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Purchasing, renewing, canceling, or billing for subscriptions

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How do I purchase Visual Studio subscriptions?

Visual Studio subscriptions are available for purchase through various channels, including Volume Licensing, the Visual Studio Marketplace, and Microsoft Store.

Compare subscription benefits and pricing to understand the benefits of each Visual Studio subscription. Check out the subscription benefits page for more help deciding which subscription is right for you.

Microsoft Store

Retail Visual Studio subscriptions available through the Microsoft Store include:

Each of these subscriptions offers the option to make an initial purchase or to renew an existing subscription. Renewal pricing reflects a significant discount and is only available for existing subscriptions. To qualify to renew subscriptions at the discounted renewal price, subscriptions should be renewed before they expire.

If you want to make a one-time purchase of Visual Studio without a subscription or any of the benefits that are included with a subscription, visit the Microsoft Store for Visual Studio Professional 2022.

Visual Studio Marketplace

With monthly subscriptions, you can rent Visual Studio and Azure DevOps without a long-term contract. Billing is handled through your Microsoft Azure subscription. If you don’t have an Azure subscription yet—it’s free to set up and you can do so while you make your first purchase.

Read more about monthly Visual Studio Subscriptions billing.

Volume Licensing

Volume Licensing subscriptions are available when an organization needs to purchase a large number of subscriptions. Read more about purchasing through Volume Licensing.

How do I renew Visual Studio subscriptions?

You can acquire Visual Studio subscriptions in several ways, and the process for renewing existing subscriptions depends on how you acquired them.

How to renew retail subscriptions

If you currently have a retail subscription, there are two ways to renew:

Note

You must renew your subscription within 30 days after the expiry to qualify for renewal pricing. If you renew through the Microsoft Store, be sure to activate your renewal with the 5x5 key that you receive or your subscription will not have an updated end date or be renewed.

How to renew cloud subscriptions

Cloud subscriptions are purchased through the Visual Studio Marketplace. Both monthly and annual cloud subscriptions renew until you cancel them, so there's no action needed to renew them.

How to renew subscriptions purchased through Volume Licensing

If your subscription is provided to you by your work, it's probably purchased and renewed through your company's Volume License agreement. You can reach out to your admin using the Contact my admin button at the top right of the Subscriptions Portal.

What are the licensing terms for Visual Studio subscriptions?

All Visual Studio subscriptions are licensed on a per-user basis. Each licensed user may install and use the software on any number of devices to design, develop, test, and demonstrate their programs. Visual Studio subscriptions also allow the licensed user to evaluate the software and to simulate customer environments to diagnose issues related to your programs. Each additional person who uses the software in this way must also have a license.

For more details, view the Microsoft Visual Studio Licensing white paper.

How do I view my invoice for monthly and annual subscriptions?

Monthly Visual Studio subscriptions (and annual subscriptions if purchased before December 2018) are billed through Azure and you can find your bill in the Azure portal.

To view your Visual Studio subscriptions invoice:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
  2. Select the Cost Management + Billing blade in the menu to find an overview, list of subscriptions, and invoices.

How do I cancel monthly and annual subscriptions?

To cancel monthly and annual subscriptions purchased from the Visual Studio Marketplace, you need to sign in to the Administration Portal and set the number of subscriptions for your agreement to zero.

Follow these steps to reduce the number of subscriptions:

  1. Sign in to the subscriptions management portal.
  2. If you're an admin on more than one agreement, choose the desired agreement from the drop-down list.
  3. Select the Overview icon at the top left to display information about your subscriptions.
  4. Locate the entry for the subscriptions you wish to cancel, and select Change quantity. You're redirected to the Visual Studio Marketplace where you can update your purchase quantity.
  5. Set the quantity to zero (0). Your subscriptions remain in place until their scheduled billing date, but won't renew when the billing date is reached.