Microsoft 365 Business Plans Compared

In April 2020 Microsoft changed the names of the Office 365 Business plans to Microsoft 365 Business. Before this name change, we had only Microsoft 365 Business, but now we have Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, and Apps for Business.

Only the names have changed, the price and the features of the plans have stayed the same. In this article, we are going to take a look at the differences between the Microsoft 365 Business plans. We are going to start with a comparison table so you can quickly compare the most important details between the different plans.

Microsoft 365 for Business Plans Compared

In the table below you will find all the details of the Microsoft 365 business plans compared. You can find the prices for your country here at Microsoft.com. Keep in mind that all Business plans are limited to 300 users.

Note

Microsoft added new plans without Teams wich are only available in the European Union. These plans are less expensive. Read everything about it in this article

Tip

You can mix Microsoft 365 Business plans with Enterprise plans, so if you have more than 300 users, you buy Office 365 E3 plans for the other users.

	Microsoft 365 Business Plans
	Business Basic	Business Standard	Business Premium	Apps for Business
Annual commitment	$5.00 per month	$12.50 per month	$20.00 per month	$8.25 per month
monthly commitment	$6.00 per month	$15.00 per month	–	$10.00 per month
Core Details
Number of installs	Online and mobile only	5 per user	5 per user	5 per user
Supported devices	Web, tablets, and phones	PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones	PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones	PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones
Office Apps
Office Online
Office Apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)
Publisher and Access (pc only)
Standard Services
Exchange	Plan 1 (50Gb Mailbox)	Plan 1 (50Gb Mailbox)	Plan 1 (50Gb Mailbox)
OneDrive Storage	Plan 1 (1 TB per user)	Plan 1 (1 TB per user)	Plan 1 (1 TB per user)	Plan 1 (1 TB per user)
SharePoint
Teams
Yammer
Included Windows 10 license
Windows 10/11 Business
Business Apps
Planner
Microsoft Teams Shifts
Flow
PowerApps
Forms
To-Do
Stream			Plan 1
Outlook Customer Manager
Microsoft Bookings
Microsoft Invoicing
MileQ
Insights by MyAnalytics
Advanced Services
Active Directory Intergration			Small Business
Microsoft Intune
Azure Information Protection
Azure Rights Management
Office Advanced Threat Protection
Mobile Device Management for Office 365
	More info	More info	More info	More info
	Buy	Buy	Buy	Buy
		Trial	Trial

Microsoft 365 Business Basic

The Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan, formerly known as Office 365 Business Essentials, is the perfect plan if you don’t work a lot in Word, Excel, or Outlook.

In the Business Basic plan, you don’t get the desktop apps, so you can’t install Word, Excel, Outlook, etc on your desktop. But you can use those applications online in your browser.

The browser versions of these apps work perfectly for light usage. Outlook Online is great to work with, it has all the important features just like the Outlook app. Word and Excel Online also work fine if you need to write an occasional letter or spreadsheet.

What makes the Business Basic plan so great is that you get Exchange Online with 50Gb mailboxes OneDrive and SharePoint. So you can use all the benefits of Office 365 (safely storing your data in the cloud, easily working together and sharing documents, etc.), for only $5 per month.

Microsoft 365 Business Standard

This is basically the default Microsoft 365 plan for small businesses ( hence the name 😉 ). Microsoft 365 Business Standard, formerly known as Office 365 Business Premium, contains everything a small business needs.

It comes with desktop apps so that you can install Outlook, Word, Excel, etc. on your desktops, and it comes with a lot of online business apps.

The desktop apps have of course a lot of advantages over the online versions, but the most important ones are that you can use add-ins (for your business applications for example) and macros. Something that is not possible with the online versions.

Business Standard comes with a couple of Online Business Applications that are only available in Standard and Premium.

• Outlook Customer Manager – a Lite CRM system based on Outlook
• Microsoft Teams Shifts – Built-in Microsoft Teams to plan shifts and tasks
• Microsoft Bookings
• Microsoft Invoicing
• MileQ

Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Business Premium is an original Microsoft 36 plan, it was formerly known as Microsoft 365 Business. It comes with everything that Business Standard has with the addition of a couple of security features/services and a Windows 10 Pro license.

Windows 10 Pro License

The Windows 10 Pro license is a pretty strange one compared to the other plans, so let me explain it a bit. Some of the advanced security features that come with Business Premium don’t work on older versions of Windows or on Windows 10 Home.

So to make full use of the security features, you get a Windows 10 Pro license. Now to be clear, you can only upgrade Windows 7 or 8 Pro to Windows 10 Pro. You can’t upgrade Windows 10 Home to Pro.

Advanced Security Features

The advanced security features help you to stay protected against cybersecurity threats. It protects you from phishing emails and ransomware.

Another important feature is the Azure Information Protection. If you are working with a lot of sensitive data, then you absolutely don’t want the data to be accidentally shared with others. With Information Protection you can classify, label, and encrypt data so it can’t be shared accidentally.

Keep in mind that settings up these features require some knowledge about Office 365, so it might be a good idea to get an IT/Office 365 Consultant to help you set it up correctly.

Microsoft Intune

The last important addition to this Premium Microsoft 365 Business plan is Intune. With Microsoft Intune, you can manage and protect your mobile devices. Keep in mind data mobile devices are easily getting lost or stolen, so you want to make sure that those are fully protected and easily can be wiped clean when lost.

Microsoft 365 Apps for Business

This plan doesn’t really belong here in this comparison, but I have put it in because of the name and the confusion it might cause. You should actually really compare this plan with just buying Office 2019 in my opinion.

Basically, Apps for Business is only the Office applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) with the advantage that you also get Online versions, continuous updates, and 1Tb OneDrive storage. But you don’t get SharePoint or Exchange Online.

So you will have to host your email somewhere else, store your files locally (or in OneDrive) and you won’t get any of the advantages of Office 365.

Conclusion

The Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan is for most businesses the best plan to choose. It comes with the Office apps, and all the cloud features and it’s reasonably priced. If you are still in doubt, you can always start with a trial of Business Standard.

Make sure you also check the following articles:

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard vs Office 365 E3
• Office 365 Branding
• Setup Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365