The short answer
- Business Standard (£10.80) is the apps-and-email plan: desktop Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Exchange, Teams with webinars, SharePoint, OneDrive and Clipchamp.
- Business Premium (£16.90) adds Intune device management, Entra ID P1 with Conditional Access, Defender for Business on every device, Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 against phishing, data loss prevention, sensitivity labels, retention and eDiscovery, Windows Autopilot and the right to upgrade Windows Pro to Business.
- The difference is £73.20 per user a year. For 50 users that is £3,660, which is less than most organisations pay for a standalone endpoint-security product.
- Pick Premium for anyone with a managed laptop or access to customer or financial data; Standard is fine for people who only need the apps on a device you don't manage.
- Business Standard
- £10.80 per user a month
- Business Premium
- £16.90 per user a month
- Difference
- £6.10 a month, £73.20 a year, per user
- Both plans
- Up to 300 users
- Prices
- UK list, annual commitment, ex VAT (13 Oct 2026)
What both plans include
Business Standard and Business Premium share the same foundation: the desktop, web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote; an Exchange Online mailbox (Premium adds Exchange Online Archiving, which takes the archive from 50 GB to 1.5 TB); Teams with meetings, webinars and chat; SharePoint and 1 TB of OneDrive per user; Bookings, Forms, Planner, Loop and Clipchamp; Power Apps and Power Automate for Office 365; and Copilot Chat with the basic Copilot features in the apps. Both are capped at 300 users.
If the only question is whether people can write documents and send email, the two plans are identical. The question is what happens around the user: the device they work on, the identity they sign in with, and the data they handle.
What Business Premium adds
Business Premium is Business Standard plus the small-business editions of Microsoft's management and security products. In practice that means five things.
Device management with Intune. Laptops, desktops and phones are enrolled, configured and kept up to date from one console. Windows Autopilot lets a new laptop be shipped straight to an employee and set itself up on first sign-in. If a device is lost, it can be wiped remotely.
Identity protection with Entra ID P1. Conditional Access is the feature that matters: rules such as "require MFA from outside the office", "block sign-in from unmanaged devices" or "block legacy authentication". It is the single most effective control against account takeover, and Business Standard does not have it.
Endpoint security with Defender for Business. Every enrolled device gets next-generation antivirus, endpoint detection and response, attack-surface reduction rules and automated investigation, which is most of what Microsoft sells to large enterprises as Defender for Endpoint, at a small-business price.
Email security with Defender for Office 365 Plan 1. Safe Links and Safe Attachments check URLs and files when they are opened, not only when they arrive, and anti-phishing policies protect named executives from impersonation. Business Standard has Exchange Online Protection and a lighter Safe Links only.
Information protection and compliance. Data loss prevention policies, sensitivity labels, retention policies and eDiscovery (standard) let you stop card numbers leaving by email, label confidential documents and keep or find mail for a regulator or a dispute.
Premium also includes Windows Hello for Business, Windows Update for Business and the right to upgrade Windows 10 or 11 Pro to Windows Business, which keeps each Windows release in support for 24 months.
The price difference
At UK list prices, Business Standard is £10.80 and Business Premium £16.90 per user a month on an annual commitment, a difference of £6.10 a month or £73.20 a year per user. For a 25-person company the upgrade costs £1,830 a year; for 100 people, £7,320; for the full 300 users a plan allows, £21,960.
The comparison to make is not Premium against Standard but Premium against Standard plus whatever you would otherwise buy to secure the devices: an endpoint-security product, a device-management tool, a phishing filter and MFA with conditional rules. Most organisations find the add-up comfortably exceeds £73 a year per person, before counting the time saved by running one console.
Who should pick which
Choose Business Premium for anyone who works on a company-owned laptop or desktop, anyone with access to customer, employee or financial data, and any organisation working towards Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001 or a supplier security questionnaire. If that is everyone, put everyone on it.
Business Standard still makes sense for a specific group: people who need the desktop apps but work on a device the company does not manage and will not manage, such as contractors on their own machines, or very small firms that accept the risk knowingly. For people who only need email and Teams, look at Business Basic (£5.40) rather than Standard.
If you have more than 300 users, or you want the Enterprise versions of Intune and Defender, the comparison moves to Business Premium vs Microsoft 365 E3.
See it for yourself
The comparison tool shows Business Standard and Business Premium side by side, with only the rows that differ, and a link to Microsoft's documentation for each one. Tick the features you need on the Features tab and it will tell you which of the two covers them.
Frequently asked questions
Does Business Standard include any security?
It includes multi-factor authentication through Entra ID Free, Exchange Online Protection for spam and basic malware filtering, and the standard Microsoft 365 safeguards. It does not include Conditional Access, device management, Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365 or data loss prevention. Those are the Premium features.
Can we buy the security features separately on top of Business Standard?
Partly. Defender for Business is sold as an add-on to Business Standard, and Intune and Entra ID P1 can be bought as standalone subscriptions, but bought separately they cost more than the £6.10 difference between the plans, and you still would not have Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 or the Purview compliance features. If you need two or more of them, Business Premium is cheaper.
Can we mix Business Standard and Business Premium?
Yes. Licences are per user, so a common pattern is Business Premium for anyone with a company laptop and Business Standard or Business Basic for people who use the apps on a device the company doesn't manage. Each plan is capped at 300 users separately.
Is Business Premium enough for Cyber Essentials?
Business Premium includes the controls Cyber Essentials asks for on Microsoft devices and accounts: multi-factor authentication, Conditional Access, device configuration through Intune, malware protection through Defender for Business and patch management through Windows Update for Business. Certification still depends on how you configure them and on the rest of your estate, but Premium removes the need for separate products to meet those controls.
Does the upgrade to Business Premium mean new software on every PC?
Not for the apps, which are the same Microsoft 365 Apps for Business. The new elements are enrolling devices in Intune, which installs the Defender for Business sensor and applies your policies, and switching on Conditional Access and Defender for Office 365 in the admin centre. A small organisation can usually do that in a day or two.