Our valued customers
As I’m sure you can appreciate for lots of reasons, the cost of some of the products and services we use have increased as a result of various changes affecting the economy over the last couple of years. We had planned for a small price increase in 2020, but we held off from doing so due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Red Penguin Group have absorbed various supplier price increases in the past 18 months, and after Microsoft’s recent announcement of price increases for their Microsoft 365 line of products and services, it is now necessary for The Red Penguin Group to pass these price increases onto our customers. We believe that despite increasing our prices we remain extremely competitively priced and offer great value for money and exceptional customer service.
We really appreciate your continued custom, and look forward to working with you in 2022.
Summary of price increases
- Microsoft / Office 365
- Telecommunications & Broadband
- Hosted Services
- Managed IT Support, Block hour and Pay as you go (PAYG) IT Support
This above list is a quick overview of services affected by the upcoming price increases, however it is important that you read and understand some of the changes below, particularly relating to the Microsoft price increases as these will require action on your part.
Microsoft / Office 365
We’ve been expecting this for a long time, however after nearly 10 years, Microsoft is finally increasing some pricing on their Microsoft 365 suite of products, alongside a complete overhaul of their licencing structure for Microsoft/365 licenses with the introduction of their new NCE platform. It actually surprised us that Microsoft haven’t done smaller, more regular price increases during this last decade. Especially with the levels of economic inflation during that time coupled with the HUGE amounts of new features & security tools they’ve added along the way. However they must have had their reasons.
The price increase is being applied by Microsoft directly so will affect all service providers / resellers globally, effective from 1st March 2022
You can see more details from Microsoft here.
As you’ll see from the Microsoft Blog – since the last price increase, Microsoft have added 24 new Applications along with over 1,400 new features that have been added to your subscription.
In our opinion, the Microsoft suite offers lots of features at a very affordable price, so whilst none of us like a price increase, this is one we are OK with. For most of us, the average price increase (per user) will only be a couple of £’s per user per month. In comparison to the increases we are all seeing for other things such as salaries, taxes and rent – it’s comparatively small.
We still 150% believe that the Microsoft platform is by far the best in the world and the level of innovation, features & hundreds of additional security measures Microsoft has built for us all over the last decade FAR outweighs the price increase here so we are happy with these price increases. It helps us sleep soundly at night knowing they can not only keep up with inflation but most importantly that they can keep innovating like they do into the platform.
We’ll be passing on the increases as they happen and if you have any questions about them at all or if you want a quick review of your Microsoft account, just give us a call or respond to this email.
Part of Microsoft’s announced changes have seen price increases for most, but not all of their 365 suite of products. In addition, Microsoft are also adding a further 20% price increase for the flexibility of 30-day rolling agreements (compared to 12-month agreements).
Customers must be migrated to the new NCE platform by 1st July to avoid loss of service.
There are LOTS of moving parts to all of the Microsoft changes and it’s a very deep rabbit hole to try and understand it all (do a Google search for “Microsoft NCE” and you’ll see the huge amounts of chatter that’s happening around the world right now). So, I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of the most important changes and have listed some popular Office 365 products in the table below with the relevant increases.
To ensure a smooth transition customers will need to commit to the new licensing platform either as a 12 month commitment or as a 30 day rolling commitment with the required licenses to avoid service disruption when Microsoft deprecates the old licensing model.
Customers that do not communicate what type of new licensing model they want before 21st February 2022 (12 month or 30 day rolling) and who are not in an existing Microsoft Agreement/contract will automatically be moved onto the 30 day rolling pricing on 1st March 2022.
New Microsoft / Office 365 – Price increases
Some popular Microsoft / Office 365 products
| PRODUCT | Current Legacy Price | New Price (12-month term paid monthly) * | New Price (30-day rolling contract) * (additional 20% on annual commitment price for flexibility) |
| 365 Business Basic | £4.50 + Vat P/M | £5.40 + Vat P/M (20% increase) | £6.30 + Vat P/M |
| 365 Business Standard | £11.30 + Vat P/M | £11.30 + Vat P/M (No Increase) | £13.56 + Vat P/M |
| 365 Business Premium | £16 + Vat P/M | £17.60 + Vat P/M (10% Increase) | £20.80 + Vat P/M |
| 365 Apps for Business | £9.50 + Vat P/M | £9.50 + Vat P/M (No Increase) | £11.40 + Vat P/M |
| Office E3 | £17.60 + Vat P/M | £20.25 + Vat P/M (15% Increase) | £23.80 + Vat P/M |
| Office F3 | £3 + Vat P/M | £3 + Vat P/M (No Increase) | £3.60 + Vat P/M |
| Exchange Online (Plan 1) | £3 + Vat P/M | £3 + Vat P/M(No Increase) | Not Available on 30 day rolling |
*Please note that the pricing above is based on an approximate percentage increase (based on US price lists) to current UK pricing, and may differ slightly once Microsoft release the official end user UK price list. Microsoft have not yet released the end user price list for the UK. Please ask us for clarification if your exact SKU is not listed in the table above.
The new pricing platform announced by Microsoft no longer allows customers to decrease their license count month by month UNLESS on a 30-day rolling contract which attracts a higher price as per the pricing table above however you can mix and match license terms for each product so if you need 10 x Business Premium you can have (for example) 7 licenses on a 12 month contract and 3 on a 30 day contract allowing you to drop down to 7 licenses if required.
For customers that do not anticipate requiring fewer licenses than they currently have (so they do not anticipate reducing staff numbers for example) then committing to a 12 month commitment model will offer the best price. The number of licenses present at the point of committing to the new 12 month option will be the minimum number of licenses you are billed for , customers can increase the license count but will not be able to reduce the license count until then end of the 12 month commitment. Any licenses on a 30 day contract can be adjusted each month up and down.
It is very important to get in touch with us if you would like to ensure that you get the best pricing ahead of the new changes, freezing current prices for 12 months but may only be available if customers get in touch before Feb 21st. (We need time to process any changes) Please contact us so we can discuss your options and get the correct contract across to you for e-signing.
Telecommunications – Price increases
Some popular telecommunications products:
| PRODUCT | Current Price | New Price | Increase |
| Hosted Voice (Standard – 30 Day Rolling) | £10 + VAT P/M | £13 + VAT P/M | £3 + VAT P/M |
| Hosted Voice (Standard – 12 Month) | N/A | £11.50 + VAT P/M | N/A |
| Hosted Voice (Business) | £14 + VAT P/M | £15.50 + VAT P/M | £1.50 + VAT P/M |
| Hosted Voice (Professional) | £20 + VAT P/M | £21.50+ VAT P/M | £1.50 + VAT P/M |
| FTTC 80Mb Broadband | £50 + VAT P/M | £55 + VAT P/M | £5 + VAT P/M |
| FTTC 40Mb Broadband | £45 + VAT P/M | £50 + VAT P/M | £5 + VAT P/M |
| Leased Lines | POA | No Change whilst in contract | |
| CRM Integration | £4 + VAT P/M | £4.50 + VAT P/M | £0.50 + VAT P/M |
| Call Recording | £4 + VAT P/M | £4.50 + VAT P/M | £0.50 + VAT P/M |
Hosted Services – Price increases
Some popular Hosted services:
| PRODUCT | Current Price | New Price | Increase |
| Web Hosting | £7.50 + VAT P/M | £8.50 + VAT P/M | £1 + VAT P/M |
| Managed Spam Filtering | £2 + VAT P/M | £2.75 + VAT P/M | £0.75 + VAT P/M |
| Managed Antivirus | £2 + VAT P/M | £2.75 + VAT P/M | £0.75 + VAT P/M |
| .com Domain Renewal (Annual) | £15 + VAT P/A | £16+ VAT P/A | £1 + VAT P/A |
| .co.uk Domain Renewal (Annual) | £10 + VAT P/A | £11 + VAT P/A | £1 + VAT P/A |
| Exclaimer Email Signature | £1 + VAT P/M | £1.50 + VAT P/M | £0.50 + VAT P/M |
IT Support Services – Price increases
Some popular IT Support Services:
| PRODUCT | Current Price | New Price |
| Bronze Managed IT Support (Per User) | £19 + VAT P/M | £21+ VAT P/M |
| Silver Managed IT Support (Per User) | £26 + VAT P/M | £28+ VAT P/M |
| Gold Managed IT Support (Per User) | £30 + VAT P/M | £32+ VAT P/M |
| PAYG IT Support – Business | £60 / Hour | £70 / Hour |
| Block Hour Contract – Business | £50 / Hour | £60 / Hour |
| PAYG IT Support – Education | £45 / Hour | £55 / Hour |
| Block Hour Contract – Education | £38 / Hour | £45 / Hour |
**The above product tables are not exhaustive and show some of our most popular products or services. There will be an increase across the board for many of our other products / services. If the exact product or service you have is not listed in the tables above, the increase will be the same or similar to other services of a similar type listed in the tables above. For example Hosted Voice services will see an increase of £1.50 per month, and antivirus services will see an increase of £0.75 per month. Please contact us if you require further clarification.