Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard and Premium aren't simply good, better and best. Learn the key differences and which licence makes sense for your business.
If you're choosing Microsoft 365 for a small business, you'll probably come across three plans fairly quickly: Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium.
At first glance, the names make them sound like three tiers of the same product - good, better and best.
That's not really the right way to look at them.
The best Microsoft 365 licence depends on what each person actually needs to do, how they work and how your business intends to manage security and devices.
The short answer is:
That means the most expensive Microsoft 365 licence isn't necessarily the right licence for every employee.
Let's look at the differences.
Microsoft 365 Business Basic is the simplest of the three plans.
It provides the core cloud services many businesses need, including business email, OneDrive and SharePoint, along with the web and mobile versions of Microsoft's Office applications.
The major distinction is that Business Basic does not include the full desktop versions of Office.
So if an employee mainly works in a web browser, uses email and needs access to files stored in Microsoft 365, Business Basic may be completely adequate.
For users who don't need locally installed Office applications, paying for a higher plan purely because it sounds "better" may not achieve very much.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard is where the full desktop Office applications enter the picture.
That means applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint can be installed on the user's computer.
For someone who spends much of the day in Outlook, works heavily with Excel or simply needs the traditional desktop Office experience, Business Standard will often be the more appropriate choice.
This makes the difference between Business Basic and Business Standard relatively straightforward:
Does this user need the desktop Office applications?
If the answer is yes, Standard is generally the more logical starting point.
Business Premium is where the comparison changes.
You're not really paying for a superior version of Word or Excel.
The significant difference is security, identity protection and device management.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes tools such as:
If Microsoft 365 is going to form an important part of how your organisation secures users, computers and business information, Business Premium becomes considerably more relevant.
For many businesses, this is the more important comparison.
If your main requirement is productivity - email, Office, files and the installed desktop applications - Business Standard may provide what you need.
Business Premium takes that further by adding tools designed to help an organisation manage and secure its users and devices.
So rather than thinking:
Basic → Standard → Premium
as simply three increasingly powerful versions of Office, it can be more useful to think:
Basic → cloud productivity
Standard → desktop productivity
Premium → security and management
That distinction makes licence selection much easier.
Not necessarily.
Microsoft allows businesses to use different licences for different people, and there can be good reasons to do this.
One employee may only require Business Basic. Another may need the desktop Office applications included with Standard. Others may require the security and management capabilities available through Premium.
However, licence mixing should be deliberate.
If your organisation is relying on Business Premium as part of its cybersecurity strategy, you need to understand which users and devices require those protections and why.
Simply moving a random selection of users onto cheaper licences to reduce the monthly bill can create gaps in the security model you're trying to implement.
No.
This is one of the most important things to understand about Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Buying the licence gives your organisation access to additional security and management tools. It does not configure them for you.
Devices still need to be enrolled. Security policies need to be configured. Access rules need to be established. The environment also needs to be monitored and maintained.
In other words, there is a big difference between owning security software and having a properly managed security environment.
There isn't one answer that applies to every small business - or even every person within the same business.
A useful starting point is:
Choose Business Basic when:
The user mainly needs business email, cloud storage, SharePoint and browser-based Office applications.
Choose Business Standard when:
The user also needs the full desktop versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Choose Business Premium when:
You need the productivity features of Standard along with more advanced security, identity and device-management capabilities.
For many organisations, the right solution may be a planned combination of all three.
The biggest practical difference is the desktop Office applications. Business Basic provides Microsoft's web and mobile Office applications, while Business Standard adds the full desktop versions of applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Business Premium adds additional security, identity and device-management capabilities. These include tools such as Microsoft Intune, Defender for Business and Conditional Access.
It can be if your business intends to use Microsoft 365 as part of its security and device-management strategy. However, simply purchasing the licence isn't enough - the included tools still need to be configured and managed correctly.
Yes. Different staff can use different Microsoft 365 licences depending on their requirements. However, particularly where Business Premium forms part of your security strategy, licence allocation should be planned rather than based solely on minimising cost.
Not automatically. Some staff may only need Basic or Standard. The right licence should reflect the employee's productivity requirements and the security protections your organisation needs around that user and their devices.
It's surprisingly common for businesses to be paying for Microsoft 365 features their staff don't use - while simultaneously missing security or management features they would benefit from.
At Mint Technology, we work with small businesses across New Zealand, and can look at how your staff actually work, how your Microsoft 365 environment is managed and what you're trying to achieve from a security perspective.
From there, we can help you choose a licensing structure that actually makes sense.
Because the answer isn't always "put everybody on the most expensive plan."
And it definitely isn't "buy the cheapest one and hope for the best."
Talk to Mint about Microsoft 365 licensing and support.
www.mint.net.nz
09 222 0220
