Most South African households paying for Microsoft 365 are using about a third of what they’re paying for.
They’ve got Word. Maybe Excel. They use Outlook for email, occasionally. And somewhere in the background, OneDrive is doing something — they’re not quite sure what — and the storage is probably running low because nobody set it up properly.
This is completely normal. Microsoft 365 is one of those subscriptions people get because they need Word, and then never look at again. Which is a shame, because if you actually set it up for your household, it becomes one of the better-value software purchases you can make.
Here’s what you’re actually paying for — and how to use it.
What’s Actually in the Box
The Microsoft 365 Family plan covers up to six people in a household. Each person gets their own account with:
Full Microsoft 365 apps — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote — installed on up to five devices each. That means laptops, tablets, and phones.
1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage per person — so a family of four gets 4 TB of cloud storage collectively, all separate and private.
Microsoft Defender — basic security and malware protection across devices.
Microsoft Family Safety — parental controls, screen time management, and location sharing for families with children.
If you’re currently paying for Microsoft 365 Personal — which covers one person — and you have a family in the house, you are almost certainly paying more per person than you need to. The Family plan works out significantly cheaper per head once you share it across three or more people.
The OneDrive Problem (And How to Fix It)
OneDrive is probably the most underused and most misunderstood part of Microsoft 365 for home users. Here’s what it actually does:
When OneDrive is set up properly on a computer, it automatically backs up your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to the cloud in real time. Every file you save goes to the cloud automatically, without you having to do anything. If your laptop is stolen, dropped, or simply dies, your files are waiting for you when you set up a new device.
The problem is that OneDrive often isn’t set up properly. It gets installed, nobody configures the backup folders, and it sits there syncing a handful of random files while your actual documents live only on your hard drive.
To check: open OneDrive (the cloud icon in your taskbar or menu bar), go to Settings → Backup → Manage Backup, and make sure your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders are all turned on. If they’re not, turn them on. That’s the whole setup.
Real-Time Collaboration: The Feature Nobody Knows About
One of the most genuinely useful things Microsoft 365 does for families is allow real-time collaboration on documents — something most people associate only with Google Docs but don’t realise works perfectly in Word and Excel too.
If your child is working on a school project and you want to review and suggest changes, you can both have the document open at the same time. Changes appear instantly. No emailing files back and forth. No version confusion. Just open the shared document on OneDrive and work together.
This is particularly useful for household budgets, shared shopping lists, holiday planning, and anything else where multiple people need to see and update the same document.
Microsoft Teams for Families
Yes, Teams — the thing your work probably uses for meetings — is also available in the personal and family version of Microsoft 365, and it has features that are genuinely useful at home.
You can create a family group chat, share photos, have video calls, and organise a shared family calendar. It’s a tidier way to coordinate a household than a WhatsApp group, with the added benefit that everything is linked to your Microsoft account and accessible from any device.
Not everyone will use this, and that’s fine. But if you have a family spread across different devices and you’re currently managing logistics through a chaotic group chat, it’s worth knowing it exists.
Microsoft Copilot: AI Built In
If you’re on a Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscription, Microsoft Copilot is now included. This is the AI assistant built directly into Word, Excel, and Outlook.
For home users, the most practical uses are: asking it to summarise a long document, drafting a first version of something (a letter, a plan, a complaint), and asking it to explain what a formula in Excel is doing. It won’t always be right, and it’s not a replacement for your own judgment — but for tasks you’d otherwise spend twenty minutes on, it can get you most of the way there in thirty seconds.
Getting the Most Out of What You’re Already Paying For
The irony of Microsoft 365 is that most households could dramatically improve their digital life — better file backup, better family coordination, better security — just by properly setting up a subscription they already have.
At Dial a Nerd, we help households set up Microsoft 365 properly — OneDrive backup, family sharing, Copilot, and everything in between. If you’re paying for it, you may as well use it.
