Compare Office 365 Plans & Features: Choose the Best One
Before migrating to the cloud, choosing a reliable Office 365 license is a very critical task. Therefore, to resolve this problem for business users, we are going to compare different Office 365 plans and features. This Office 365 license comparison will help users choose their organization correctly. Most of the Office 365 lineup is now absorbed under the Microsoft brand name. With just a few enterprise-grade distinctions. As cost is the most important factor in determining the overall ROI on a service. Let’s check where different variants of Microsoft 365 plans stand.
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Compare Office 365 Plans & Features: Office 365 Business & Enterprise Licenses Price Comparison
Price is the first thing that decision-makers ask while comparing Office 365.
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $5.7/User | $57/User |
| Business Basic With Teams | $7.2/User | $72/User |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | $12.3/User | $123/User |
| Business Standard With Teams | $15/User | $150/User |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | $23.7/User | $237/User |
| Business Premium With Teams | $26.4/User | $264/User |
| Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
Excel, Word, PowerPoint, & Outlook |
$9.9/User | $99/User |
| Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise | — | $12 x 12/User |
| Microsoft 365 E3 (no Teams) | — | $33.75 x 12/User |
| Microsoft 365 E5 (no Teams) | — | $54.75 x 12/User |
| Microsoft 365 F1 | — | $2.25 x 12/User |
| Microsoft 365 F3 | — | $8 x 12/User |
| Office 365 E1 (no Teams) | $9.3/User | $93/User |
| Office 365 E3 (no Teams) | $24.9/User | $249/User |
| Office 365 E5 (no Teams) | $42.9/User | $429/User |
| Microsoft Teams Enterprise | $6.3/User | $63/User |
| Microsoft Teams Essentials | $4.80/User | $48/User |
| Windows 365 Basic | — | $31/User/Month |
| Windows 365 Standard | — | $41/User/Month |
| Windows 365 Premium | — | $66/User/Month |
From this table, we can extract these points:
- Microsoft 365 Business plans are designed for smaller businesses and typically include core applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Some plans include Teams for collaboration features.
- Microsoft 365 Apps plans provide access to the core productivity applications without the additional services included in other Microsoft 365 plans.
- Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans (E3 and E5) offer a broader range of features and security options for larger organizations. The pricing listed is per user, per year.
- A new subcategory of plans for frontline personnel is also available under the F-N category. These are typically cheaper with access to Teams as well.
- Microsoft Teams is a collaboration application available in some Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans. There are also separate subscription plans for Teams only.
- Windows 365 provides a cloud-based Windows desktop experience. The pricing listed is per user per month.
Microsoft Office 365 Business Plans
Renamed to Microsoft 365 Business. These plans are developed for small businesses with fewer than 300 employees. Let us check out what is included in each Office 365 Business plan for small-scale companies.
| Microsoft 365 Business | Basic | Standard | Premium |
| Word | ✔️
Web/Mobile Only |
✔️ | ✔️ |
| Excel | ✔️
Web/Mobile Only |
✔️ | ✔️ |
| PowerPoint | ✔️
Web/Mobile Only |
✔️ | ✔️ |
| Outlook | ✔️
Web/Mobile Only |
✔️ | ✔️ |
| Teams | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| OneDrive | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| SharePoint | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Exchange | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Clipchamp | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Microsoft Loop | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Microsoft Entra ID | ✔️ | ||
| Intune | ✔️ | ||
| Microsoft Defender for Business | ✔️ | ||
| Azure Information Protection | ✔️ |
1. Microsoft 365 Business Basic
Microsoft 365 Business Basic Features
- OneDrive Storage space of 1 TB
- SharePoint
- Microsoft Team chat-based workspace
- Microsoft Planner: To manage tasks and teamwork
- Yammer: To collaborate across departments and locations
- 24*7 Web and Telephonic Support
- Manage up to 300 users & get custom email addresses.
- Stay secure with automatic spam & malware filtering.
2. Microsoft 365 Business Standard
Office 365 Business Plan Features
- OneDrive with storage space of 1 TB
- FastTrack deployment support
- 24*7 Web and Phone Support
- Desktop Version of MS Office 2016 Suite: Outlook, Excel, Word, OneNote, and PowerPoint
- A web version of MS Office 2016 suite: Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
3. Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Office 365 Plan Business Premium Features
- OneDrive Storage space of 1 TB
- Custom email domain addresses with 50 GB mailbox storage space
- Skype for Business Purpose
- SharePoint
- Desktop versions of Office 2016 applications: Outlook, Word, PowerPoint etc.
- Microsoft Bookings: To enable customers to schedule appointments
- Managing tasks and teamwork using Microsoft Planner
- FastTrack Deployment Support
- 24*7 Telephonic and Web Support
Office 365 Enterprise Plans
For companies that have just started or require limited functionalities, Office 365 Business plans work best. But for organizations with 300+ users for them, Office 365 Enterprise plans are the most suitable plans. With Enterprise plans, one can choose from Office 365 E5, E3, or E1 licenses. However, note that due to some anti-trust regulations Microsoft has separated out the Teams app from all its enterprise editions. You can still subscribe to it separately.
1. Office 365 Enterprise E1
Office 365 Plan E1 Features
- 50 GB Mailbox Online Storage Space
- Skype for Business web conferencing, IM, online meetings and presence
- OneDrive for Business
- SharePoint, Yammer, Video Sharing, HD video conferencing, Data Governance
- File sharing and 1 TB OneDrive storage
- eDiscovery search
2. Office 365 Enterprise E3
Office 365 Plan E3 Features
- A popular option for digital-driven business
- Include all the features of Office E1 Licenses
- Office Client Apps
- Legal Compliance and Archiving needs for email
- Message encryption, rights management, data loss prevention
- Azure Rights Management and document management functions
- Unlimited OneDrive storage
- Email storage for in-place archive
- eDiscovery legal hold and eDiscovery export tool and case management
- Hosted voicemail support
3. Office 365 Enterprise E5
Office 365 Plan E5 Features
- Includes all features of E3 and E5 Licenses
- Enhanced security features: Secure attachments and URLs and access controls, Advanced ediscovery
- Enterprise voice with Skype for Business
- Skype for Business Cloud PBX
- PSTN conferencing
- Cloud-based call management
- Unlimited OneDrive storage
- Advanced analytics with Power BI Pro and Microsoft MyAnalytics
- Enhanced visibility and control of your Office 365 environment
- Advanced eDiscovery and Data Governance
- Customer Lockbox and Advanced Threat Protection
Difference between Enterprise Edition of Office 365 and Microsoft 365
Office 365 Enterprise edition beats the newer Microsoft 365 version on price. It also has an extra edition on the starting side of the spectrum tagged E1. However, organizations can’t add Co-Pilot with this plan. Other than that the common Apps in both Office 365 E5 and Microsoft 365 E5 variants are as follows.
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Outlook
- OneDrive
- OneNote
- Microsoft Stream
- Microsoft Bookings
- Microsoft Forms
- Sway
- Microsoft Planner
- Microsoft To Do
- Power Apps
- Power Automate (potentially included in Power Apps)
Apps Only in Office category:
- Microsoft Access (PC only)
- Microsoft Publisher (PC only)
- Exchange (email server software)
- Delve (social networking for work)
Apps Only in Microsoft 365:
- Windows (operating system)
- Microsoft Lists (web-based list management)
- Clipchamp (video editing)
- Microsoft Loop (real-time collaboration)
- Visio (diagramming tool)
- Power BI Pro (advanced business intelligence)
How Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Business Plans are Different from Each Other
- Up to 300 employees can be managed easily via the business edition. When the number of personnel increases beyond this, it is encouraged to move on to enterprise-grade.
- Cost is the biggest differentiator. Enterprise plans are the more expensive variant; even the cheapest enterprise-grade plan is $10 more costly than the premium business plan.
- All Business grade plans have a with or without teams option. For enterprise plans, organizations have to get the Teams subscription separately.
- Other than Teams, Enterprise plans have a wider selection of Microsoft apps available for users when compared to their business-level counterparts.
Even the enterprise-grade, has variants. Among them, a cost-effective option for organizations can be the F series of plans. Designed for frontline workers those who provide goods or services to customers directly.
These plans come with the premium Teams subscription. So if communication is something you cannot go without then this plan might be the best for you.
Purchasing a new plan is easy but shifting the entire workforce there is not. So that’s why it’s better to rely on a trusted Office 365 to Office 365 migration utility. It can help you align the user data with their new plan.
Other than the intra-cloud upgrade, there are instances where organizations using alternative cloud solutions want to move to Microsoft 365. For that, too we. have the right tools for the job.
- Scenario 1. Admins who want to shift from GSuite to Office 365 can do it with our migration utility.
- Scenario 2. There is also the option to migrate Lotus Notes to Office 365 without any data loss.
- Scenario 3. There is a chance that you are reading this because you have an on-premise. Don’t worry, as we offer a solution to transition from Exchange on-premise to Office 365 cloud.
Conclusion
In this blog, we compare Office 365 plans and features of Microsoft 365 business and enterprise licenses with each other. So, that a user can make a correct decision by selecting an appropriate Office 365 plan for his/her business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the annual subscription plan more cost-effective than the monthly plan?
The monthly option ends up being costlier in the long term, as with the annual plan, you get 2 free months. Adding 16% more savings on top of the 30% employee discount. Users might want to first try out the service and for that, they can use the free trial. Keep in mind that enterprise-grade plans don’t have a free trial option.
I have a poor connection problem, So I am looking to buy the desktop-only Office 2021. But many experts say that it is a poor choice. Can you tell me why?
Is there a new desktop-only Office suite coming out soon?
The last desktop-only variant of the Microsoft business suite came back in 2021. Previously, Microsoft released a new version every 2-3 years, but it’s 2024 and there’s still no sign of a new desktop version.
Why do experts say that a new desktop-only Office suite may not come? So should I purchase the current available one?
Although, the end of the life cycle of the current version is due on Oct 13, 2026. So, we still have a few more years, but it is unlikely that we will get an offline version in the future. There are multiple reasons for this. Above all, there is no doubt that it is far more profitable to have a subscription-based model. Moreover, updates can be deployed in real time across the globe. And the new industrial trends like AI use the cloud-based model as their foundation.
In the end, understanding your use case is the best way to make the final decision. So, you can go for the desktop variant if you want. The cloud is always available, just a few clicks away.