Microsoft 365 is the default choice for email and office software in most small businesses. But the plan names are confusing, and it’s easy to end up paying for features nobody uses, or missing the security tools you actually need.
Here’s what the main business plans include, how to decide who needs what, and how to keep your licence bill under control.
The three main business plans
Microsoft’s business plans are designed for organisations with up to 300 users. Each one includes everything in the plan below it.
Business Basic
Business Basic covers the essentials for working online:
- Business email with a 50 GB mailbox, using your own domain name
- Teams for chat, calls and video meetings
- 1 TB of OneDrive storage per person
- SharePoint for shared files and team sites
- The web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
What it doesn’t include is the full desktop versions of the Office apps. You can open and edit documents in a browser or on a phone, but not in installed Word or Excel on a PC or Mac.
Business Standard
Business Standard adds the desktop apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook installed on up to five PCs or Macs, plus five tablets and five phones per person. It also adds some extra features such as webinars with attendee registration.
For anyone who works in documents and spreadsheets all day, the desktop apps are still noticeably more capable than the web versions, especially for large spreadsheets, complex formatting and working offline.
Business Premium
Business Premium adds advanced security and device management:
- Defender for Business for protecting computers against malware and ransomware
- Intune for managing and securing laptops and phones, including wiping a lost device
- Conditional access, so you can control where and how people sign in
- Information protection tools for labelling and protecting sensitive documents
If you handle sensitive personal or financial data, have staff working from home on their own devices, or need to meet security standards for customers or insurers, Premium is often worth the extra cost. It can replace several separate security products.
Who needs what
Not everyone in a business needs the same plan, and you can mix and match. Microsoft lets you buy different plans for different people under the same account.
A typical small business might look like this:
- Staff who mainly use email, Teams and shared files, such as field staff, warehouse teams or front of house: Business Basic is often enough.
- Office staff working in documents, spreadsheets and presentations all day: Business Standard.
- Directors and anyone handling sensitive data, or the whole business if security is a priority: Business Premium.
There’s also Microsoft 365 Apps for business, which gives you the desktop apps and OneDrive without business email. It can suit people who already have email elsewhere.
One thing to check: if you mix plans, make sure the security features you rely on cover everyone who needs them. Device management in Premium, for example, only applies to users who have a Premium licence.
Stop paying for empty seats
The biggest saving for most businesses isn’t choosing a cheaper plan. It’s getting rid of licences nobody uses. We regularly find businesses paying for accounts belonging to people who left months or even years ago.
Convert leavers to shared mailboxes
When someone leaves, their emails often still need to be accessible. Instead of keeping their licence, convert their mailbox to a shared mailbox. Shared mailboxes up to 50 GB don’t need a licence, and the people who need access can still read and reply to emails.
Use shared mailboxes for team addresses
Addresses like info@, accounts@ and sales@ don’t need their own paid user. Set them up as shared mailboxes that the relevant people can access from their own Outlook.
Review licences every few months
Put a reminder in the diary to check your licences every quarter:
- Who has left, or changed role?
- Who has a higher plan than they need?
- Are there licences assigned to nobody at all?
Monthly or annual?
Microsoft offers both monthly and annual commitments. An annual commitment is usually cheaper per user, but you can’t reduce your number of licences until the renewal date. Monthly commitment costs more, but gives you the flexibility to add and remove licences as your team changes.
For a stable team, annual usually makes sense. If you’re growing quickly or use seasonal staff, a mix can work well: annual licences for your core team and monthly ones for the rest.
Don’t forget backups and security
Microsoft keeps its services running, but it’s not a full backup of your data. Deleted emails and files are only recoverable for a limited time, and data encrypted by ransomware can sync across devices. A separate backup of mailboxes, OneDrive and SharePoint is worth having for any business that relies on them.
It’s also worth turning on multi-factor authentication for every account, whichever plan you’re on. It’s included in all business plans and blocks most account break-ins. Our five-minute security check covers this and other quick wins.
Getting it right
Choosing the right plans is usually a one-off job that saves money every month after. If you’d like us to review your current licences, recommend the right mix and handle the switch, take a look at our Microsoft 365 licensing service. We can usually tell you within one conversation whether you’re overpaying.
