Microsoft 365 Plan Comparison — Which Plan is Right for Your Business?
A plain-English guide to Business Basic, Standard, Premium, E3 and E5 — features, pricing, and what each plan is missing
Not All Microsoft 365 Plans Are Equal
Microsoft offers five main plans for businesses under 300 users, ranging from a basic cloud collaboration tool to a fully secured enterprise platform. The differences go well beyond price — each plan has a distinct feature set, and choosing the wrong one can leave your business exposed or paying for more than you need.
This page covers every plan in plain English — what’s included, what’s missing, current pricing, and DM1’s recommendation based on years of experience managing Microsoft 365 environments for Perth small businesses.
Feature Comparison — All Plans at a Glance
The table below covers the key differences across all five plans. Scroll right on mobile.
| Feature | Basic | Standard | Premium ⭐ | E3 | E5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Productivity & Apps | |||||
| Web & mobile Office apps | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote) | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SharePoint & OneDrive (1TB per user) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Bookings | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email & Mailbox | |||||
| Exchange Online email | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mailbox size | 50GB | 50GB | 50GB | 100GB | 100GB |
| Unlimited mailbox archive | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Security & Device Management | |||||
| Defender for Business (endpoint threat protection) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ransomware detection & recovery | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Intune device management (MDM) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Conditional Access & Azure AD P1 | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Defender for Identity (advanced identity threat analytics) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Compliance & Governance | |||||
| Advanced compliance & eDiscovery | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced compliance tools (Purview) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Analytics & Intelligence | |||||
| Power BI Pro | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Included | ✗ Not included | ⭐ DM1 Recommended plan
Plan Details — What You Get (and What You Don't)
Each plan builds on the one below it. The greyed-out items are notable gaps — features many businesses assume are included but aren’t.
Business Basic
$11.88/user/mo inc GST
Entry-level cloud. Web apps only.
Included
- Web & mobile Office apps (browser-based only)
- Microsoft Teams (chat, video, meetings)
- Exchange Online email — 50GB mailbox
- SharePoint team sites
- OneDrive — 1TB per user
Not Included
- Desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
- Microsoft Bookings
- Defender for Business — no endpoint protection
- Ransomware detection or recovery
- Intune device management
- Conditional Access
Business Standard
$24.68/user/mo inc GST
Full productivity. No security layer.
Included
- Everything in Business Basic
- Desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access)
- Microsoft Bookings
- Teams webinars
- 50GB mailbox
Not Included
- Defender for Business — no endpoint protection
- Ransomware detection or recovery
- Intune device management
- Conditional Access & Azure AD P1
- Mailbox storage upgrade path (hard 50GB limit)
Business Premium
$43.43/user/mo inc GST
Full productivity + enterprise security.
Included
- Everything in Business Standard
- Defender for Business — advanced endpoint threat protection
- Ransomware detection and recovery capability
- Microsoft Intune — device management & security policies
- Conditional Access & Azure AD Premium P1
- Microsoft Secure Score monitoring
- 50GB mailbox
Not Included
- 100GB mailbox (upgrade to E3 required for heavy email users)
- Unlimited mailbox archive
- Advanced compliance & eDiscovery
- Defender for Identity
- Power BI Pro
Enterprise Plans — E3 and E5
E3 and E5 are required for businesses that have outgrown the Business plan limits — particularly where mailbox storage exceeds 50GB, or where advanced compliance and identity protection are needed.
Microsoft 365 E3
$74.98/user/mo inc GST
Premium security + unlimited mailbox.
Included
- Everything in Business Premium
- 100GB primary mailbox per user
- Unlimited mailbox archive
- Advanced compliance tools & eDiscovery
- Information Rights Management (IRM)
- Windows 11 Enterprise licence
Not Included
- Defender for Identity
- Advanced threat analytics
- Power BI Pro
- Advanced compliance tools (Purview)
Microsoft 365 E5
$112.60/user/mo inc GST
Maximum security, compliance & analytics.
Included
- Everything in E3
- Microsoft Defender for Identity
- Advanced threat analytics
- Power BI Pro
- Advanced compliance tools (Microsoft Purview)
- Microsoft Teams Phone System
- Audio conferencing
The Ransomware Recovery Gap
When Does a User Need E3?
Business Basic, Standard, and Premium all share a hard 50GB mailbox limit per user. For most staff this is plenty — but heavy email users, particularly those in client-facing or administrative roles who receive large attachments, can approach or exceed this limit.
E3 increases the primary mailbox to 100GB and adds unlimited archive storage, meaning there is no practical upper limit on email retention. DM1 will only recommend an E3 upgrade where the data genuinely warrants it — typically when a user’s mailbox is approaching 50GB.
Who Should Be on Which Plan?
As a general guide based on DM1’s experience with Perth small businesses:
| Role / Situation | Suggested Plan |
|---|---|
| Retail or hospitality staff — email and Teams only, no Office apps needed | Basic |
| Office staff needing full desktop Office apps and Teams | Standard |
| Any business handling client data — healthcare, legal, finance, HR, professional services | Premium ⭐ |
| Heavy email users whose mailbox is approaching or has exceeded 50GB | E3 |
| Organisations requiring advanced identity protection, threat analytics, Power BI Pro, or Purview compliance | E5 |
Microsoft 365 and Your Compliance Obligations
Your choice of Microsoft 365 plan has a direct impact on your ability to meet Privacy Act obligations. Business Basic and Standard include no compliance tooling. Business Premium includes Microsoft Purview — Microsoft’s compliance and data governance platform — which provides the technical controls the Privacy Act requires businesses to have in place.
Retention policies
Microsoft Purview, included in Business Premium, allows DM1 to configure retention policies that keep data for exactly as long as your obligations require — and delete or de-identify it automatically when that period expires. Business Basic and Standard have no equivalent capability.
Audit logging
Business Premium includes full audit logging of every login, file access, and administrative action across your Microsoft 365 environment. If a data breach occurs, this log is what allows you to identify what happened, who was affected, and what you are required to report.
eDiscovery and legal hold
Business Premium includes Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and the ability to place legal holds on specific content. If your business receives a court order or regulatory notice requiring you to preserve and produce specific data, Business Premium gives you the tools to comply. Business Basic and Standard do not.
Which industries need Business Premium for compliance?
Healthcare and allied health practices hold sensitive health information subject to stricter Privacy Act rules and the My Health Records Act. Legal practices hold privileged client information subject to Law Society professional conduct standards. Financial services businesses hold financial records subject to ASIC obligations and, for credit licensees, NCCP 7-year retention requirements. For all of these industries, Business Premium is not optional — it is the minimum configuration that supports compliance.
What DM1 configures as standard on Business Premium
When DM1 deploys or takes over a Business Premium environment, Purview configuration is included as standard: retention policies matched to your industry, audit log retention set to maximum, data classification labels applied to sensitive content, and legal hold capability tested. These are not optional add-ons — they are part of the baseline DM1 configures for every Business Premium client.
Month-to-Month Pricing
All licences are managed month-to-month — add or remove users at any time with no penalty and no lock-in. Your licence count can be adjusted up or down each month to match your actual headcount.
| Plan | Per User per month, inc GST |
5 Users per month, inc GST |
10 Users per month, inc GST |
Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $11.88 | $59.40 | $118.80 | Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint, 1TB OneDrive. No desktop Office apps. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | $24.68 | $123.40 | $246.80 | All Basic features + desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, Outlook etc.) + Bookings. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium ⭐ DM1 Recommended | $43.43 | $217.15 | $434.30 | All Standard features + Intune MDM, Defender for Business, Azure AD P1, Conditional Access, ransomware detection & recovery. |
| Microsoft 365 E3 | $74.98 | $374.90 | $749.80 | All Business Premium features + 100GB mailbox, unlimited archive, advanced compliance & eDiscovery. |
| Microsoft 365 E5 | $112.60 | $563.00 | $1,126.00 | All E3 features + Defender for Identity, advanced threat analytics, Power BI Pro, advanced compliance tools. |
All prices inc GST. Month-to-month — licences can be added or removed each month with no penalty or lock-in. Contact DM1 for a current quote.
Annual Commitment — Pay Upfront and Save
If your team size is stable, paying for 12 months upfront reduces your per-user cost. The table below shows the annual total and the saving compared to paying month-to-month for the same period.
| Plan | Per User per year, inc GST |
5 Users per year, inc GST |
10 Users per year, inc GST |
Saving — 5 Users vs month-to-month |
Saving — 10 Users vs month-to-month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | $118.80 | $594.00 | $1,188.00 | $118.80 | $237.60 |
| Business Standard | $246.84 | $1,234.20 | $2,468.40 | $246.60 | $493.20 |
| Business Premium ⭐ DM1 Recommended | $434.28 | $2,171.40 | $4,342.80 | $434.40 | $868.80 |
| E3 | $749.76 | $3,748.80 | $7,497.60 | $750.00 | $1,500.00 |
| E5 | $1,125.96 | $5,629.80 | $11,259.60 | $1,126.20 | $2,252.40 |
All prices inc GST. Annual commitment is paid upfront for 12 months. Licence reductions are generally not permitted mid-term. Pricing subject to change at renewal.
Month-to-Month Flexibility Through CSP
DM1 manages your Microsoft 365 licensing on a month-to-month basis with no annual lock-in. If your headcount changes, licences can be adjusted immediately with no penalties. This is a meaningful advantage over purchasing directly from Microsoft, which typically requires a 12-month annual commitment and reduces your flexibility significantly.
Why DM1?
DM1 has been supporting Perth small businesses since the 1970s. We are an authorised Microsoft CSP partner procuring licences through Dicker Data — ANZ’s leading Microsoft distributor. When you have a licensing question, a billing dispute, or need something escalated to Microsoft, DM1 is your single point of contact with a direct partner support path.
Microsoft Reference Links
The information on this page is based on Microsoft’s published documentation. The links below go directly to Microsoft’s official resources so you can verify any detail independently.
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Plans — Compare All | Official Microsoft comparison of Business Basic, Standard and Premium plans for organisations under 300 users. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Microsoft's official Business Premium product page — full feature list and security capabilities. |
| Microsoft Defender for Business — Overview | Microsoft Learn documentation covering Defender for Business endpoint protection, included in Business Premium. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium Setup Overview | Microsoft's official setup and security guidance for Business Premium environments. |
| Microsoft 365 Enterprise Plans (E3 & E5) | Overview of Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans including E3 and E5 feature sets and compliance capabilities. |
| Exchange Online Mailbox Storage Limits | Microsoft documentation on mailbox size limits per plan — including the 50GB limit on Business plans and 100GB on E3/E5. |
| Microsoft CSP Program Overview | Microsoft's official Cloud Solution Provider program documentation explaining how CSP licensing works. |
All references link directly to Microsoft's official documentation. DM1 has no affiliation with these pages — they are provided for independent verification only.
Talk to DM1 About Your Microsoft 365 Licences
Perth-based Microsoft CSP partner. Call (08) 6202 6012 or send us a message for a review of your current licensing.