Office – Microsoft 365 Comparison chart – Business Plans vs F1, E1, E3, and E5

Selecting the right Office 365 version is an important step before migrating to the cloud. With the multiple plans that are available for Business and Enterprise Organisation,  each bringing different features and limitations, can it be hard to find the right plan. I created this Office 365 Comparision Chart to help you select the best plan for your business.

This Office 365 Comparison Chart reveals the different options and limitations that are available. If you want to know more about the difference between two specific plans, just scroll down to find some in-depth articles.

Office 365 is becoming Microsoft 365. The names of some Office 365 plans will change to Microsoft 365 names after April 21, 2020. This article is updated accordingly. Read more about it here

Start with an Office 365 Trial

It can be difficult to select the right plan for your business with the many options that are available for Office 365. So it’s always good to start with an Office 365 Trial to see what will work for your organization. You can use your own domain for the trial, but only do that when you are really sure you are going to proceed with Office 365. Otherwise use a temporary domain, like Contoso-lab01, to test out Office 365.

There are two trails available, Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Enterprise E3. If you have a small company, with less then 50 employees I recommend starting with a Microsoft 365 Business Premium trial. Business gives you some nice services like Invoicing and Outlook Customer Manager.

If you have more then 50 employees I would recommend going for the Enterprise solution. It’s more expensive, but the Compliance and Information Protection services will help you protect your data and make it easier for you to comply with Business regulations and industry standards.

Compare Office 365 Plans

Office 365 comes in different plans for businesses. The two main flavors are Microsoft 365 Business and Office 365 Enterprise. The most important difference between these two plans is the seat cap and 24/7 phone support. Business plans are limited to 300 seats and you have only 24/7 phone support for critical issues.

Another big difference is that you can’t use the business plans in a terminal environment. So if you are working with a terminal server (Remote Desktop or Citrix), you can only use the Enterprise plans.

Microsoft Staffhub

In October 2019 Staffhub will retire. Microsoft has built the Staffhub features into Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft 365 Comparison Chart

The prices are based on an annual subscription model. Business plans are available with a monthly agreement and a yearly, Enterprise plans are only available in a yearly agreement.

You can check the prices for your country or buy one of the Office 365 plans here at Office.com

		Microsoft 365			Office 365 (Enterprise)
		Apps for Business	Business Basics	Business Standard	Apps for Enterprise	F1	E1	E3	E5
Core Details
Price user/month (annual commitment)		$ 8.30	$ 5.00	$ 12.50	$ 12.00	$ 4.00	$ 8.00	$ 20.00	$ 35.00
Price user/month (monthly commitment)		$ 10.00	$ 6.00	$ 15.00	$ 12.00	$ 4.00	$ 8.00	$ 20.00	$ 35.00
Seat Cap		300 (for each plan)			Unlimited
24/7 Phone support		Critical issues			All issues
Office
Desktop version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher		•		•	•			•	•
Web version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Office apps on tablets and phones		•	•	•	•			•	•
Access		•		•	•			•	•
Standard Services
1TB cloud storage (OneDrive for Business)		•	•	•	•	Cloud only (2GB)	•
Unlimited cloud storage (OneDrive for Business)								•	•
Email, Calendar (Exchange)			•	•		Kiosk (2GB)	•	•	•
Online meetings, IM (Skype for Business)			•	•			•	•	•
Communication and team sites (SharePoint)			•	•		•	•	•	•
Team hub (Teams)		•	•	•		•	•	•	•
Enterprise Social (Yammer)			•	•		•	•	•	•
Content discovery and search (Delve)		•	•	•			•	•	•
Manage tasks and teamworks (Planner)		•		•			•	•	•
Manage your business better (Invoicing, Bookings, MileIQ, Business center)				•
Manage customers (Connections, Listings, Outlook Customer Manager)				•
Advanced Services
Active Directory integration		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Mobile Device Management (MDM) for Office 365		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Licensed for hybrid deployment					•		•	•	•
Support for shared computer activation					•			•	•
Video content management							•	•	•
Compliance – Archiving, eDiscovery, hold								•	•
Information protection – message encryption, RMS, DLP								•	•
Enhanced Services
Advanced eDiscovery, secure attachments and URLs and access controls									•
End-user and organizational analytics (MyAnalytics & Power BI)			•	•			•	•	•
Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection									•
Office 365 Cloud App Security									•
PSTN conferencing to dial into Skype meetings from anywhere									•
Advanced Data Governance									•
Advanced security with Advanced Threat Protection and Customer Lockbox									•
More Info		Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices	Info & Prices
More Info				Trial				Trial

Office 365 plans comparison pdf

If you want a printable version of the chart, you can download this Office 365 Plan Comparison Pdf file.

Comparing the different versions

In the coming weeks, I will write more in-depth articles on the differences between the different versions. How they compare to each other when you should go for Business or Enterprise etc. One of the first Office 365 Comparisons that I have worked out is Office 365 E1 vs E3.

Office 365 F1

I got a lot of questions on what the differences are between the new Office 365 F1 plan and the existing E1 plan. I worked out the details between them, you can read more about it in the in-depth article Office F1 vs E1

Office 365 E1 vs E3

Do you want to know when Office 365 E1 is sufficient and what the differences are with Office 365 E3? Check out this article where we go into differences between the two.

Office 365 Business Premium vs E3

They look almost the same, but there is a huge price difference between these two plans. Want to know what these differences are and if E3 is worth the extra money? You can read all the details here in this article.

Office 365 Business Plans

Are you a small business and do you want to know which Office 365 Business Plan is the best fit for you? Then you should check out this article with all the details you need to know about the Business Plans.

Microsoft 365 Plans

Interested in Microsoft 365 as well? Take a look at this article where I explain the differences between Office 365 and Microsoft 365