A lot of small businesses are on the wrong Microsoft 365 plan. Either they are paying for Premium features nobody has switched on, or they are running laptops full of client data on Basic. Here is how to choose, in plain terms, and what each plan costs from us.
If someone only needs a mailbox, Exchange Online. If your staff need email, Teams and shared files but work in a browser, Business Basic. If they need installed Word, Excel and Outlook on a PC, Business Standard. If laptops leave the building, you hold client data, or you are working towards Cyber Essentials, Business Premium.
You do not have to pick one plan for everyone. You can mix them in the same account, and most businesses should.
| Plan | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange Online | A 50 GB business mailbox on your own domain, with Outlook on the web and on phones. No Office apps, no Teams, no OneDrive. | Someone who only needs email |
| Business Basic | Email, Teams, 1 TB of OneDrive storage each, SharePoint for shared files, and web and mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint | Staff who work in a browser or on a phone |
| Business Standard | Everything in Basic, plus the installed desktop apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, on up to five PCs or Macs per person | Office staff who live in Excel and Outlook |
| Business Premium | Everything in Standard, plus device management (Intune), endpoint protection (Defender for Business), conditional access (Entra ID P1) and information protection | Any business with laptops out of the office, or client data |
All three Business plans are for organisations of up to 300 users. Above that you are into the Enterprise plans, which most small businesses will never need.
The web versions of Word and Excel cover most everyday work now. Where they fall short is large spreadsheets, macros, mail merge and add-ins that only exist for the desktop apps. If someone relies on any of those, they need Standard or above. If they do not, Basic does the job and you keep the difference every month.
A laptop that goes home, to site or into a car is the device most likely to be lost. Premium lets you manage it centrally: encrypt the disk, push updates, set a password policy and remove company data from it remotely if it goes missing. Basic and Standard have no proper way to do that from one place.
Every plan supports multi-factor authentication, and it should be switched on whatever you buy. Premium adds conditional access, which lets you set rules such as only allowing sign-ins from company devices, or from the UK. With rules like that in place, a password on its own is not enough to sign in from an unknown device.
If a customer or contract asks for Cyber Essentials, you will need to show secure configuration, access control and control over your devices. Premium has the tools to do most of that in one place. On Basic or Standard you usually end up buying separate products to cover the gaps.
A warehouse team on Basic, an office manager on Standard and the directors on Premium is a perfectly sensible set-up. Each person has the licence that matches what they do. The one thing to know is that Premium features such as conditional access and device management only cover the people who hold a Premium licence.
Shared mailboxes such as enquiries@ or accounts@ do not need a licence at all, up to 50 GB. Create a shared mailbox and give people access from their own accounts, rather than buying a licence and passing the password round. We explain why in why shared logins cost more than buying a licence.
Our security health check covers whether the features you are paying for are actually turned on.
Microsoft 365 licences are bought for 12 months at a time. You can add users at any point. You cannot cancel or reduce licences part way through the 12 months, so if someone leaves in month four, that licence is paid for until the term ends.
The practical answer is to give the leaver's licence to the next starter rather than buying another one. Our offboarding checklist covers how to free it up without losing their email.
| Licence | Per user, per month |
|---|---|
| Exchange Online (email only) | £5 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | £8 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | £16 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | £25 |
Licences are on a 12-month term. Klariq is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added. The prices above are what you pay.
If you want support as well, our support plans include the licence: Core is £45 per user, per month with Business Standard, and Secure is £75 with Business Premium.
If you are not sure which plan each person needs, working that out is part of our Microsoft 365 setup. We look at what each person actually does and match the licence to it.
Business Standard includes the installed desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Business Basic gives you the web and mobile versions only. Email, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint are included in both.
Usually, if your staff use laptops outside the office, you hold client data, or you need Cyber Essentials. It adds device management, endpoint protection and conditional access. If everyone works from one office and you hold little sensitive data, Standard may be enough.
Yes. Different people in the same business can have different plans. Most small businesses should mix them, so each person has the licence that matches their work.
Licences from Klariq are on a 12-month term. You can add users at any time, but licences cannot be cancelled or reduced until the 12 months end.
We will look at what each person actually uses and tell you which licence they need, including when that means paying less.
See licences and prices →More in this series: all Klariq guides.