Everyone wants to be productive. And to be productive, we need the right set of tools. Those tools include software or online services that can help us become more efficient at work. However, those tools come at a cost through subscriptions. While we prefer those that are free, some services are worth paying monthly or yearly. Here are subscription-based productivity services that can help you with your daily tasks.
Starting with the most popular, Microsoft Office 365 is a suite of applications that includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint Outlook, Publisher, Access. It also includes services such as 1TB OneDrive cloud storage and the use of Skype for business. Here are the prices and included apps of each plan:
| Plan | Included Apps | Cloud Storage Space | Price/year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office 365 Home | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, OneDrive, Skype | 1TB/user, 6TB total | PHP 4,699 |
| Office 365 Personal | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, OneDrive, Skype | 1TB | PHP 3,499 |
| Office Home & Student 2019 | Word, Excel, PowerPoint | - | PHP 6,999 (One time purchase) |
If you don’t need the other apps and cloud storage, you may opt to purchase the Office Home & Student 2019, which includes Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint only for a one time fee of PHP 6,999.
Grammarly is a web-based writing assistant service that allows users to create better, error-free documents and posts. It marks grammatical errors, misplaced or missing punctuation marks, passive sentences, and overly used words. Grammarly also provides users with suggestions and replacements for those errors that could be easily applied with one click. It also shows you the overall score of your composition based on correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery.
Grammarly offers a free service, which only checks for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Paying for the premium subscription unlocks other features for correctness, clarity, engagement, delivery, as well as checking for plagiarism. The Business plan, on the other hand, allows more than three users on the account and has additional features such as the inclusion of an admin panel, centralized billing, team usage statistics, and priority email support.
The premium plan costs USD 11.66 a month, while the business plan costs USD 12.50 a month. Grammarly bills you annually.
If you need to access files across multiple devices, extra storage, or have multiple people working on the same project, then you’re going to need cloud storage. While most cloud storage providers offer its users with free storage, subscribing to a premium plan grants users access to more storage allocation, syncing features, and file sharing. Some cloud storage services such as Google Drive and Microsoft One Drive also integrate other apps included in their suites such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G Suite. Here are the yearly subscription prices of three popular cloud storage providers:
| Dropbox | Google Drive | OneDrive |
|---|---|---|
| 2GB / Free | 15GB / Free | 5GB / Free |
| 2TB / USD 119.88 | 100GB / PHP 889 | 100GB / PHP 1,199.88 |
| 3TB / USD 198.96 | 200GB / PHP 1,499 | 1TB / PHP 3,499 (Personal) |
| 2TB / PHP 4,799 | 1TB / PHP 4,699 (Home) | |
| 10TB / PHP 57,588 | ||
| 20TB / PHP 115,188 | ||
| 30TB / PHP 172,788 |
Google Drive offers the most storage for free out of the three, followed by OneDrive, then Dropbox. Google Drive also has the most available plans, offering cloud storage from 100GB to 30TB. Microsoft OneDrive also offers 100GB cloud storage, although it’s more expensive compared to Google Drive. OneDrive’s Personal plan grants users offline access to Office 365, and the Home plan allows access to up to 6 users, effectively granting users 6TB of cloud storage. Lastly, Dropbox is offering 2GB free cloud storage, 2TB for their Dropbox Plus plan, and 3TB for the Dropbox Professional plan. While Dropbox doesn’t have a suite of apps like the other two, it makes up for with a host of features such as file recovery, Dropbox rewind, and folder sharing.
The Adobe Creative Cloud is a suite of apps and services designed for photography, design, video, web, UX, and more. The whole suite includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, AcrobatPro, Dimension, InCopy, Spark, Capture, Comp, Lightroom/Lightroom Classic, Bridge, Photoshop Fix, Premiere Pro, Audition, After Effects, Character Animator, Media Encoder, Animate, Premiere Rush, Fuse, Aero, Substance, XD, Dreamweaver, Fresco, and Capture.
Adobe’s apps have support for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and some of their apps have mobile ports so you can work on your android devices as well. Adobe is offering a lot of plans designed to suit each person’s needs. Pricing can be found here:
Individual Plans
| Plan | Inclusion | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Photography Plan (20GB) | Lightroom on desktop and mobile Lightroom Classic Photoshop on desktop and iPad 20GB of cloud storage | PHP 498/month |
| Photography Plan (1TB) | Lightroom on desktop and mobile Lightroom Classic Photoshop on desktop and iPad 1TB of cloud storage | PHP 997/month |
| Single App | Your choice of one creative app like Photoshop, Illustrator, or Adobe XD Includes: 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark with premium features | PHP 1,046/month |
| All Apps | The entire collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe XD Includes: 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark Up to 10TB of cloud storage | PHP 2,642/month |
Business Plans
| Plan | Inclusions | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Single App | Your choice of one creative desktop app Adobe Fonts, 100GB of cloud storage, and shared asset libraries Dedicated 24/7 technical support | PHP 1,898/month |
| All Apps | The entire collection of 20+ apps Adobe Fonts, 100GB of cloud storage, and shared asset libraries Dedicated 24/7 technical support | PHP 4,466/month |
They also have variable plans for students, teachers, schools, and universities, which you may check out here.
Slack is a team management and collaboration software that allows team members to communicate with each other instantly, send files, and photos in an easy to use interface. You can create channels, integrate other apps such as Google Drive and Office 365, and have one on one voice and video calls with other teammates. Slack is a great tool for remote teams as they can communicate and coordinate with each other in real-time. Slack offers a free service, with additional features unlocked by getting the Standard and Plus subscription plans. Here are the prices of each plan per month:
| Plans | Inclusions | Price/month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Access to 10,000 of your team’s most recent messages 10 integrations with other apps 1:1 voice and video calls between teammates | Free |
| Standard | Full chat history Unlimited integrations with other apps Group voice and video calls up to 15 teammates Collaborations with outside organizations within Slack | USD 6.67 |
| Plus | Advanced identity management through SAML-based SSO and real-time Active Directory sync with OneLogin, Okta and Ping Compliance requirements met with corporate exports for all messages Around-the-clock teamwork and assistance and 24/7 support | USD 12.50 |
Every plan also includes the features of the plan it succeeds.
Freelancers, small to medium enterprises, and the like, would benefit from the subscription-based accounting software QuickBooks. Users can track their cash flow, create and send invoices, and manage taxes from their Windows PC, Mac, and mobile phones. They offer three paid subscription plans and a 30-day trial, so you can find out whether or not their service is for you. Here are the prices and features of each plan:
| Plan | Inclusions | Number of simultaneous users | Price/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Start | Track cash flow Create and send unlimited invoices Track and manage sales tax | 1 | USD 15 |
| Essentials | Manage and pay bills Transact in multiple currencies Generate sales quotes | 3 | USD 23 |
| Plus | Track inventory Create purchase orders Track project/job profitability | 25 | USD 31 |
Like Slack, each plan also includes the features of the plan it succeeds.
And there’s our list of subscription-based services that will give you a boost in productivity. What other subscription-based services do you use to work better? Let us know in the comments below!
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