Microsoft has made the paid version of Teams free for a six-month trial.
Over a year ago, Microsoft released a free version of Teams. The differences between the two can be a bit confusing, so let's clear up some questions you might have between the two Teams versions and show you how to get premium Teams for free now.
Teams Free vs Teams Paid, What's The Difference?
Here's a Microsoft Teams comparison chart to show you a breakdown of plans.
The main differences between the free version of Teams and the paid plans are admin controls, meeting recording & scheduling, file storage and max user limits. If these aren't deal breakers for you, the always-free version of Teams may work just fine. For business users, you're probably going to want some of those premium features. Read on to see where to go to get them.
How Paid Teams Became A Free Six-Month Trial Offer
Microsoft got the idea to make paid Teams a free trial for anyone after reading a letter written by Lily Zheng, a Microsoft employee who lives and works in Shanghai. Lily wrote about what she had learned about remote work while going through the Coronavirus outbreak in China.
Lily's letter about how she and her family were staying connected, inspired Microsoft to use Teams to help people adjust to their new remote lifestyle.
How Can I Get The Premium Version of Teams for Free Right Now?
There are a couple ways depending on what you're looking to use Teams for.
If you're an individual with a work or school email account, you can add Teams here.
If you have an Outlook or Gmail email, use this link.
If you're a teacher or school administrator and want to switch from Zoom to Teams for your school, go here.
If you need to roll out Teams to your entire business or organization, or if you have one department already on Teams, but need to get the rest of your office up and running on Teams, contact us.
I Already Have Teams, But Don't Know How to Use It.
Teams is fairly user friendly, especially if you've ever used Slack for chat and Zoom for meetings. However, there are few things you need to know and like any new tool, there's a learning curve.
Use this helpful quick start guide to give you a baseline on the basic Teams functions and features.
This Teams training video series Microsoft produced is also a great way to skill up on different Teams functions quickly.
How Do I ____________ in Teams?
We're Teams experts. We've actually developed our own Teams Ready, Set, Go training in our Microsoft store. If you have specific questions about Teams that we didn't already answer above. Contact us. We're always willing to help!
