Upgrade your plan message despite active Microsoft 365 subscription

Question

Upgrade your plan message despite active Microsoft 365 subscription

Anonymous

Hello,

I have an active Microsoft 365 subscription. In Word, under File → Account, the product appears as activated and correctly linked to my Microsoft 365 subscription.

However, in the Office apps I keep seeing a button/message at the top saying “Upgrade your plan”.

If I sign out and sign back in, the message disappears, but after restarting the PC it appears again.

I use Office with one account, while the Microsoft 365 subscription is associated with another personal Microsoft account. The product still appears activated in File → Account.

Could you please confirm whether this is just a promotional message or if there may be a license/account issue? Is there any way to disable or remove this “Upgrade your plan” message?

Thank you.

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Shawn Dunner 0 Reputation points

2026-06-20T01:53:02.5066667+00:00

I encountered this issue as well. You would assume that once you purchase the subscription renewal, you will automatically have access to Office 365 and all of the office suite of tools. But no, there is more too it. You will need to wait for two things first.

1. An email from Microsoft confirming your subscription has been received. This usually arrives after Microsoft validates your credit card purchase (could be anywhere between 2-5 hours later).

2. In the email it will advise when the subscription becomes active. This will be based on when you first created an Office 365 account (but check here https://account.microsoft.com/services and look for Managae Micosoft 365 at the top of the page and it will tell you). This will likely be a date in the future.

So the message for everybody here is don't stress and don't send any questions off to Microsoft staff until you have received this email and taken note of when your subscription date starts, (because all they are going to do is use the standard template response that they are trained to use, which is obviously incorrect).

Until the subscription start date passes, the message in the office program that says to "upgrade your plan" will continue to show and you will just have to put up with it unfortunately until the start day passes. The best solution is to go here https://account.microsoft.com/services and see when your 365 subscription renews and update it either on or the day before so that you are not waiting days for the change to take affect.

2 answers

Shawn Dunner 0 Reputation points

2026-06-20T01:53:02.5066667+00:00

I encountered this issue as well. You would assume that once you purchase the subscription renewal, you will automatically have access to Office 365 and all of the office suite of tools. But no, there is more too it. You will need to wait for two things first.

1. An email from Microsoft confirming your subscription has been received. This usually arrives after Microsoft validates your credit card purchase (could be anywhere between 2-5 hours later).

2. In the email it will advise when the subscription becomes active. This will be based on when you first created an Office 365 account (but check here https://account.microsoft.com/services and look for Managae Micosoft 365 at the top of the page and it will tell you). This will likely be a date in the future.

So the message for everybody here is don't stress and don't send any questions off to Microsoft staff until you have received this email and taken note of when your subscription date starts, (because all they are going to do is use the standard template response that they are trained to use, which is obviously incorrect).

Until the subscription start date passes, the message in the office program that says to "upgrade your plan" will continue to show and you will just have to put up with it unfortunately until the start day passes. The best solution is to go here https://account.microsoft.com/services and see when your 365 subscription renews and update it either on or the day before so that you are not waiting days for the change to take affect.

Answer 1

The “Upgrade your plan” banner is a subscription-related notification, not just a generic promotion. It appears when the signed-in account in the Office apps does not fully match the subscription that provides the license, or when Office detects a mismatch or pending change in the subscription state.

Key points from the described setup:

Office is activated and shows as licensed under File → Account.
Office is being used with one account, while the Microsoft 365 subscription is associated with another personal Microsoft account.
Signing out and back in temporarily clears the banner, but it returns after restart.

This behavior is consistent with account/licensing notices described for Microsoft 365 subscriptions:

When Office detects a subscription issue or mismatch, it shows account or subscription notices and can eventually move to reduced functionality mode if the correct subscription is not consistently verified.
If the wrong account is signed in, or if Office cannot reliably verify the active subscription, it may show subscription-related notices even if the apps appear activated.

To minimize or remove the banner:

Ensure the account that actually owns the active Microsoft 365 subscription is the primary account in Office:
- In Word (or another app), go to File → Account.
- Under “User Information,” sign out of all accounts.
- Sign back in only with the Microsoft account that has the active Microsoft 365 subscription.
Make sure the subscription is active and correctly associated with that account:
- For home subscriptions, verify status on the Subscriptions page at https://account.microsoft.com/services as described in the subscription-notice guidance.
Keep Office updated so subscription changes and license checks are applied correctly:
- In Word, go to File → Account → Update Options → Update Now.

If multiple accounts must be used on the same device (for example, one for sign-in and another for subscription), Office can continue to show subscription-related notices because it prefers a single, clearly licensed account. In that case, the banner may reappear periodically and cannot be permanently disabled from within Office.

If the banner persists even when only the correct subscription account is signed in and verified as active, this indicates an ongoing account/license mismatch rather than a purely promotional message. In that scenario, contacting Microsoft support to review the account and license association is recommended.

References:

Answer 2

Hello Matteo Bregani

From what you described, your Office apps show as activated and linked to a valid Microsoft 365 subscription, but the “Upgrade your plan” message keeps appearing and returns after restarting the PC.

Could you please confirm whether this is just a promotional message or if there may be a license/account issue?

This behavior has also been observed by other users who have active subscriptions. In those cases, Office continues to work normally, and all features remain available even when the “Upgrade your plan” banner appears. Some have found that the banner may disappear after signing out and back in or refreshing the license, but it tends to return after some time. This may indicate that the message is being shown as a promotional message rather than a sign of a licensing issue.

See: MS365 - how to remove the "Upgrade you plan" banner

Is there any way to disable or remove this “Upgrade your plan” message?

Currently, there doesn’t seem to be an option to disable this message long term. In this situation, I would recommend submitting feedback so the product team can review and potentially improve how this message is presented. Since this is a user‑to‑user community forum, we can only share suggestions based on our findings and personal experiences, but we don’t have the ability to make changes directly on the product side.

You can share your feedback about this directly from within the app:

Open Word (or any Office app)

Go to File > Feedback
Describe the issue and include a screenshot if possible

Or via the feedback portal:

Go to https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/
Sign in > choose Microsoft 365 / Office > submit your suggestion

This helps ensure it reaches the right team and may lead to adjustments in future updates.

I use Office with one account, while the Microsoft 365 subscription is associated with another personal Microsoft account. The product still appears activated in File → Account.

In terms of this behavior, you could try clearing any saved Office credentials to see if that helps:

Press Windows key + S, type Credential Manager, and open it
Select Windows Credentials
Look for entries related to Microsoft Office, Office16, or ADAL
Click each one and choose Remove
Restart your PC, then open Word and sign in again

Hope this helps. Thank you so much for your patience!

Best regards.

Shawn Dunner 0 Reputation points

2026-06-20T01:53:20.57+00:00

Yes I can confirm that I forgot to restart my computer and this was why after I updated my subscription I kept on seeking "upgrade your plan". After I restarted my computer this went away.