Microsoft Access 2024 is the desktop database application, licensed for one user on one Windows PC, as a one-time purchase at $99.99 against a $179.99 list price. No subscription, no renewal date.
Access is Windows only. Microsoft has never released a Mac version and there is no sign of one, so this will not install on macOS under any license. That is a Microsoft limitation, not a restriction on this product.
Access is not included in the Office 2024 suites
Worth saying plainly, because it is the most common reason people land on this page. Neither Office 2024 Home nor Office 2024 Home and Business includes Access. Microsoft bundles it only with Office Professional, which is considerably more expensive than buying the one application you actually need.
If you already own an Office 2024 suite and discovered Access is missing, this standalone license installs alongside it with no conflict.
What people actually build with it
- Inventory and stock tracking, where a spreadsheet has stopped coping with the row count.
- Customer and contact databases with proper relationships rather than duplicated columns.
- Invoicing and order systems, with forms for entry and reports for printing.
- Membership, booking and asset registers for clubs, schools and small offices.
- A front end onto SQL Server, which is a common and genuinely good use of Access.
If you want to see what that looks like in practice, our walkthrough of building an invoice management system in Access takes one of these from empty database to working application.
Access or Excel?
The honest answer is that most people reaching for Access should check whether Excel already does the job. Use Excel for calculation, analysis, charts and anything you will mostly read. Move to Access when you are storing records rather than calculating on them, when the same information is being typed into several places, or when more than one person needs to enter data without overwriting each other.
| Excel | Access | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Calculation and analysis | Storing and relating records |
| Practical size limit | Slows well before 100,000 rows | 2 GB per database file |
| Multi-user data entry | Awkward | Designed for it |
| Data entry forms | No | Yes |
| Printable reports | Basic | Yes |
| Relationships between tables | No | Yes |
What is included, and what is not
- The full Access 2024 desktop application, locked in time at the 2024 release.
- Security and stability updates. No new features after release, which is how every perpetual Office license works.
- A 2 GB limit per database file. Link to SQL Server if you outgrow it.
- No Copilot. That requires a Microsoft 365 subscription.
- One license covers one PC. Access Runtime, which lets other people use a database you built without owning Access, is a free Microsoft download.
After you order
Delivery is by email, normally within 5 to 60 minutes, with a genuine Microsoft product key, the official download link and written install instructions. It is a perpetual license, so you own it outright. If you are weighing this against a subscription, our guide on buying Microsoft Office without a subscription sets out every route. Not sure whether Access is the right tool for what you are building? Tell us what the data looks like and we will say so honestly, even if the answer is that Excel will do. Call +1 346-251-0215.
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