Microsoft sells three main plans for organisations of up to 300 users. They share the same email, Teams and storage, so the choice comes down to two questions: do your people need the installed Office apps, and do you need to manage and secure their devices?
The short answer
- Business Basic if web and mobile apps are enough and you mainly need email and Teams.
- Business Standard if people need Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook installed on their computers.
- Business Premium if you also need to manage laptops and phones, or you handle sensitive data.
Side by side
| Basic | Standard | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business email (50 GB mailbox) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams, SharePoint, 1 TB OneDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web and mobile Office apps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop Office apps (5 PCs or Macs per user) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Intune device management | No | No | Yes |
| Defender for Business | No | No | Yes |
| Entra ID P1 and Conditional Access | No | No | Yes |
When Basic is enough
Front-line staff, shared mailboxes for small teams and people who work mostly in a browser are well served by Basic. The web versions of Word and Excel handle everyday documents, although they lack some advanced features such as macros and the full set of data tools.
When to choose Standard
Anyone who works in large spreadsheets, uses Outlook with several mailboxes, or needs to work offline should have the desktop apps. Standard is the most common choice for office-based staff.
When Premium pays for itself
Premium adds the tools that insurers and larger customers increasingly ask about: enforced multi-factor authentication through Conditional Access, encryption and remote wipe of company devices through Intune, and endpoint protection through Defender for Business. Buying those separately usually costs more than the difference between Standard and Premium.
Can you mix plans?
Yes. Plans are assigned per user, so you can put directors and finance staff on Premium, office staff on Standard and warehouse staff on Basic within the same organisation, up to 300 users across the Business plans.
See the plans: Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium.