The plan names suggest a simple ladder of “more stuff”. They don’t tell you the thing that actually matters, which is that only one of them includes the security and device management most businesses assume they’re already getting.

Here’s the short version, in the order the decisions actually get made.

Do you need desktop apps?

Business Basic gives you the business email, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive — but Office only in the browser and on mobile. Word and Excel installed on the computer are not included.

Business Standard is Basic plus the desktop apps.

For a lot of businesses this is the whole decision, and browser-only works well for staff who mostly read email. It stops being fine the moment someone works in a large spreadsheet, uses Office add-ins, or needs to work offline.

There’s also Apps for Business, which is the reverse: desktop apps with no business email. It exists mainly for businesses whose email lives somewhere else.

The step that isn’t about apps

Business Premium is Standard plus a security and management layer. This is where the plans stop being about Office and start being about protecting the business:

  • Intune — manage and secure the actual devices, and wipe a lost or stolen one
  • Entra ID P1 — Conditional Access, so you can require MFA in the situations that warrant it and block sign-ins from places you don’t operate
  • Defender for Business — endpoint protection built for small businesses rather than scaled-down enterprise
  • Information protection — labelling and encrypting sensitive documents

That list is why we recommend Premium for most businesses with staff, and it’s the single most common gap we find. A business will have MFA on, believe it’s covered, and have no way to manage the laptops the email is being read on.

The questions that decide it

Rather than comparing feature tables, three questions usually settle it:

Does anyone work on a laptop that leaves the office? If yes, you want device management. That’s Premium.

Would a lost phone or laptop be a problem? Not “would it be annoying” — would client data be on it? If yes, you want the ability to wipe it remotely. That’s Premium.

Do clients or insurers ask about your security? More of them do every year, and Premium is the plan that lets you answer yes to the usual questions.

If the answer to all three is no (a small team, one location, desktops that never move), Standard may be the right call.

What people get wrong

Mixing plans is allowed, and usually sensible. You don’t have to put everyone on the same licence. Field staff and directors on Premium, a part-time bookkeeper on Basic, is a perfectly normal shape.

Business plans cap at 300 users. Not a concern for most, but it’s a real ceiling.

None of these plans back up your data. Microsoft keeps the service available; it does not keep a copy of your data for you. That’s a separate product on every tier, Premium included.

Annual commitments are cheaper but rigid. If your headcount moves around, the monthly option can cost less overall than paying for licences you stopped needing in March.

Review it once a year

Licence costs creep up without anyone deciding they should. People leave and their licence keeps billing. A plan gets chosen for a need that no longer exists. Someone buys a standalone product that’s already included in a tier you’re paying for.

Once a year, compare who has which licence against what they do. We often find businesses paying twice for something already included in their plan.