adds up quickly.īefore you pay for new software, consider these free Microsoft Office alternatives that might be excellent money-saving solutions for your business. There’s no doubt that Microsoft Office is the most widely used office productivity suite, but if you’re purchasing new computers or replacing old software, new copies can be costly. Sometimes, that means getting creative with your tech decisions. This article is for small business owners seeking a free alternative to Microsoft Office.įor small businesses, every cent counts.Popular alternatives include Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice and cloud-based office tools like Google’s apps.The features your business needs – such as ease of use, security and remote collaboration tools – determine the best free Office alternative.While Microsoft Office is widely used and comprehensive, small businesses may balk at its costs.I am the first to say though that I think the Microsoft Word feature set is hard to beat. Having the Office Online access is hugely helpful to my productivity, even though, as mentioned, I can work around it via Google Docs. But there are times when I get stuck needing to live and work in a Microsoft Word/Office world for a project. To be clear, as I have noted many times here on Forbes, I am a huge Google and Docs fan and love their products and use them on a daily basis. So be careful because most sites promising you a full desktop version at no cost are either scams, or at the very least, quite dubious.

Of course, if you are looking for the offline version, the full desktop version, that is much harder to come by for free.

So, you can store your documents here and open them up to others, as you see in the screenshot above. It works very similarly to Google Docs, arguably the de facto standard for online collaboration, and why you see Microsoft online at this level - because they cannot continue to give up ground to Google, frankly. I find the Office Online version keeps things simple for creating, using, and sharing documents with others.

Download free microsoft office word