What Windows 10 now costs your business
Windows 10 stopped getting security updates on 14 October 2025. You can pay Microsoft to keep them coming for up to three more years. This works out what that costs — and whether it's worth it.
Your situation
to keep 10 PCs patched through 12 October 2027 — $183 per PC.
What it costs, year by year
| Coverage | Through | Per PC | × 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 13 October 2026 | $61 | $610 |
| Year 2 | 12 October 2027 | $122 | $1,220 |
| Year 3 (not selected) | 10 October 2028 | $244 | $2,440 |
| Your total | 12 October 2027 | $183 | $1,830 |
There is no rush-before-the-deadline saving. Microsoft: “If you decide to purchase the program in Year Two, you have to pay for Year One too, as ESUs are cumulative.” Buying in December costs the same as buying in September. What the 14 October date changes is that unpatched PCs stop receiving updates — not the price.
$1,830 on ESU vs $7,500 to replace. That is 24% of replacing them — a reasonable bridge for a short, defined period. Set the replacement date now, while it is cheap to plan.
Worth finding out.If these PCs aren't joined to a domain or Microsoft Entra and aren't in Intune/MDM, a $30-per-device — or free — consumer route may be open instead of $183 per device. On 10 PCs that is the difference between $300 and $1,830. Answer the management question above to see it.
Windows 10 running in the cloud is covered free. Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure VMs and the Azure Stack family include ESU at no additional cost. If any of these PCs are really thin clients onto something hosted, they may already be covered.
What you'd actually be buying
Microsoft calls Extended Security Updates “a last resort option” and “a temporary bridge to stay secure while one migrates to a newer, supported platform.”That framing is theirs, not ours, and it's fair. ESU is security patches only:
- Included: security updates Microsoft rates Critical and Important.
- Not included: new features, non-security fixes, design changes.
- Not included: technical support. Microsoft will only help with activating ESU itself, and only if you already hold a paid support plan.
There are prerequisites too: each PC must be on Windows 10 version 22H2 with specific update packages installed first, and every licence is activated per device with a key. Long-term servicing builds (LTSB/LTSC) have their own lifecycles and aren't covered by this program at all.
The two traps worth knowing before you budget
Paying for PCs that could just be upgraded.The Windows 11 upgrade is free on eligible hardware. Every PC that can take it and doesn't is a device you're paying to keep behind. Check eligibility before you count heads — it's usually the single biggest saving available.
Assuming there's a deadline discount.There isn't. ESU is cumulative: buy in Year Two and you pay for Year One as well. Anyone selling you urgency about 14 October is selling you something Microsoft's own documentation contradicts.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure was read from Microsoft's own pages on 17 September 2026, with the date each page carried at the time. Prices are USD per device through volume licensing; what a reseller charges you may differ.
- $61 per device for Year One, doubling each consecutive year for a maximum of three, and the cumulative rule — Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10, Microsoft Learn.
- Coverage dates — Year 1 to 13 Oct 2026, Year 2 to 12 Oct 2027, Year 3 to 10 Oct 2028 — Purchasing ESU licences as a Cloud Solution Provider, corroborated by the Product Lifecycle FAQ.
- Consumer ESU — $30 one-time, or free via PC settings sync or 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, through 12 October 2027, and the management-based exclusions — Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Updates.
If you'd rather not work it out alone
Counting which PCs can take Windows 11, which are worth keeping, and which should have been replaced two years ago is exactly the kind of thing we do for clients. If you want a second pair of eyes on the list before you spend anything, get in touch — there's no charge for a conversation.
Related reading: what outsourced IT support really costs, managed IT vs. break-fix, and the new-employee IT setup checklist.
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