Microsoft 365 Business Premium is an integrated solution bringing together the best-in-class productivity with advanced security and device management capabilities to help safeguard your business. This service description describes the plan options and features. Defend your business against advanced cyberthreats with sophisticated phishing and ransomware. Microsoft 365 Apps. $8.25 user/month. (annual commitment) Microsoft 365 Apps for business, $8.25 user/month (annual commitment) Buy now. Or buy for $10.00 per user/month with a monthly commitment. Try free for 1 month 4. Best for businesses that need Office apps across devices and cloud file. To provide customers with the greatest amount of flexibility, different payment options are available. Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Apps for business, Business Standard, and Business Premium plans are available for monthly commitment payment or annual commitment payment. Mar 29, 2019 Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium (starting at $12.50 per user per month on an annual subscription for the version we tested) integrates dynamic email hosting as well as the best of Microsoft.
Up until recently, Microsoft Office 365 was either bundled for large enterprises, typically covered under the Office 365 E3 plan, or available as a mix-and-match through various plans. This made it difficult for smaller agile companies to manage their cloud experience. Enterprise plans had additional features in SharePoint, Exchange, and data security needed by small- and medium-sized companies, but that weren’t available in smaller bundles.
Microsoft now has a cloud-based service for small businesses that combines Office apps, data security, and Windows 10. It’s a solution designed for growing businesses with less than 300 users that neither have the time nor the necessary resources to maintain multiple servers and seats. It also gives not only your staff but also your customers the flexibility to securely share, collaborate, and communicate seamlessly on any device, anywhere and anytime.
Many young businesses punch above their weight in products or services despite their small staff. If that sounds like your company, Microsoft 365 Business Premium really is what you’ve been looking for to move to the cloud and finally protect your data.
Another growing pain for many up-and-coming companies is the fact that many employees use personal devices for company purposes. Large enterprises typically have the budget to provide laptops and cell phones, and they also have the means to deploy sophisticated tracking and control systems. But among smaller companies, employees typically rely on their own devices; thus, small businesses must develop a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy to protect their data. Based on this need, Microsoft has also included device management and security in the Microsoft 365 Business Premium offering.
In this article, we’ll cover the main differences between Microsoft 365 Business Premium and the Office 365 E3 plan and take a look at whether this new solution is right for you.
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What is Microsoft 365 Business Premium?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium combines Office apps such as Word, Excel, Planner, Teams, and more with services for remote device and mobile application management, as well as the use of Windows 10 Pro to protect devices against spam and malware.
Here’s a brief overview of what’s included:
- The complete Office suite. All the familiar and powerful collaboration and communication tools—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Skype and much more.
- External sharing with clients and customers using SharePoint, Teams, or OneDrive.
- Generous email and storage limits
- 50 GB inbox
- 1 TB of OneDrive storage
- A centralized Microsoft Admin Console that lets you manage:
- Data governance, protection, and compliance
- Protection from spyware, viruses, and other malware
The Microsoft Admin Console
This is by far one of the best things about Microsoft 365 Business Premium: the Microsoft Admin Console gives you a single, convenient place for administrative tasks. Here, you can configure security policies and manage devices and apps. The security settings setup consists of just 15 user-friendly menus instead of the 45 in the E3 Plan. There, you can manage company file access by implementing PIN numbers or fingerprints, prevent company content from being copied into personal apps, and use Windows Defender antivirus to automatically protect and update every Windows 10 device in your company.
Microsoft Business 365 Premium user story
Dave is the owner and founder of a successful coffee roasting business. He has four retail locations plus a roasting facility that not only supplies coffee to these locations but also serves as the hub of his expanding monthly subscription and distribution center for other local restaurants. Like many small-business owners, Dave has grown from running everything by himself from just his phone and laptop to having a staff of 125 people.
Dave now has all the needs of a large corporation: communication, collaboration, data security, and much more. But he does not have a support staff that focuses on running his business. Fortunately, with Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Dave won’t need a dedicated team to run his company’s IT because he gets a cost-effective offering with streamlined administrative and security features.
How to decide?
The E3 plan is for large organizations with more than 300 users that have greater compliance, security, and IT requirements. These IT departments administer and manage everything from issuing devices and single sign-on access/authorization to advanced configurations for remote/virtual desktops and hybrid cloud deployments.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium and the E3 plan have many similarities when you consider their features. Here are the four criteria you should meet if you need the E3 plan:
- More than 300 users
- Larger mailbox size (100 GB per user and attachments up to 150 MB)
- Need for stronger security and device management
- Need for business intelligence and analytics tools
And here’s a detailed breakdown of both plans:
| Features | Microsoft 365 | Enterprise E3 |
| Office Apps | x | x |
| Email & Calendar | x | x |
| Microsoft Teams | x | x |
| Skype for Business | x | x |
| SharePoint & Yammer | x | x |
| Delve | x | x |
| Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics | x | x |
| Windows Defender Antivirus | x | x |
| Microsoft Intune | x | |
| Office 365 Data Loss Prevention | x | |
| Archiving & Legal Hold | x | |
| eDiscovery | x | |
| Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) | x |
Below are some quick definitions of Legal Hold, eDiscovery, Intune, and ATP so you have a full understanding of the differences:
- Legal Hold protects and archives information (company email and data) that might be considered evidence in the event that you face a lawsuit.
- eDiscovery is the search and identifying of those electronic files and information that are needed for lawsuits.
- Advanced Threat Protection enables anti-phishing measures, safe links (wrapped in a Microsoft URL and scanned when clicked), and safe attachments (sent to a sandbox before delivery).
- Intune is an app built for device management. It’s what you use to perform remote wipes of company data and factory resets for Windows 10 devices.
Office 365 Business Premium Vs Office 365 Enterprise E3
How much Is Microsoft 365 Business Premium?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium costs $20/month per seat or user.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscriptions are available for purchase through a Microsoft Partner such as Sherweb.
Resell Office 365 easily with Sherweb
Conclusion
All businesses share common needs: increasing productivity, working more efficiently and safeguarding their data. Before, small businesses needed to wait until they could afford the enterprise features they needed. That’s no longer the case with Microsoft Business 365 Premium—now, you can take advantage of many features previously only available to corporate customers.
Got questions or want to learn more about Microsoft 365? Get in touch so we can help you decide whether this solution is right for your business.
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Microsoft 365 Business Premium is an integrated solution bringing together the best-in-class productivity of Microsoft 365 with advanced security and device management to help safeguard your business from advanced threats. This service description describes the plan options and features. For more information about Office 365, see Microsoft 365 and Office 365 service descriptions.
Feature availability across Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium plans
Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes essentially all the features available in Microsoft 365 Business Standard along with additional Microsoft security features.
Office 365 Business Premium Compare
| Plan options | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office 365 platform | Yes | Yes | |
| Exchange Online | Yes1 | Yes1 | |
| SharePoint Online | Yes | Yes | |
| OneDrive for Business | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Teams | Yes | Yes | |
| Office for the web | Yes | Yes | |
| Office applications | Yes | Yes | |
| Yammer Enterprise | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Bookings | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Power Automate | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Forms | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Planner | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft PowerApps | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft StaffHub | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Stream | Yes6 | Yes6 | |
| Microsoft 365 administration | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | |
| Azure AD Connect sync tool | Yes | Yes | |
| Shared computer activation | No | Yes | |
| Message policy and compliance | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | |
| Long-term archiving of Exchange Online-based mailboxes | No | Yes3 | |
| Azure Information Protection Plan 1 | No | Yes2 | |
| Office 365 Message Encryption | No | Yes2 | |
| In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold | No | Yes3 | |
| In-Place eDiscovery | Yes | Yes | |
| Transport rules | Yes | Yes | |
| Data loss prevention | No | Yes | |
| Privacy, security, and transparency | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | |
| Built-in anti-spam protection | Yes | Yes | |
| Built-in anti-malware protection | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 | No | Yes7 | |
| Secure Score4 | Yes | Yes | |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 | No | No | |
| Azure AD Premium P1 is available to Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers. | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 |
| Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Administrative units | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud app discovery | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dynamic groups | No | Yes | Yes |
| Self-service password reset for cloud identities | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-service password reset with on-premises AD write-back | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| Device objects two-way synchronization between on-premises directories and Azure AD (device write-back) | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| Conditional access (based on group, location, or device state) | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| Company branding (logon pages/access panel customization) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Application proxy | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) user CAL | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| Connect Health | No | Yes9 | Yes |
| SLA 99.9% | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Device and application management Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes full Intune capabilities for iOS, Android, Mac OS, and other cross-platform device management.8 | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | |
| Intune Mobile Device Management (MDM) for PCs, Macs, and mobile devices5 | No | Yes | |
| Mobile Device Management (MDM) auto-enrollment | No | Yes | |
| Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) for Office apps and LOB apps | No | Yes | |
| Windows update management, Defender, Firewall policies5 | No | Yes | |
| Data protection - selective wipe | Yes | Yes | |
| Security group (SG) targeting for policies | No | Yes | |
| Install Office apps on enrolled Windows 10 devices | No | Yes | |
| Windows Defender configuration | No | Yes | |
| Deploying device profiles and security configuration5 | No | Yes | |
| Enterprise State Roaming for Windows 10 with Azure AD join | No | Yes | |
| Self-service BitLocker recovery | No | Yes | |
| Windows Virtual Desktop | No | Yes | |
| Windows 10 Pro management If you have devices that are licensed for Windows 7 and 8.1 Professional, Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides an upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.9 | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | ||
| Simplified deployment with Windows AutoPilot | Yes | ||
| Subscription activation | Yes | ||
| Organizational control of device screen on idle | Yes | ||
| Organizational control of user access to apps from Microsoft Store | Yes | ||
| Organizational control of user access to Cortana | Yes | ||
| Organizational control of Windows tips and advertising from Microsoft | Yes | ||
| Windows 10 devices kept up-to-date automatically | Yes | ||
| Windows 10 Security | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | ||
| Protect PCs from viruses and other threats using Windows Defender Antivirus | Yes | ||
| Protect PCs from web-based threats in Microsoft Edge | Yes | ||
| Use rules that reduce the attack surface of devices | Yes | ||
| Protect folders from threats such as ransomware | Yes | ||
| Help protect files and folders on PCs from unauthorized access with Bitlocker | Yes |
Notes
Office 365 Business Premium
1 Includes Exchange Online Plan 1.
2 Azure Information Protection (AIP) enables the supported Information Rights Management (IRM) features. AIP Plan 1 is included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
3 Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Exchange Online Archiving subscription. Each Exchange Online Archiving subscriber initially receives 100 GB of storage in the archive mailbox. When auto-expanding archiving is turned on, additional storage is automatically added when the 100 GB storage capacity is reached. For more information, see Overview of unlimited archiving.
4 Available at https://securescore.office.com. Requires admin permissions. For more information, see Microsoft Secure Score.
5 Simplified Windows 10 device management built into the Microsoft 365 admin center. Intune management capabilities of iOS, Android, macOS, and other cross-platform device management built into the Device management admin center, also licensed for use with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Third-party apps and configuration of things like WiFi profiles and VPN certificates can also be managed in the Device management admin center.
6 This plan comes with Microsoft Stream Plan 2, which includes Video portal, Speech to text transcription, Deep Search, and Face Detection.
7 Microsoft 365 comes with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1. For more information, see Microsoft 365 Business Premium security and compliance features.
8 Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscribers are licensed to use full Intune capabilities for iOS, Android, MacOS, and other cross-platform device management. Features not available in the admin center in Microsoft 365 Business Premium, like third-party app management and configuration of WiFi profiles, VPN certificates, etc., can be managed in the full Intune console.
9 If you have devices that are licensed for Windows 7 and 8.1 Professional, Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides an upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. However, this license does not cover Windows 7.1 or 8 Home Edition with Windows 10 Pro. With Microsoft 365 Business Premium you not only get Microsoft Defender security features that come enabled in Windows Pro, you also get access to premium features like network protection for web-based threats and host intrusion prevention rules to mitigate ransomware. When you set up your Microsoft 365 Business Premium account, you select app protection, and device configuration settings. These settings determine the policies that are applied automatically to devices when they join Azure Active Directory.