Microsoft 365 Business Basic vs Standard vs Premium (2026)

Short answer: On Microsoft’s US site today, Business Basic is $7.00, Business Standard $14.00 and Business Premium $22.00 per user per month on an annual subscription paid yearly (20% more on a monthly subscription). Basic gives web and mobile apps with Exchange and Teams; Standard adds the desktop Office apps; Premium adds what admins actually need for security: Entra ID P1 (Conditional Access), Intune Plan 1, Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 and Purview information protection. All three are capped at 300 users in total; beyond that, or when you need Entra ID P2 and advanced compliance across the board, look at E3 or E5.

Prices and plan contents checked on Microsoft’s own product pages and Microsoft Learn (linked below) on 7 October 2026. This is a licensing comparison; there were no commands to test.

Prices (US site, USD, per user per month)

Prices last checked: 7 October 2026, on microsoft.com/en-us. “Annual” is Microsoft’s “paid yearly” annual subscription that auto-renews; “Monthly” is the month-to-month subscription price. Microsoft also sells “no Teams” versions and “with Copilot” bundles, shown separately. Local prices, currency and tax treatment differ by country, and Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) resellers set their own prices and terms, so check your own region or reseller before budgeting.

Plan	Annual (paid yearly)	Monthly subscription	No Teams: annual	No Teams: monthly
Microsoft 365 Business Basic	$7.00	$8.40	$5.40	$6.48
Microsoft 365 Business Standard	$14.00	$16.80	$10.79	$12.95
Microsoft 365 Business Premium	$22.00	$26.40	$18.79	$22.55
Microsoft 365 Apps for business (no Teams, no Exchange)	$10.00	$12.00	n/a	n/a

Copilot bundles on the same pages: Business Standard with Copilot $23.50 and Business Premium with Copilot $32.00 per user per month, paid yearly ($20.30 and $28.80 without Teams). Microsoft Defender for Business on its own is listed at $3.00 per user per month, paid yearly. For comparison, the enterprise page lists Microsoft 365 E3 at $39.00 and E5 at $60.00 per user per month, paid yearly with an annual commitment ($30.45 and $51.45 without Teams).

What each plan gives an admin

Feature	Basic	Standard	Premium
Office apps	Web and mobile only	Desktop, web and mobile	Desktop, web and mobile
Exchange Online mailbox	100 GB	100 GB	100 GB
Archive mailbox	50 GB	50 GB	Auto-expanding up to 1.5 TB
OneDrive storage	1 TB per user	1 TB per user	1 TB per user
Teams (in the standard SKU)	Yes	Yes, plus webinars	Yes, plus webinars
Identity	Entra ID Free (security defaults)	Entra ID Free (security defaults)	Entra ID P1 (Conditional Access)
Device management	Basic Mobility and Security	Basic Mobility and Security	Intune Plan 1
Endpoint security	Not included	Not included	Defender for Business
Email security	Built-in anti-spam and anti-malware (EOP)	Built-in anti-spam and anti-malware (EOP)	EOP plus Defender for Office 365 Plan 1
Information protection	Not included	Not included	Purview Information Protection and DLP
User limit	300	300	300

Mailbox and archive sizes are from Microsoft’s Exchange Online limits page; the identity, device and security rows are from Microsoft’s “Microsoft 365 for business security overview” and the Business Premium product page.

Business Basic: email, Teams and web apps

Basic is Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams with browser and mobile Office apps. For admins, the important limit is identity: you get Entra ID Free, so MFA comes from security defaults, which is on or off with no exceptions or per-app rules. Device control is Basic Mobility and Security, a simple MDM for phones that is a long way from Intune.

Suits: frontline or part-time staff who only need email and Teams, shared reception mailboxes, organisations whose users already have Office desktop licences elsewhere.

Business Standard: Basic plus desktop Office

Standard adds the installed desktop apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Access on PC) and extra apps such as Bookings, Loop and Clipchamp, and lets Teams host webinars. From an admin’s point of view nothing changes on security: still Entra ID Free, security defaults and no Intune.

Suits: small offices that need desktop Office and are comfortable with security defaults, no managed Windows devices and no Conditional Access.

Business Premium: Standard plus the security stack

Premium is the plan where an admin can actually enforce policy:

• Entra ID P1: Conditional Access, so you can block legacy authentication, require MFA by app or location and require compliant devices. See our Conditional Access baseline policies.
• Intune Plan 1: Windows, macOS, iOS and Android management, compliance policies, app deployment and Windows LAPS through Intune.
• Defender for Business: next-generation antivirus, endpoint detection and response (EDR) and threat and vulnerability management.
• Defender for Office 365 Plan 1: Safe Links, Safe Attachments and anti-phishing beyond the built-in filters.
• Purview Information Protection and DLP: sensitivity labels and data loss prevention policies.
• Exchange Online Archiving: auto-expanding archive up to 1.5 TB per user.

Entra ID P2 (risk-based Conditional Access, ID Protection) is not in Premium itself. Microsoft offers it through the Microsoft Defender Suite add-on for Business Premium; check the add-on’s price for your region with Microsoft or your reseller.

Suits: any business up to 300 users that holds customer data, has cyber insurance questionnaires to answer, or wants managed Windows devices without buying Intune and Defender separately.

Business Premium vs Standard: is the $8 difference worth it?

At the US annual prices, Premium costs $8.00 per user per month more than Standard. What you get for that is the whole identity and device security layer. Pricing the pieces separately is the usual way to judge it: Defender for Business alone is listed at $3.00 per user per month, before Intune, Entra ID P1, Defender for Office 365 or Purview are added.

Choose Premium when at least one of these is true:

• You need Conditional Access: blocking legacy protocols per app, requiring compliant devices, or exempting a service account from MFA without turning MFA off for everyone.
• You want to manage and wipe company laptops and phones, push Wi-Fi and VPN profiles, or roll out Windows updates and LAPS centrally.
• You need endpoint detection and response on Windows and Mac without a third-party antivirus contract.
• You must label or restrict sensitive documents and email (Purview).

Standard is enough when you only need desktop Office, MFA via security defaults is acceptable, and devices are managed some other way (or not at all). You can also mix plans: Premium for staff who handle data and admins, Basic or Standard for others, as long as the total stays within 300 Business seats.

The 300-user cap

Microsoft’s Business Premium FAQ states that a tenant can have at most 300 seats in total across all Business-family plans (Basic, Standard and Premium combined). For example, 250 Business Premium seats leave room for only 50 more Business seats of any kind. Microsoft says it may enforce this limit and that organisations with more than 300 users should use Enterprise plans.

If you are at 250 users and growing, plan the move before you hit the cap rather than buying a mix that has to be reworked later.

When E3 or E5 makes more sense

Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 have no user cap. On the US site they cost $39.00 and $60.00 per user per month with an annual commitment. Consider them when:

• You have more than 300 users, or expect to soon.
• You need Windows Enterprise features: E3 and E5 include Windows Enterprise, which Business plans do not.
• You need Entra ID P2 for everyone (risk-based Conditional Access, Privileged Identity Management): it is included in E5.
• Compliance and security requirements go beyond SMB tools: E5 adds Microsoft’s full XDR and SIEM capabilities, insider risk management and other advanced Purview features, plus Teams Phone and Power BI Pro.

For a 50-person firm with no regulator asking for E5-level auditing, E3 usually costs much more than Business Premium for little practical gain in security. Premium is the default recommendation for that size; E3 or E5 becomes the right call at scale or when a specific feature is required.

Switching plans: migration effort

• Between Business plans (Basic to Standard, Standard to Premium): a licence change in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Mailboxes and files stay where they are; users need the desktop apps installed after moving up from Basic.
• Business to Enterprise: also a licence change in the same tenant, not a data migration. Plan the timing around your annual subscription term and any reseller contract.
• Moving down from Premium: work out what depends on it first. Conditional Access policies, Intune compliance and Defender onboarding stop working for users who lose the licence, so turn security defaults back on if no users keep Entra ID P1, or they lose enforced MFA.
• Monthly vs annual: Microsoft’s pages show the monthly subscription at 20% above the annual price. Annual subscriptions auto-renew; Microsoft’s product pages mention a seven-day window after a paid subscription starts for a prorated refund. Check the exact cancellation terms at purchase or with your reseller.

Official documentation: Microsoft 365 Business plans and pricing · Microsoft 365 Business Premium · Microsoft 365 for business security overview · Exchange Online limits

Related: Microsoft 365 MFA Status Report: PowerShell Script for Graph · Intune Device Compliance Report: PowerShell Script via Graph · Microsoft 365 shared mailbox vs distribution group vs Microsoft 365 Group · Microsoft 365 SPF DKIM DMARC: Secure Exchange Online Setup · Windows LAPS with Intune and Entra ID: Setup and Retrieval

See also: Conditional Access Baseline Policies for Microsoft 365 (2026)

Frequently asked questions