Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs Standard
What Business Premium adds over Standard, in plain terms: Intune, Conditional Access, Defender and Purview, and how to tell whether your office will use them.
Most small businesses on Microsoft 365 are on Business Basic or Business Standard, and at some point someone suggests moving to Business Premium "for the security." It is a fair suggestion, but it only pays off if the extra features are actually switched on and configured. This guide explains, in plain terms, what Business Premium adds and how to decide whether your office needs it. We won't quote prices here, because they change and depend on your agreement; the question is what you get.
The three business plans in one paragraph
All three Microsoft 365 business plans are for organizations of up to 300 users. Business Basic gives you business email (Exchange), Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint, with the web and mobile versions of Word, Excel and Outlook. Business Standard adds the installable desktop apps. Business Premium includes everything in Standard, plus a set of security and device management tools that otherwise have to be bought separately. You can mix plans in one company, for example Premium for most staff and Basic for a few people who only need email.
What Business Premium adds, and what each part does
Microsoft Intune: managing the devices
Intune lets you enroll company laptops and phones, push settings to them, require encryption and a screen lock, deploy apps, and lock or wipe a device remotely. When a laptop goes missing, this is the difference between "we think it had a password" and wiping it from a browser. It also lets you protect company data on staff-owned phones without taking over the whole phone.
Microsoft Entra ID P1: Conditional Access
Every Microsoft 365 tenant can turn on "security defaults," which require multi-factor authentication for everyone. Conditional Access goes further: you write rules such as "only allow sign-in from company-managed devices," "block sign-ins from countries we don't work in," or "always require MFA for admin accounts." For many small businesses this is the single most useful part of Premium, because it makes a stolen password far less useful to an attacker.
Microsoft Defender for Business: protecting the computers
This is endpoint protection with detection and response (EDR) for Windows and Mac. Beyond antivirus, it watches for suspicious behavior, such as a program suddenly encrypting files, and can isolate a computer from the network. Cyber insurers often ask whether you have EDR, so this can help with an application questionnaire.
Defender for Office 365 Plan 1: safer email
All plans include basic spam and malware filtering. Premium adds Safe Links, which checks links when they are clicked rather than only when the email arrives, and Safe Attachments, which opens attachments in an isolated environment before delivery, plus extra phishing protection.
Microsoft Purview: labeling and data loss prevention
Purview features let you label documents as confidential, encrypt them so they stay protected when forwarded, and set data loss prevention rules that warn or block staff when they try to send things like card numbers by email. Premium also includes Exchange Online Archiving for mailboxes that have outgrown their standard size.
When Premium is usually worth it
- Staff work from laptops outside the office, or use their own phones for email.
- You handle client data that would be costly to lose or leak: legal, medical, financial, design or production work under NDA.
- Your cyber insurer or a large client asks about MFA, device management or EDR.
- You are paying separately for antivirus, a device management tool and an email filtering add-on, and would like fewer moving parts.
When it may not be
- Nobody will configure it. Premium licenses with default settings protect little more than Standard. The value is in the policies.
- Some users only need email and Teams on the web. Basic, with security defaults turned on, may be enough for them.
- You already have a good endpoint and email security product that you are happy with. Compare overlap before switching.
If you upgrade, set these up first
- Conditional Access rules requiring MFA for everyone, and blocking older sign-in methods that can't do MFA. Keep one emergency admin account excluded and stored safely.
- Intune enrollment for company Windows PCs and Macs, with encryption (BitLocker or FileVault) and a screen lock required.
- Defender for Business onboarded on every computer, with someone receiving and reading its alerts.
- Safe Links and Safe Attachments policies covering all users.
- A note of which settings were changed and why, so the next person can understand them.
Whatever plan you choose, remember that Microsoft 365 is not a backup of your mail and files: deleted items are only kept for limited periods. Our managed backup service covers that separately.
Getting it set up
If you would like help with the setup, our managed IT services and password and account security service cover Microsoft 365 settings such as MFA and sign-in rules. If you are weighing up Business Premium, call (213) 986-4855 and we can talk through what your office would actually use.