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Productivity · head to head

Microsoft 365 vs Milanote

Microsoft 365 logo

Microsoft 365

Productivity

Subscription bundle of the Office applications with mail, storage, meetings and organisational identity

From
$7/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Milanote logo

Milanote

Productivity

Board-based visual workspace for creative planning, free up to 100 items for the whole account

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Milanote has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Microsoft 365 business plans are capped at 300 seats, so an organisation that grows past that must move to Enterprise plans, which changes both the price per user and the feature mix at the moment it can least afford a migration project.; Milanote the free plan caps the entire account at 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads rather than capping per board, so one properly worked project exhausts it and the tool stops working rather than degrading gracefully.
  • They diverge on capability: Microsoft 365 covers Office applications, Milanote covers Infinite board canvas.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Microsoft 365 and Milanote actually diverge.

Attributes where Microsoft 365 and Milanote differ
AttributeMicrosoft 365Milanote
Starting price$7/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionfreemium
Free tierNoYes

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Productivity).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Microsoft 365

  • Office applications
  • Hosted services
  • Teams
  • Microsoft Entra ID
  • OneDrive storage
  • Device management and endpoint protection
  • Purview compliance
  • Copilot

Only in Milanote

  • Infinite board canvas
  • Mixed content
  • Nested boards
  • Templates
  • Web clipper
  • Shared boards with comments
  • Mobile apps
  • Free plan

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Microsoft 365

  • Any organisation that wants mail, documents, meetings and identity from one supplier on one bill.not Milanote
  • A company standardising on single sign-on, where Entra ID becomes the account other services authenticate against.not Milanote
  • Regulated work that needs retention, legal hold and eDiscovery across mail and documents, provided the tier that includes them is actually bought.not Milanote
  • A household that needs installed Office applications on several machines rather than browser-only editing.not Milanote

Milanote

  • Moodboards and visual references for a branding or design project, gathered from the web and arranged for a client review.not Microsoft 365
  • Storyboarding a video or planning a shoot, where the whole sequence needs to be visible at once.not Microsoft 365
  • Structuring a book, script or long article by physically moving sections around until the order works.not Microsoft 365
  • A shared board where a small creative team reacts to work in progress without the overhead of a project tool.not Microsoft 365

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Microsoft 365

  • Business plans are capped at 300 seats, so an organisation that grows past that must move to Enterprise plans, which changes both the price per user and the feature mix at the moment it can least afford a migration project.
  • The compliance capabilities most organisations eventually need, including retention, data loss prevention, advanced eDiscovery and insider risk, sit at the top tier or in add-ons, so the real cost surfaces after an audit or a customer questionnaire rather than at purchase.
  • Annual term subscriptions commit you for the year and month-to-month terms cost measurably more per seat, so the flexibility to reduce seats during a quiet period is bought at a permanently higher rate.
  • Entra ID becomes the identity for everything else the organisation uses, which is the hardest kind of lock-in to put a number on, because leaving means re-federating every connected application rather than simply replacing a word processor.
  • The licensing model is complicated enough that most organisations are either over-licensed or quietly non-compliant, and reconciling it usually requires a partner or a specialist, which is a recurring cost that never appears in the advertised per-user figure.

Milanote

  • The free plan caps the entire account at 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads rather than capping per board, so one properly worked project exhausts it and the tool stops working rather than degrading gracefully.
  • The value of a board is its arrangement, and arrangement is the one thing export does not carry, so a PDF gives you a picture and a text export gives you the words while nothing reconstitutes the board in another tool.
  • Pricing is per person and the tool spreads naturally to reviewers and clients who only look and comment, so a team plan ends up covering people who never create anything.
  • There is no database layer, no properties, no filtering and no dependency tracking, so a project that starts on a Milanote board has to be re-entered somewhere else the moment it acquires owners and dates.
  • Offline support is minimal, so a board full of references is effectively unavailable without a connection, which is a real problem for a tool aimed at people who work on location and in meetings away from a desk.

Pricing, plan by plan

Microsoft 365

$7/month
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic$7/month
    • Email and calendar with 50 GB mailbox
    • Web and mobile versions of Office apps
    • Microsoft Teams included
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard$14/month
    • Desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
    • Email and Teams
    • 1 TB cloud storage per user
  • Microsoft 365 E5$60/month
    • Comprehensive security and compliance
    • All productivity apps
    • Advanced analytics

Milanote

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 100 notes, images or links
    • 10 file uploads
    • Unlimited shared boards
  • Individual$9.99/month
    • Unlimited notes, images or links
    • Unlimited file uploads
    • Unlimited shared boards
  • Team$49/month
    • Unlimited notes, images or links
    • Unlimited file uploads
    • Unlimited shared boards

Which should you pick?

Choose Microsoft 365 if

  • You need office applications.
  • You also want hosted services.
Microsoft 365 review

Choose Milanote if

  • You need infinite board canvas.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want mixed content.
Milanote review

Questions people ask

Is Microsoft 365 or Milanote better?
Neither clearly leads. Microsoft 365 starts at $7/month and Milanote at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Microsoft 365 or Milanote?
Milanote has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $7/month for Microsoft 365 and Free for Milanote.
Does Microsoft 365 or Milanote run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Milanote for free?
Yes. Milanote has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Microsoft 365 starts at $7/month.
What is Microsoft 365 best used for?
Microsoft 365 is most often used for any organisation that wants mail, documents, meetings and identity from one supplier on one bill., a company standardising on single sign-on, where entra id becomes the account other services authenticate against., regulated work that needs retention, legal hold and ediscovery across mail and documents, provided the tier that includes them is actually bought., a household that needs installed office applications on several machines rather than browser-only editing.. Of those, any organisation that wants mail, documents, meetings and identity from one supplier on one bill. and a company standardising on single sign-on, where entra id becomes the account other services authenticate against. are not what Milanote is typically brought in for.
What can Microsoft 365 do that Milanote cannot?
Microsoft 365 covers Office applications, Hosted services, Teams, Microsoft Entra ID. Milanote covers Infinite board canvas, Mixed content, Nested boards, Templates.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Microsoft 365: What is the difference between Microsoft 365 and Office?

Office was a one-off licence for a specific version. Microsoft 365 is a subscription covering the applications and the hosted services together, and when payment stops the applications drop to a reduced state rather than continuing as they were.

Milanote: How long does the free plan last?

Indefinitely. It is limited by quantity rather than by time: 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads for the account as a whole, so it ends when you hit the cap rather than on a date.

Microsoft 365: Is Teams included?

Not automatically for newer customers. Microsoft unbundled Teams and now sells it alongside the suite, so check what a given quotation actually covers.

Milanote: Can I export a board?

You can produce PDFs and images of a board and extract the text, but the spatial arrangement is not portable, so nothing you export reconstructs the board in another tool.

Microsoft 365: What happens to our files if we stop paying?

The documents remain yours and can be downloaded, but access to hosted mailboxes and sites ends after a retention window, so leaving requires a planned export rather than a cancellation.

Milanote: Is it a project management tool?

No. There are no dates, dependencies or workload views. It suits the thinking phase, and the work has to be handed to a tracker once it becomes a plan.

Microsoft 365: Is Copilot part of the subscription?

No. It is a per-user add-on on top of the base licence, generally with its own term commitment, and it is priced per seat regardless of how much any individual uses it.

Milanote: Do collaborators need paid accounts?

Shared boards are unlimited even on the free plan, and the paid question is about who creates rather than who looks. Confirm the current plan terms before rolling it out to a client's team.

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