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Business Basic vs Business Standard
Basic and Standard share mail, Teams, SharePoint and a terabyte of storage each. Standard adds the Office applications installed on the computer. That is the whole gap, and it is a large one for anyone who works in Excel or builds documents for a living, and no gap at all for someone who reads mail and joins meetings.
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The person reads mail, joins Teams calls and occasionally opens a document in the browser. Reception, warehouse desks, shared kiosks, contractors with their own Office. Half a company can be on Basic without anyone noticing.
Business Basic in full, with every buying option →…
The person builds spreadsheets, formats documents, presents. Finance, sales, management, anyone who has ever said the web version cannot do something. Standard installs Office on five computers, five tablets and five phones per user.
Business Standard in full, with every buying option →| Feature | Business Basic… | Business Standard… |
|---|---|---|
| Apps and productivity | ||
| Desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)Business Standard only | — | ✓ |
| Web and mobile Office apps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Install on 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, 5 phones per userBusiness Standard only | — | ✓ |
| Microsoft TeamsIn the EEA, most plans are also sold without Teams at a lower price. Teams is then bought separately. | ✓ | ✓ |
| SharePoint | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Bookings | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email and storage | ||
| Business email hosting (Exchange Online) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mailbox sizeBusiness Premium moved from 50 GB to 100 GB in summer 2026. | 50 GB | 50 GB |
| Auto-expanding archive mailboxBasic and Standard include a 50 GB archive that does not expand. Business Premium (through Exchange Online Archiving), E3 and E5 expand up to 1.5 TB. | — | — |
| OneDrive storage per user5 TB+ applies from five seats and can be raised on request to Microsoft. | 1 TB | 1 TB |
| Identity and devices | ||
| Microsoft Entra ID P1This is the line that most often decides between Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3. | — | — |
| Microsoft Entra ID P2 (identity protection, PIM) | — | — |
| Conditional Access | — | — |
| Microsoft Intune Plan 1 | — | — |
| Windows 11 Enterprise upgrade rights | — | — |
| Security | ||
| Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 (Safe Links, Safe Attachments)Included in Microsoft 365 E3 from July 2026, with the E3 price change; earlier E3 had Exchange Online Protection only. | — | — |
| Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 (attack simulation, threat hunting) | — | — |
| Defender for Business (endpoint protection)The SMB endpoint product. Enterprise plans use Defender for Endpoint instead. | — | — |
| Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 | — | — |
| Defender for Identity | — | — |
| Defender for Cloud Apps | — | — |
| Sensitivity labels and information protection | — | — |
| Compliance | ||
| Data loss prevention for email and files | — | — |
| Retention policies and litigation holdLitigation hold is a feature of Exchange Online Plan 2, and of Plan 1 with Exchange Online Archiving, which Business Premium includes. Basic, Standard and E1 need the Archiving add-on, around EUR 2.60 per user per month. | Add-on | Add-on |
| eDiscovery (Standard) | — | — |
| eDiscovery (Premium) | — | — |
| Insider Risk Management | — | — |
| Communication Compliance | — | — |
| Customer Lockbox | — | — |
| Voice and analytics | ||
| Power BI Pro | — | — |
| Teams Phone (phone system)A calling plan or direct routing is still needed on top, and is bought separately. | — | — |
| Limits | ||
| Maximum usersThe 300-seat cap is the most common reason a growing company has to move off the Business plans. | 300 | 300 |
highlighted rows differ included. The same rows, for every plan at once, are on the full comparison; prices are Microsoft’s list per user a month on a one-year commitment, in the currency of the region chosen at the top of the page.
Yes, per person, on one tenant. Most companies do.
No. Mail is read in the browser or the mobile app; the installed Outlook needs Standard or Premium.
Microsoft 365 Apps for business is the desktop applications without mail or Teams; it suits companies that keep mail elsewhere.
A written answer with the arithmetic, in your currency, usually within one business day.