Microsoft 365 Business Standard vs Business Premium: Which to Buy

Both plans share the same productivity core. Premium layers security on top.

In both Standard and Premium:

• Desktop Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on PC and Mac
• Business email on your domain with a 50 GB mailbox
• Microsoft Teams, 1 TB OneDrive per user, SharePoint
• Webinars, attendee registration and Clipchamp

Business Premium adds:

• Microsoft Defender for Business, endpoint protection that guards laptops and phones against malware and ransomware
• Intune, device management for company laptops, phones and bring-your-own devices, so you can enforce settings and wipe a lost device remotely
• Conditional access and Entra ID Plan 1, rules that decide who can sign in, from where, and on what device
• Azure Information Protection, to label and protect sensitive documents

The plain version: Standard makes your team productive. Premium also keeps a stolen password from becoming a stolen company.

All prices are per user per month, ex VAT, on an annual term. Microsoft's list prices are shown alongside so you can see the gap.

Today (until 30 June 2026):

• Business Standard: £8.83 with us, £9.60 Microsoft list
• Business Premium: £15.55 with us, £16.90 Microsoft list

From 1 July 2026 (Microsoft's first suite increase since 2022):

• Business Standard: £9.94 with us, £10.80 Microsoft list
• Business Premium: £15.55 with us, £16.90 Microsoft list

Standard rises on 1 July because Microsoft's cost to us rises. Premium does not move at all, because Microsoft is holding Premium flat. We stay below Microsoft's list price in both periods. If you buy an annual plan before 30 June, your Standard price is fixed at £8.83 for the full 12 months while Microsoft customers move to £10.80 at their next renewal.

The interesting number is the distance between Standard and Premium, because that is the real cost of the upgrade.

On Microsoft's own list prices, the step from Standard to Premium is narrowing. Before the rise it was £7.30 per user per month (£9.60 to £16.90). After 1 July it falls to £6.10 (£10.80 to £16.90), because Standard goes up and Premium stays still.

Microsoft has engineered this. By raising Standard and freezing Premium, it has made the security plan a smaller step than it has ever been. From July, Premium costs less than £5 per user more than Microsoft will charge for Standard on its own.

With us the picture is the same shape: our Standard becomes £9.94 from July while Premium holds at £15.55, an upgrade of £5.61 per user per month. For a business that was hesitating on security, the moment to look again is now, because the price difference will not be this small by accident again.

Use the work your staff actually do, not the headcount, to decide.

Choose Business Standard if:

• Your team mainly writes documents, builds spreadsheets and sends email
• Devices are office desktops you already control
• You do not hold sensitive client, patient or financial data on portable devices
• You have separate, adequate endpoint security already in place

Choose Business Premium if:

• Staff carry laptops or phones with client data outside the office
• People use their own devices for work (bring-your-own)
• You handle regulated or confidential information (legal, accountancy, healthcare, financial services)
• A client contract, insurer or cyber-essentials assessment expects endpoint protection and device control
• You want one supplier for security rather than bolting on a separate antivirus and MDM product

A common pattern in a 10 to 50 seat business is to mix: Premium for the handful of people with client data on laptops, Standard for everyone in the office. You can buy any combination through checkout and add Copilot Business on only the seats that need it.

Business Premium is the security plan that no UK incumbent sells through online checkout. GoDaddy, IONOS and 123 Reg do not offer it online at all. We do, into your own Microsoft tenant, with no sales call.

If you are not sure, you are not locked out of the decision. Microsoft's New Commerce Experience (NCE) rules, which apply at every reseller, allow upgrades mid-term. So you can start on Standard, and if a contract or an incident later means you need Defender, Intune and conditional access, you can move those seats up to Premium without waiting for renewal. The reverse, dropping seats, is only possible inside the first 7 days or at renewal, which is why we state it plainly before you buy rather than after.

If you would rather know exactly what your team uses before you spend, our free licence audit shows which licences are active, which are idle, and where Standard would do and where Premium is warranted.