You can get a heap of apps, including Microsoft Office, PowerPoint and Excel at no cost, whether you're a student, teacher or just on a budget. Here's how to get Microsoft 365 for free.

Microsoft today announced Microsoft 365 Basic, for $1.99 a month, offering access to the Office apps plus 100GB of cloud storage when it launches later this month.

A new Microsoft 365 subscription tier has been launched, bringing web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for a third of Microsoft's previous lowest rate.

In addition to announcing the new Basic tier, Microsoft also announced the general availability of the Microsoft 365 app, which replaces the Microsoft Office app.

Microsoft promised that Basic would not replace the free option, however Microsoft will be migrating subscribers of the 100GB OneDrive plan to Microsoft 365 Basic for no additional cost.

The main difference between Microsoft 365 Basic and the existing $6.99-per-month Microsoft 365 Personal is that Basic does not include access to the desktop versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.