Business Standard vs Business Premium, what do you need?

The most-asked question: "We have Standard, but is it enough?" Or the opposite: "We're paying for Premium, but are we even using the extra features?"

The answer is simple once you know what to look for. Start with the math.

Business Standard costs $12.50/user/mo (rising to $14 in July 2026). For that money you get:

• •Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) as full desktop versions
• •Teams for meetings and chat
• •Exchange Online with 50 GB mailbox
• •SharePoint and OneDrive with 1 TB storage
• •Basic security with Exchange Online Protection

It covers the daily needs for most organizations. If you have under 10 employees and no special compliance requirements, Standard is almost always the right choice.

Premium costs $22/user/mo (and note: this price does NOT increase in July 2026. Standard does). On top of everything in Standard, you get three things that genuinely make a difference:

Intune device management: Imagine an employee loses their phone at the airport. With Intune you can remotely wipe company data before the luggage carousel has stopped. You control which devices can access your data, require PINs, and wipe data on former employees' devices.

Defender for Business: Endpoint protection with threat detection, automatic response and vulnerability scanning. I see this all the time: companies paying for a separate antivirus product on top of their Microsoft license. Defender replaces it.

Conditional Access (via Entra ID P1): Policy-based access control. Block logins from unknown locations, require MFA for specific apps, restrict access to approved devices. This is the feature that makes compliance people sleep at night.

Let me put it this way: the price difference is $8-10/user/mo depending on whether you compare current or July 2026 prices.

In real money: for 25 users we're talking $200-250/mo extra for Premium. For 100 users: $800-1,000/mo.

But here's what most people miss: you're probably already paying for those features separately. A standalone endpoint security product typically costs $5-10/user/mo. Intune on its own costs $8/user/mo. Premium bundles it all at a combined premium that's often cheaper than buying the parts separately.

And then there's the July 2026 effect: Premium's price stays the same, while Standard goes from $12.50 to $14. The price gap actually shrinks. That makes Premium an even easier decision.

After years of advising on this decision, here's the call I keep making:

• •You have under 10 users
• •No regulatory requirements (GDPR beyond the basics)
• •Employees only use company-owned computers
• •You have a separate antivirus product you're happy with

• •You have 10+ users
• •Employees use personal devices (BYOD)
• •You handle sensitive data (customer IDs, health data, financial data)
• •You want centralized device and security policy management
• •You're tired of juggling separate security products

Our rule of thumb: As soon as you're thinking about security beyond "we have antivirus", Premium is the right choice. The alternative is buying Intune + Defender separately, and that costs the same or more.

The short answer: Business Premium is the right choice for most organizations with 10-300 employees. The price difference is modest, and you avoid having to stitch together separate security solutions.

Have under 10 users and simple needs? Start with Standard. You can always upgrade later without data loss, it literally takes 5 minutes in Admin Center.

Have over 300 users? Look at Enterprise E3 instead. It includes Intune, Conditional Access and Windows Enterprise licensing with unlimited user count. E3 doesn't include Defender for Business, but from July 2026 Defender for Office 365 P1 is included.