The short answer: choose Business Basic if your team only needs email, Teams and the web and mobile Office apps. Choose Business Standard if people need the desktop Word, Excel and Outlook apps. Choose Business Premium if you want the same apps plus proper security and device management, which is what most businesses handling customer data should have. All three are limited to 300 users.
UK prices
Microsoft's UK list prices per user per month, excluding VAT, as published in September 2026:
| Plan | Annual commitment | Monthly commitment | Annual, without Teams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | £5.40 | £6.48 | £4.20 |
| Business Standard | £10.80 | £12.96 | £8.30 |
| Business Premium | £16.90 | £20.28 | £14.40 |
| Apps for business | £9.80 | £11.76 | No Teams included |
Month-to-month subscriptions cost 20% more than an annual commitment, in exchange for the freedom to reduce licences each month. Prices change from time to time, so check the current figure before you buy.
What each plan includes
| Basic | Standard | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office apps | Web and mobile only | Desktop, web and mobile | Desktop, web and mobile |
| Business email | 100GB mailbox | 100GB mailbox | 100GB mailbox, plus an archive of up to 1.5TB |
| OneDrive storage | 1TB per user | 1TB per user | 1TB per user |
| Teams and SharePoint | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Device management (Intune) | No | No | Yes |
| Conditional Access (Entra ID P1) | No | No | Yes |
| Defender for Business | No | No | Yes |
| Defender for Office 365 (Plan 1) | No | No | Yes |
| Information protection and data loss prevention | No | No | Yes |
With Business Standard and Premium, each user can install the desktop apps on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones.
Apps for business is the odd one out: desktop Office apps and 1TB of OneDrive storage, but no business email, Teams or SharePoint. It suits businesses that already have email elsewhere.
Why Business Premium is often worth the extra
The jump from Standard to Premium is £6.10 per user per month at annual prices. For that you get:
- Intune: enforce encryption, passcodes and updates on laptops and phones, and wipe a lost device.
- Conditional Access: block sign-ins from unmanaged devices or unexpected countries, and require MFA only when risk is higher.
- Defender for Business: endpoint protection with detection and response across your devices.
- Defender for Office 365: stronger protection against phishing links and malicious attachments.
Buying comparable security tools separately usually costs more than the difference. Premium also makes the Cyber Essentials controls much easier to meet and evidence.
With or without Teams?
Since April 2024, new customers can buy Business Basic, Standard and Premium with or without Teams. The "no Teams" versions only make sense if you already use another meeting and chat platform, such as Zoom or Slack. For most businesses, the Teams version is simpler and better value.
Can a business use Microsoft 365 Personal or Family?
Personal is licensed for one person and Family for up to six. Whatever the licence terms allow, they're consumer products tied to personal Microsoft accounts. That means no admin centre, no control over company data when someone leaves, no business email on your own domain managed centrally, and none of the security tools above. For anything beyond a sole trader working alone, use a business plan.
Adding Copilot
Every business plan includes the free Copilot Chat. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot, which works inside your documents, email and Teams, costs extra, either as an add-on or through Microsoft's "with Copilot" versions of Business Standard and Premium.
Don't forget backup
None of these plans includes a backup you control. Read does Microsoft back up your Microsoft 365 data? before you rely on the defaults.
Getting Microsoft 365 through Apaxon
Apaxon supplies and manages Microsoft 365 for UK businesses, including setup, migration, security configuration and ongoing licence management. See Microsoft 365 through Apaxon, Apaxon's managed cloud services, or get in touch.
Sources
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 business plans and pricing
- Microsoft UK: plans without Teams
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 Apps for business
- Microsoft Learn: plan options and the 300-user limit
- Microsoft Learn: Exchange Online limits
- Microsoft Learn: Microsoft Entra licensing
- Microsoft: Microsoft 365 and Teams packaging worldwide
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