Using a standalone SharePoint or OneDrive business licence? JM Restart can help check your subscription, renewal date and storage needs, then plan a suitable replacement with you.
Microsoft is retiring standalone SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business Plan 1 and Plan 2 subscriptions. SharePoint and OneDrive continue through broader Microsoft 365 suites. The first step is to establish exactly which product you have.
Guidance checked on 28 October 2026. Your supplier should confirm the position for your particular subscription and contract.
Which plans are affected?
Microsoft’s standalone-plan retirement announcement names:
- SharePoint Online Plan 1
- SharePoint Online Plan 2
- OneDrive for Business Plan 1
- OneDrive for Business Plan 2
Standalone means the service was bought as an individual product. Seeing OneDrive on your computer, or using a SharePoint team site, does not tell you which subscription pays for it. Check the full product name on your invoice or in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
If you already use a Microsoft 365 suite, check its included services and each person’s assigned licences before buying anything else. This article concerns the business plans listed above; personal Microsoft accounts need their own product check.
The dates, and what they mean for you
| Milestone | Microsoft’s announced position |
|---|---|
| June 2026 End of sale | No new customers after 31 May 2026. Sales were then limited to renewals for existing customers. |
| January 2027 Renewals stop | No further renewals. Existing contracts continue until their own expiry dates. |
| December 2029 End of service | Final retirement of the standalone plans. |
Review your contract expiry now. January 2027 is the no-renewals milestone, rather than a single shutdown date for every customer. December 2029 does not extend a contract that expires sooner.
What should your business check?
- Product and term: identify the exact licence, supplier, renewal or expiry date and any change restrictions. A monthly payment does not, by itself, establish the contract term.
- People and access: record who uses the service, which licences they have and who has administrator access.
- Files and storage: review the space used, shared libraries, important links, external sharing and any applications or automated processes that depend on them.
- Replacement entitlement: check that the proposed plan covers the users, services, storage and features you need. Do not assume an existing large storage allocation will carry over unchanged.
- Recovery and testing: agree what needs preserving, how access will be checked after the change and who will help if something does not work as expected.
You do not need to have all these answers before contacting us. A product name and renewal notice are a useful starting point. Please keep passwords, verification codes and recovery keys out of your enquiry.
Which replacement might fit?
A Microsoft 365 business plan may bring the services you need together:
- Business Basic: an option to assess where web and mobile apps, business email and cloud collaboration meet the requirement.
- Business Standard: an option where desktop Office applications are also needed.
- Business Premium: worth assessing where its additional device management and security features fit the organisation.
We often recommend Business Premium for its management and security features, but we are happy to tailor a solution using Basic or Standard where appropriate. We will check the exact offer, included services, user eligibility, capacity and current terms. Enterprise plans or another storage arrangement may be more suitable in some cases.
Additional storage and archiving can form part of a review. An extra-storage purchase should not be assumed to replace the user licences needed to access the service.
Will all your files need to move?
The answer depends on your current setup and chosen destination. We first assess whether a change can be made within your existing Microsoft 365 organisation environment, often called a tenant, or whether data needs moving. A full migration is not assumed at the quotation stage.
Microsoft provides automatic and manual plan-change routes, with eligibility and data considerations. Do not cancel the old subscription or remove working licences before the replacement, data protection and change sequence have been checked. We will agree any migration, access testing and user guidance with you.
A licence review is also a useful time to review your backup and recovery arrangements. File synchronisation, version history and an independent backup serve different purposes; the change plan should identify what recovery protection you actually have.
How JM Restart can help
We provide Microsoft 365 licensing, setup and support, including reviews of existing environments and separately agreed migrations. We can help establish whether you are affected, compare suitable plans, supply licences, plan the change and check access afterwards. We also work with existing environments and licences bought elsewhere.
Labour, any migration and ongoing support are agreed separately from licence charges. The scope and next steps are confirmed with you, and the work is summarised in your support ticket. We do not assume that every customer needs the same plan or a full data migration.
