1. Office 365 Pricing Plans
2. Office 365 Business Pricing Plans

This plan works with Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office 2013. Previous versions of Office, such as Office 2010, may work with Microsoft 365 with reduced functionality. This compatibility with Office does not include the Office 365 F3 plans. After your 1-month free trial, you will be charged the applicable subscription fee. Pricing for the Microsoft 365 E5 Security add-on is $12/mo and can only be added to the Microsoft 365 E3 plan, which is $32/mo. (Note: the M365 E5 Security/Compliance add-ons are also available if you purchase Office 365 E3 with EM+S E3.). Microsoft 365 FamilyCAD $109.00 / year. Perfect for up to 6 people. Up to 6TB of cloud storage, that's 1TB per person. Premium safety features in mobile app 1. Buy now Or buy at CAD $11.00/month. Save with an annual subscription. Office 365 helps you book a conference room or a car, and the task management app lets you organize the team's schedule, assign tasks and monitor deadlines. Choose the right plan for you and see for yourself the opportunities that Office 365 creates for you and your company!

There's no getting around the importance of Office 365 for day-to-day business.

Or is it Microsoft 365 now?

Wait. What's going on?

The confusion surrounding the recent changes with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 is completely understandable. The shift has a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering, 'OK, so what's the difference?'

But organizations that currently depend on Microsoft's Office suite, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and other cloud apps and services to keep their remote workers connected and productive don't need to worry.

Because although names might have changed for some of the business and enterprise subscriptions, the license features have pretty much been untouched.

Here's a quick breakdown of what's different and what's stayed the same.

Office 365 vs. Microsoft 365

Why all the sudden confusion between Office 365 and Microsoft 365? Well, it really comes down to rebranding.

Microsoft 365, also known as M365, is a cloud-based, subscription suite that encompasses Office and other productivity apps, cloud services, device management, and security. It first emerged as an enterprise-level licensing bundle in 2017.

Microsoft announced in late March that Office 365 would officially become Microsoft 365 effective April 21. And as part of that, Office 365 subscriptions for small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as the enterprise-level Office 365 ProPlus, would be renamed.

Those plans are now called:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials)
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard (formerly Office 365 Business Premium)
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium (formerly Microsoft 365 Business)
• Microsoft 365 Apps for Business or Enterprise (formerly Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus)

But by any other name, those business licenses retain the same features and pricing. And Office 365 Enterprise subscriptions — as well as select Office 365 plans for education, government, and first-line workers — remain unchanged in name and details.

So why make the move to Microsoft 365 at all?

The branding shift is meant to better reflect the innovative cloud-based productivity tools offered in these plans, as well as the new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions, according to a blog post authored by Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365. But the name changes should also help better differentiate between subscriptions, too.

And although no major subscription changes were made along with the rebranding, it's almost guaranteed that Microsoft 365 will be introducing added features as newer versions are released. Meanwhile, a later announcements revealed a steady elimination of older Office versions and Office 365 services:

• Microsoft 365 Apps for Business of Enterprise (formerly Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus), Office 2019, and Office 2016 are the only Office versions supported to connect to Office 365/Microsoft 365 services as of Oct. 13, 2020.
• Connecting to Office 365 via Office 2016 for Mac, as well as older versions of Project and Visio are no longer supported as of Oct. 13, 2020. (InfoPath 2013 and SharePoint Designer 2013 have extended support into 2026.)
• TLS 1.0 and 1.1 was retired on Oct. 15, 2020; TLS 1.2 is now required to connect to Office 365 services.
• Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021.
• Versions of Office 2019 will be supported until October 2023.

'The Office you know and love will still be there,' according to Spataro's March 30 blog post, 'but we're excited about the new apps and services we've added to our subscriptions over the last few years and about the new innovations we'll be adding in the coming months.'

Comparing Business and Enterprise Plans

Name changes aside, the current business licenses Microsoft 365 has to offer should look fairly familiar.

For business plans — which support up to 300 users — web and mobile Office apps as well as cloud file storage come standard. Most of the subscriptions also include Teams, Outlook, Exchange, and SharePoint.

But some of the key differences among the business licenses lie desktop versions of Office apps, as well as advanced security and device management offered by the Premium plan, which includes Intune and Azure Information Protection.

Here's a quick look at the main features of the newly renamed business subscriptions, directly from Microsoft:

*FKA = formerly known as

Enterprise licenses — available for an unlimited number of users — offer a broader variety of apps, cloud services, and device and security management.

On the lighter end of the subscription spectrum are Office 365 E1, E3, and E5, as well as the newly renamed Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (formerly Office 365 ProPlus), all of which have different mixes of Office and productivity apps, device management, and even analytics. The more advanced protection, security, and compliance features, though, can be found with the Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 plans, which also include the Windows OS.

Here's Microsoft's general overview of what the enterprise licenses include:

Of course there are even more Microsoft 365 subscriptions — including personal/family, first-line workforce, education, and government plans — not covered in this post. But in terms of licenses that can fulfill the needs of large-scale organizations, these business and enterprise plans are a great place to start.

It's also worth taking a closer look at two popular enterprise plans, Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3, that are frequently compared in terms of features and value.

Differences Between Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3

For organizations weighing the benefits and costs of Microsoft's enterprise licenses, two plans in particular often stand out: Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3.

At first glance, the two subscriptions have a lot in common. Both include Office suite apps (desktop, mobile, web), Outlook, Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and more productivity apps. They also include some of the same services, such as Microsoft 365 admin center, Graph API, Mobile Device Management for Office 365, shared computer activation, on-premises Active Directory sync for single sign-on, and information protection.

But Microsoft 365 E3 has a bit more to offer, including device management options such as Microsoft Intune, Windows Autopilot, analytics, and a System Center Configuration Manager. It also features Windows Hello, Windows Credential Guard, DirectAccess, Azure Active Directory Premium, advanced threat and information protection measures, Microsoft Secure Score, and Microsoft Security and Compliance Center.

Microsoft 365 E3 also includes the Windows 10 Enterprise OS, which might explain why the plan is $12/user/month higher than Office 365 E3.

So which subscription offers the best value? Well, that's tough to say.

When it comes to choosing the best license, or even combination of licenses, organizations need to start by looking at their own users.

How to Choose the Right Licenses for Your Users

With so many different license tiers to pick from, finding the right fit can be a challenge.

Because while it's important for organizations to provide all the apps and services employees need to stay productive, it's just as important to avoid costly overprovisioning and unused software.

That's why understanding end-user needs is crucial. In order to strategically provision licenses and prevent wasted resources, IT teams need clear, detailed usage data.

With a digital experience monitoring solution, such as SysTrack, organizations can gain better visibility of their digital environments and end-user behavior by gathering data metrics — such as application usage and performance, storage needs, license info, etc. — directly from the endpoint.

IT teams can then use that information to start considering some critical questions:

• Where are licenses needed? Are there unused licenses that can be re-provisioned or removed?
• What does the usage data show over a 30-, 60-, or 90-day period?
• Are there edge cases where users can benefit from an upgrade? Or are there users who can be moved to a less expensive license without impact?

Backed bys still the matter of keeping everything running smoothly and maintaining a great digital employee experience.

Although the SaaS model of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 make them ideal for many workspaces, their third-party infrastructure makes it tricky for IT admins to troubleshoot. And tools such as Microsoft Support and Discovery Assistant and the Admin Center's Microsoft 365 service health page offer only basic help with mainly external factors.

For deep root cause analysis and more effective troubleshooting — especially with Office 365 Enterprise licenses — an internal monitoring solution such as SysTrack is invaluable for providing visibility into other areas, including:

• Browser
• Network
• Operating system
• Hardware
• Other apps

Using SysTrack's comprehensive analytics in combination with its Office 365 Performance Monitoring Kit, which includes specially designed dashboards and reports, also gives IT teams greater insights into license usage and performance across their environment.

In addition to summary information about usage and performance, the kit also helps IT teams track underused or unused licenses; location-based details; and performance and consumption info for specific users.

So when issues do arise, IT has the means to quickly identify, resolve, and even prevent problems before they impact end-user experience and productivity.

Request a Demo

Learn how to gain better visibility of your licenses and environment with a free SysTrack demo.

Sometimes people in your organization will need to use a phone to call in to a meeting. Microsoft Teams includes the Audio Conferencing feature for just this situation! People can call in to Microsoft Teams meetings using a phone, instead of using the Microsoft Teams app on a mobile device or PC.

You only need to set up audio conferencing for people who plan to schedule or lead meetings. Meeting attendees who call in to the meeting don't need any licenses assigned to them and don't need other setup.

For pricing info, see Pricing for Audio Conferencing.

Step 1: Buy and assign Audio Conferencing licenses

You must be a global administrator or billing administrator to perform these steps.

To buy and assign user Audio Conferencing licenses

1. Find out if Audio Conferencing is available in your country/region. Countries and region availability for Audio Conferencing and Calling Plans.

2. Get your Audio Conferencing licenses. If you want to:

   • Try it before you buy it: you can sign up for an Office 365 Enterprise E5 free trial that includes Audio Conferencing. See Office 365 Enterprise E5 Trial.

   • Buy it: see Microsoft Teams add-on licensing.

3. Assign licenses to users in your organization who are going to schedule or lead meetings.

4. If you purchased audio conferencing add-on licenses and Communications Credits licenses, assign them too. For instructions, see Assign Microsoft Teams add-on licenses.

To buy and assign pay-per-minute Audio Conferencing licenses

If you're a Volume and Licensing customer, you can get pay-per-minute Audio Conferencing licenses. For additional information on pay-per-minute Audio Conferencing licenses, see Audio Conferencing pay-per-minute.

1. Find out if Audio Conferencing is available in your country/region. Country and region availability for Audio Conferencing and Calling Plans.

2. Get your Audio Conferencing licenses. To acquire pay-per-minute licenses, please contact your account representative.

3. Set up Communications Credits for your organization for your organization. To set up Communications Credits, see What are Communications Credits?

   Important

   If Communications Credits haven't been set up, Audio Conferencing won't work for any users with pay-per-minute licenses.

4. Assign licenses to users in your organization who are going to schedule or lead meetings.

   Note

   If you have Audio Conferencing pay-per-minute licenses, you must assign a Communications Credits license separately to each user as well.

Step 2: Set the audio conferencing provider for people who lead or schedule meetings

When you assign an Audio Conferencing license to people in your organization who don't have Skype for Business integrated with a 3rd party audio conferencing provider, they are all set up and ready to go! (You don't have to set their audio conferencing provider.)

If you have users enabled with a 3rd party audio conferencing provider, you must change the provider of those users to Microsoft. To change the provider for a user, see Assign Microsoft as the audio conferencing provider.

Office 365 Pricing Plans

Step 3: Other admin tasks

The following steps are optional, but a lot of admins like to do them:

1. Customize meeting invitations. The dial-in numbers that are set for the user will be automatically added to the meeting invitations that are sent to attendees. However, you can add your own help and legal links, a text message, and small company graphic.

2. Set the phone numbers included on invites. This is the phone number that will show up in the meeting that is scheduled by a user.

3. Set auto attendant languages for Audio Conferencing that the Audio Conferencing auto attendant uses to greet a caller when they dial in to an audio conferencing phone number. This step only applies if you're using Microsoft as your audio conferencing provider.

4. Set the length of the PIN for Audio Conferencing meetings.

Note

Office 365 Business Pricing Plans

This feature is not yet available to customers using Office 365 operated by 21Vianet in China. To learn more, see Learn about Office 365 operated by 21Vianet.

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