The short answer: Microsoft 365 for business costs £5.40 per user per month for Business Basic, £10.80 for Business Standard and £16.90 for Business Premium, on an annual subscription and excluding VAT. Apps for business is £9.80. Paying on a monthly subscription instead costs 20% more. For most businesses that hold client data, Business Premium is the plan worth paying for, because it is the only one that includes device management and proper threat protection.
Last updated: 29 September 2026. Prices checked against Microsoft’s UK compare plans page and plan pages on that date. Microsoft changes prices from time to time, so always confirm before you buy.
In this guide
- Microsoft 365 business prices at a glance
- What changed on 1 July 2026
- Monthly versus annual billing
- What each plan includes
- Basic, Standard or Premium: which should you choose?
- Teams, no Teams and Copilot
- Costs the price list does not show
- Frequently asked questions
Microsoft 365 business prices at a glance
These are Microsoft’s published UK list prices for the four Microsoft 365 business plans. All four are capped at 300 users.
| Plan | Annual subscription (per user, per month) | Monthly subscription (per user, per month) | No-Teams version (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | £5.40 | £6.48 | £4.20 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | £10.80 | £12.96 | £8.30 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | £16.90 | £20.28 | £14.40 |
| Microsoft 365 Apps for business | £9.80 | £11.76 | Not applicable (no Teams) |
Microsoft also now sells Standard and Premium with Copilot built in: Business Standard with Copilot at £18.10 and Business Premium with Copilot at £24.60 per user per month on an annual subscription. Microsoft’s UK compare page currently shows the Copilot versions of Standard and Premium, so the plain versions are easiest to find on each plan’s own page.
If you have more than 300 users, you move to the enterprise plans. Microsoft lists Microsoft 365 E3 at £33.50 and E5 at £51.60 per user per month (annual, excluding VAT).
What changed on 1 July 2026?
Microsoft raised the price of Business Basic and Business Standard on 1 July 2026, while Business Premium stayed the same. The change was announced in December 2025 and applied worldwide. These are the UK prices now, with the size of each increase:
| Plan | UK price now (annual, per user per month) | Change on 1 July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | £5.40 | Up about 17% |
| Business Standard | £10.80 | Up 12% |
| Business Premium | £16.90 | No change |
| Microsoft 365 E3 | £33.50 | Up about 8% |
| Microsoft 365 E5 | £51.60 | Up about 5% |
Three details matter if you already pay for Microsoft 365:
- Existing customers keep their current price until renewal. The new price applies when your annual term renews, so check your renewal date.
- Basic and Standard gained features. Microsoft added extra mailbox capacity and time-of-click protection against malicious links to both plans alongside the increase.
- The gap to Premium has narrowed. With Premium unchanged, the step up from Standard now costs £6.10 per user per month at UK list prices.
Is it cheaper to pay monthly or annually?
Annual is cheaper. Microsoft offers three ways to pay, and the difference is worth knowing before you commit:
| How you buy | Commitment | Price effect | Business Premium example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual subscription, paid yearly | 12 months | Lowest price | £16.90 per user per month |
| Annual subscription, paid monthly | 12 months | 5% more (since 1 April 2025) | About £17.75 (our calculation) |
| Monthly subscription | Month to month | 20% more | £20.28 per user per month |
The trade-off is flexibility. On an annual subscription you can add licences at any time but generally cannot reduce them until renewal. A monthly subscription lets you drop licences when someone leaves. For a stable team, annual wins. For seasonal staff or a business about to shrink, a mix of the two is often the sensible answer.
What does each Microsoft 365 business plan include?
Every plan includes business email (except Apps for business), 1TB of OneDrive storage per user and Copilot Chat. The real differences are desktop apps and security.
| Feature | Basic | Standard | Premium | Apps for business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook | Web and mobile only | Desktop, web and mobile | Desktop, web and mobile | Desktop, web and mobile |
| Business email (Exchange) | 100GB mailbox | 100GB mailbox | 100GB mailbox, archive up to 1.5TB | Not included |
| OneDrive storage | 1TB | 1TB | 1TB | 1TB |
| Teams | With or without | With or without | With or without | Not included |
| Device management (Intune) | No | No | Yes | No |
| Conditional Access (Entra ID P1) | No | No | Yes | No |
| Defender for Business (endpoint protection) | No | No | Yes | No |
| Data loss prevention and sensitivity labels (Purview) | No | No | Yes | No |
| Maximum users | 300 | 300 | 300 | 300 |
If you want to understand what the security features in Premium actually do, we have separate guides to Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Entra ID.
Basic, Standard or Premium: which should you choose?
Choose on how you work and what data you hold, not on price alone. This is how we advise our own clients:
Business Basic: email, Teams and files, in the browser
Basic suits people who work mostly in email and Teams and rarely need the full desktop versions of Word or Excel, such as site staff, part-timers or volunteers. It is also a sensible way to give a shared mailbox user a proper account without paying for desktop apps.
Business Standard: the full Office apps
Standard adds the desktop apps. It suits office-based teams who live in Excel and Outlook. The catch is that it has no device management and only the free tier of Entra ID, so you cannot enforce security on the laptops and phones that access your data.
Business Premium: Standard plus the security
Premium is Standard plus Intune, Conditional Access, Defender for Business and Purview. In practice that means you can require multi-factor authentication, block sign-ins from unmanaged devices, wipe a lost laptop, and stop client files being shared outside the business. If you handle client, patient or financial data, or you are working towards Cyber Essentials, Premium is the plan we recommend. Since April 2026, Cyber Essentials automatically fails any business that has not turned on multi-factor authentication for its cloud services where it is available, and Premium makes that far easier to enforce and prove.
Apps for business: desktop apps without email
Apps for business is only the Office apps and OneDrive. It fits businesses that run email elsewhere. For most small businesses, Standard costs only a little more and includes email and Teams.
You can mix plans. Many businesses put office staff on Premium and frontline or occasional users on Basic. You pay for what each person needs, provided everyone who touches sensitive data is on a plan that can be secured properly.
Do you need Teams or Copilot?
Microsoft sells every business plan with or without Teams. The no-Teams versions save £1.20 to £2.50 per user per month, which only makes sense if you already pay for another meetings and chat platform. Existing customers can keep renewing their plans with Teams.
Copilot Chat is included in all business plans. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot, which works inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams using your own files and email, costs extra: Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is £16.10 per user per month on an annual subscription, with an introductory price of £13.80 for the first year on annual subscriptions bought by 31 December 2026. Alternatively, buy Standard or Premium with Copilot built in.
Our advice is to license Copilot for the people who will use it daily rather than the whole company, and to tidy up file permissions first. Copilot can surface anything a user has access to, so overshared folders become a real problem the day it is switched on.
What costs does the Microsoft price list not show?
The licence is rarely the whole cost of running Microsoft 365 properly. Budget for these as well:
- VAT. Every Microsoft UK price is quoted excluding VAT.
- Backup. Microsoft keeps your data available and offers retention settings, but retention is not the same as an independent backup you control. Most businesses add a third-party Microsoft 365 backup.
- Setup and security configuration. Premium’s security features do nothing until they are configured. MFA, Conditional Access policies, device enrolment and data loss prevention all need setting up and maintaining.
- Migration. Moving from another email system or old file server is a project in its own right.
- Buying route. Prices through Microsoft partners can differ from Microsoft’s list prices, and partner-billed licences may come with different terms.
When we manage Microsoft 365 for a client, the licences are billed at cost and the management sits in our fixed monthly IT support price. You can see exactly how that works on our Microsoft 365 services page, or use the IT support cost calculator for a figure for your own team.
Charities pay much less: Business Basic is free for up to 300 users and Premium is heavily discounted. See our guide to Microsoft 365 for charities.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Microsoft 365 cost per user in the UK?
At UK list prices, excluding VAT, on an annual subscription: Business Basic £5.40, Business Standard £10.80, Business Premium £16.90 and Apps for business £9.80 per user per month. A monthly subscription costs 20% more.
Did Microsoft 365 prices go up in 2026?
Yes. From 1 July 2026 Microsoft raised Business Basic and Business Standard, along with the E3 and E5 enterprise plans. Business Premium did not change. Existing customers move to the new price at their next renewal.
What is the difference between Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Business Premium?
Both include the desktop Office apps, email, Teams and 1TB of OneDrive. Premium adds Intune device management, Entra ID P1 Conditional Access, Defender for Business and Purview data protection, plus an archive of up to 1.5TB. Premium is the plan to choose if you need to secure devices and client data.
What is the difference between Business Basic and Business Standard?
Business Basic gives web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Business Standard adds the full desktop apps. Email, Teams and OneDrive storage are the same on both.
Are Microsoft 365 prices shown with or without VAT?
Microsoft’s UK business prices are shown excluding VAT, so add 20% if your business is not VAT registered.
How many users can have Microsoft 365 Business?
Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, Premium and Apps for business are each limited to 300 users. Larger organisations use the enterprise plans such as E3 and E5.
Is Microsoft 365 Business Premium worth it for a small business?
For most small businesses that hold client or financial data, yes. It is the only business plan that lets you manage and secure devices, enforce multi-factor authentication through Conditional Access and protect against malware and data leaks, and at current UK list prices it costs £6.10 more per user per month than Standard.
Sources
- Microsoft UK: compare all Microsoft 365 business products
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft Licensing: 2026 Microsoft 365 packaging and pricing updates
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
- Microsoft UK: Microsoft 365 enterprise plans and pricing
- Microsoft Learn: Exchange Online limits
- Microsoft Licensing: Microsoft 365 and Teams packaging worldwide
- Microsoft Tech Community: pricing updates for annual subscriptions billed monthly
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