On October 13, 2026, the first year of Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 came to an end. If your organization still has Windows 10 machines on the network, this is a good moment to run the numbers, because the bill just doubled.
A quick refresher
Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025. Since then, the only way for businesses to keep receiving security patches has been to pay for ESU, one device and one year at a time. ESU covers critical and important security updates only. No new features, no general fixes, no standard technical support.
The math
Microsoft’s commercial ESU pricing doubles every year:
- Year 1 (ended October 13, 2026): $61 per device
- Year 2 (through October 12, 2027): $122 per device
- Year 3 (through October 10, 2028): $244 per device
Coverage is cumulative, too. You can’t skip a year and jump in later: an organization that starts in Year 2 also pays for Year 1. Keeping a single PC patched for all three years comes to $427, which is getting uncomfortably close to the price of a new business laptop. Fifty machines? That’s over $21,000 to keep hardware you were planning to replace anyway on life support.
Your three options
1. Upgrade in place. Many PCs bought in the last several years meet Windows 11’s requirements, including a TPM 2.0 security chip and a supported processor. For those, the upgrade itself is free. The real work is testing your applications and scheduling the rollout so nobody loses an afternoon.
2. Replace. For older machines that don’t qualify, replacement is usually the better investment than another year of ESU. New hardware brings better security, better battery life, and warranty coverage that actually means something.
3. Pay for ESU, selectively. ESU still makes sense for specific devices with a real reason to stay on Windows 10, such as specialized equipment, legacy software, or machines already scheduled for replacement. It just shouldn’t be the default plan.
What we recommend
- Take inventory: how many Windows 10 devices do you still have, and which ones can upgrade?
- Budget for replacements now, before Year 3 pricing makes the decision for you.
- Plan the rollout in waves so your team stays productive.
Direct to Market helps clients through exactly this kind of transition: sorting out which machines can upgrade, sourcing replacement hardware across manufacturers at client pricing, and getting new devices configured and deployed, including Windows Autopilot setup.
If Windows 10 is still part of your environment, let’s talk. It’s a lot easier to plan this now than to explain the ESU invoice later.
Pricing reflects Microsoft’s published commercial ESU rates as of October 2026. Education and cloud-based (Windows 365) pricing differs.