The Microsoft Office 365 plans offer great tools for businesses and enterprises to fully work in the cloud. Microsoft has changed the names of most plans to Microsoft 365 but also kept partially the Office 365 label. Comparing all the plans together on the Microsoft site can sometimes be a bit challenging, so to help you out I have created an overview to compare all office 365 plans.
If you have a small business with less than 300 users, then the most interesting plans are the Microsoft 365 Business plans. Large organizations will have to look at the Office 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 plans.
I have also written a couple of articles where I go more into detail between the different plans, you can find the links further down in the article.
Microsoft Office 365 Comparison Chart
The table below will help you to compare the Office 365 plans. The prices are based on an annual subscription model. Enterprise plans are only available in a yearly agreement.
Microsoft 365 Business plans
For most small businesses is the Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan the best choice. With a price of $12.50 per user per month, you get the full Office 365 suite, with the desktop apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, etc. Everything you need to get your business started in the cloud. If you also want to fully manage your devices (computers, mobile phones) or make use of advanced threat protection, then take a look at the Business Premium plan.
Office 365 Enterprise plans
The Enterprise plans can also be used by companies with less than 300 users, but they are more meant for companies that also need Active Directory integration or features like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery. You get more storage for Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint with the Enterprise plans.
You can check the prices for your country or buy one of the Office 365 plans here at Office.com
Microsoft Office 365 license comparison
| Microsoft Office 365 Plans Compared | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft 365 Business | Office 365 Enterprise | Microsoft 365 | |||||||||||
Business Basic |
Business Standard |
Business Premium |
Apps for Business |
Office 365 E1 |
Office 365 E3 |
Office 365 E5 |
Apps for Enterprise |
Microsoft 365 F1 |
Microsoft 365 F3 |
Microsoft 365 E3 |
Microsoft 365 E5 |
||
| Annual commitment per month |
$6.00 | $12.50 | $22.00 | $8.25 | $10.00 | $23.00 | $38.00 | $12.00 | $2.25 | $8.00 | $36.00 | $57.00 | |
| Monthly commitment per month |
$7.20 | $15.00 | $10.00 | ||||||||||
| More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | ||
| Core Details | |||||||||||||
| Maximum users | 300 | 300 | 300 | 300 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |
| Microsoft Office Apps | Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Apps for Business | Office 365 E1 | Office 365 E3 | Office 365 E5 | Apps for Enterprise | Microsoft 365 F1 | Microsoft 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5 | |
| Office Online | 3 | 1 | |||||||||||
| Desktop Apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote) | |||||||||||||
| Publisher and Access (pc only) | |||||||||||||
| Mobile apps | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Install apps on up to 5 PCs/Mac + 5 tablets + 5 smartphones | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Microsoft Editor premium features | |||||||||||||
| Notes: 1. Limited to devices with a 10.1″ screen or smaller 2. Mobile app only 3. Read only | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Office Apps | Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Apps for Business | Office 365 E1 | Office 365 E3 | Office 365 E5 | Apps for Enterprise | Microsoft 365 F1 | Microsoft 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5 | |
| Exchange (Email) | Plan 1 50Gb |
Plan 1 50Gb |
Plan 1 50Gb |
Plan 1 50Gb |
Plan 2 100Gb |
Plan 2 100Gb |
Kiosk 2Gb |
Plan 2 100Gb |
Plan 2 100Gb |
||||
| Email archiving | 50Gb |
50Gb |
1.5TB |
50Gb |
1.5TB |
1.5TB |
1.5TB |
1.5TB |
|||||
| Public folder & Resource mailbox | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Shifts | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Bookings | |||||||||||||
| Chat, Meetings, Social, and Calling | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Teams | |||||||||||||
| Live Events | |||||||||||||
| Yammer | |||||||||||||
| Phone System & Audio Conferencing | |||||||||||||
| Storage | |||||||||||||
| OneDrive Storage (per user) | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 5 TB 1 | 5 TB 1 | 1 TB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 5 TB 1 | 5 TB 1 | |
| SharePoint | Plan 1 2 | Plan 1 2 | Plan 1 2 | Plan 1 2 | Plan 2 2 | Plan 2 2 | Kiosk 3 | Kiosk 3 | Plan 2 2 | Plan 2 2 | |||
| Notes: 1. 5 TB initial, contact Microsoft to increase. Less then 5 users, then only 1 TB per user 2. 1 TB Storage + 10Gb per user 3. 1 TB Storage | |||||||||||||
| Project and task management | |||||||||||||
| Planner | |||||||||||||
| To-Do | |||||||||||||
| Automation | |||||||||||||
| Power Automate, Power Apps | |||||||||||||
| Analytics | Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Apps for Business | Office 365 E1 | Office 365 E3 | Office 365 E5 | Apps for Enterprise | Microsoft 365 F1 | Microsoft 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5 | |
| MyAnalytics | |||||||||||||
| PowerBi Pro | |||||||||||||
| Endpoint and app management | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Endpoint Manager | |||||||||||||
| Mobile application management | |||||||||||||
| Intune Remotely wipe company data from lost devices | |||||||||||||
| Windows Autopilot Set up and pre-configure new devices, getting them ready for productive use | |||||||||||||
| Group Policy Support | |||||||||||||
| Shared Computer Activation Use Office on RDS/Citrix | |||||||||||||
| Advanced threat protection | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Defender for Endpoint | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 2 | ||||||||||
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Project against ransomware, phishing email, malware | Business | Plan 2 | Plan 2 | ||||||||||
| Windows Defender Firewall, Anti-malware, Exploit Guard, Credential Guard | |||||||||||||
| Defender for Endpoint & Identity | |||||||||||||
| Identity and access management | Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Apps for Business | Office 365 E1 | Office 365 E3 | Office 365 E5 | Apps for Enterprise | Microsoft 365 F1 | Microsoft 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5 | |
| Azure Active Directory Premium | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 2 | ||||||||
| Conditional Access | Plan 1 | ||||||||||||
| AD Sync for SSO | |||||||||||||
| Windows Hello for Business | |||||||||||||
| Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics | |||||||||||||
| Information Protection and Governance | |||||||||||||
| Azure Information Protection | Plan 1 | AIP for Office 365 | AIP for Office 365 | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 1 | Plan 2 | ||||||
| Manual sensitivity labels | |||||||||||||
| Automatic sensitivity labels | |||||||||||||
| Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) | |||||||||||||
| Basic Office Message Encryption | |||||||||||||
| eDiscovery and auditing | Business Basic | Business Standard | Business Premium | Apps for Business | Office 365 E1 | Office 365 E3 | Office 365 E5 | Apps for Enterprise | Microsoft 365 F1 | Microsoft 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5 | |
| Content Search, Basic Audit | |||||||||||||
| eDiscovery | |||||||||||||
| Advanced eDiscovery, Advanced Audit | |||||||||||||
| Litigation Hold | |||||||||||||
| Windows | |||||||||||||
| Windows 10 Enterprise | |||||||||||||
| More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | More info | ||
| Trial | Trial | Trial | Trial | ||||||||||
Start with an Microsoft 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. It’s good to start with the comparison of Office 365 plans, but keep in mind that you can also start with an Office 365 Trial. This way you can 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 a couple of trails available, Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium and Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E5. If you have a small company, with less than 50 employees I recommend starting with a Microsoft 365 Business Premium trial. The business plans give you some nice features like Invoicing and Outlook Customer Manager which can be really useful in smaller companies.
If you have more than 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.
Comparing the plans side-by-side
I have written multiple in-depth articles about the differences between specific plans. These articles will help you when you can’t choose between E3 and E5 for example.
Microsoft 365 F1 vs Office 365 E1
I got a lot of questions on what the differences are between the Microsoft 365 F1 plan and the existing Office E1 plan. I worked out the details between them, you can read more about it in the in-depth article Microsoft 365 F1 vs Office 365 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 the differences between the two.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs Office 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.
Microsoft 365 Business Plans
Are you a small business and do you want to know which Microsoft 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
Wrapping Up
Microsoft offers a lot of different plans, but in general, they offer you a lot of flexibility and can really help your business to grow. I hope this article helped you to compare Office 365 plans. If you have any questions, then just drop a comment below.