• by Ray Schultz , October 31, 2017

Microsoft has discontinued its Outlook.com Premium email service — at least for new subscribers. The company announced on its website that Premium features are now included with subscriptions to Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal.

Existing subscribers can continue to receive the same benefits by renewing their subscriptions. Microsoft adds that it has “no plans to discontinue the standalone subscription for existing subscribers at this time.”

Microsoft will also continue to support custom domains for current Premium customers: they will be automatically included in their yearly subscription fee. But that apparently does not cover new Office 365 subscribers.

The company states that it is working on a solution to help users shift their domains to other providers, but adds that “for now you should continue to renew your Outlook.com Premium subscription to retain control of your domain and to continue using your personalized email address.” 

Another feature -- Microsoft’s personalized email offering -- will also be missing from either version of Office 365.

Meanwhile, the company states that premium customers can subscribe to Office 365, but will not receive refunds for the time left on their Premium subscriptions.  

The following premium benefits are available to Office 365 subscribers:

• Email security
• Ad-free interface
• Larger mailbox storage
• Premium support