I currently have an M365 Family subscription, bought via Blue Nandu. It's coming up for renewal in December and I'm trying to decide whether to stick with the Family edition or upgrade to Premium.

Where's the best/cheapest place to buy Premium from?

ta

Im looking to setup a small company of around 15 in Microsoft 365, they all work on their own devices (BYOD) and no devices will be enrolled into AzureAD.

That said I was thinking the M365 Business Premium (formerly Microsoft 365 Business) would be the best solution despite them everyone on a BYOD. The reason for this is it includes more features that if I add onto the Business Standard would cost more than Business Premium. The features I need is Conditional Access (Intune) & AntiSpam Protection for Exchange.

Just wanted to query that this is the right way for me to go as they wont be using all the features or the Windows 10 license?

Greetings all! I've been chatting with a person who works at a company with approx 40 users. At first they purchased M365 Business Standard licenses - then they switched all the users to Office 365 E3 as they thought it was required for an Accounting application - it wasn't.

So I feel that they will do better with M365 Business Premium as a good fit with SMB's - yes that will reduce that mailbox size from 100GB to 50GB but they're all well below 50GB and have archiving turned on.

Did a lot of research...comparing the features...also had a look here - mind you dated July 2023: https://m365maps.com/matrix.htm#010001000000000000000

Now the costs are comparable....as purchased those O365 E3 licenses before those recent license changes.

So I'm trying to point out the advantages of switching to M365 Business Premium.

My understanding is that M365 BP provides advanced security features and better device/app management and provides for a less complex environment to support. Thinking of their needs also on that side as their current IT folks are new to M365 (no comment!) ;-) ....so I am not always available to assist.

M365 Business Premium will also provide their Compliance and Governance needs when they're ready to go there.

Am I missing something here? Any there any other pro's associated with that M365 Business Premium subscription vs O365 E3?

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers!

I hate that everything is a subscription these days. I have Microsoft office downloaded on my laptop but it’s likely outdated at this point. My mom just got a new laptop so she can look for new jobs and create a resume. I’d like to get the family plan for us to share but once she gets a job she will likely never use it again. And I only use it occasionally since I have a separate work laptop. Always having an updated Microsoft office suite is appealing but it seems too expensive for only a year. Alternatively, it’s cheaper than buying the software to install. For those who have the subscription, do you really plan to pay $100 a year forever? Until there is an alternative I guess.

thanks

I know it's a weird question but does anyone on here use Microsoft 365 Business Premium for personal use?

I know they have the Microsoft 365 personal subscription which is much cheaper but one feature I want is Intune and that only comes with 365 Business Premium.

The reasons I'm looking at 365 Business Premium for personal use:

1. Intune mainly for MDM (6 devices)

2. Custom domain email which isn't that important but cool that it's included

3. One Drive 1TB storage

4. MS apps like Word and Excel

If you have or are using 365 Business Premium is it worth the $240 yearly price tag?

We currently have Microsoft 365 Apps for Business and we are are ready to start our Microsoft 365 premium migration project soon, and migrating our Exchange environment to the cloud. I am skeptical that Microsoft 365 premium subscription for our 150 users will be able to fully replace everything I am currently using on-prem. I need opinions and assistance.

My current environment:

Exchange 2019 on-prem server

Barracuda Email Security Gateway for primary email firewall

Cisco Email Security Appliance for sending out secure encrypted emails

BlackBerry Work for Accessing Email on iPhone/Android BYOD devices

WithSecure Client Security for workstation/server Anti-Virus protection.

Veritas BackupExec and Veeam Backup & Recovery for backup solution.

Any help or guidance will be helpful.

Thank you

I'm trying to determine the security specific advantages of moving my users away from M365 Business Standard and onto M365 Business Premium. I know that at least one advantage is that Exchange Online's spam/phishing security service features are greater for users with Premium licensing.

Any other things that are obvious improvements, if I move to Premium?

I am about to switch from a la carte licenses to Business Premium to get Intune mainly. I keep seeing it say it includes security, is any of this email security beyond what Exchange offers standard? What is the "security" this license provides?

Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I’m a bit confused about the new Microsoft 365 Premium subscription. I’m currently on Copilot Pro, and according to Microsoft’s announcement, “Microsoft 365 Premium combines everything in our Microsoft 365 Family and Copilot Pro subscriptions” (source).

However, when I look at the official support page about AI credits and limits (source), it seems that Microsoft 365 Premium actually comes with more usage restrictions.

For example:

- With Copilot Pro, I’ve never seen any usage limitation. I can use Smart (GPT‑5) all day long without hitting a cap or receiving any warning.

- For Voice, the Premium plan mentions a 60 minutes daily limit, but I don’t think such a restriction exists with Copilot Pro.

Has anyone here already switched from Copilot Pro to Microsoft 365 Premium and can confirm this? If Premium really has stricter limits, it might be better to stay with Copilot Pro for as long as possible.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience :)

Hey all,

We’re a telco (not an true IT MSP), but I know this sub has a ton of experience with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace migrations, so I wanted to ask for your perspective.

We’ve been on Google Workspace Business Plus for nearly a decade, and while we still love Gmail, we’re seriously considering switching to Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Both are $22/user/month, but with Microsoft’s CSP partner benefits, we could reduce or even eliminate our cost depending on how many other orgs we sign up under our account.

The big driver is MDM and identity management.

• Google MDM is okay for iOS/Android, but Windows support is very limited.

• Issuing WiFi certificates is a pain — no native SCEP support.

• Google’s SCIM support is limited compared to Microsoft.

• Entra seems significantly more advanced as an IDP.

• Autopilot + Intune + automatic Windows Pro upgrades would streamline endpoint provisioning, and we could buy cheaper laptops with Home editions that get upgraded automatically.

Security is another huge factor:

• Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Defender with EDR — full endpoint protection and detection.

• With Google, we’ve had to rely on third-party tools for anything similar.

• That said, we’ve never had issues with spam, phishing, or malware in Gmail — Google clearly does a great job there. Does Microsoft 365 hold up just as well in practice, or is a third-party solution necessary?

Other considerations:

• Teams reportedly has better external integrations. A few of our vendors have moved away from Google Chat.

• We’ve used Google Chat for almost 10 years, but are open to switching if Teams has truly improved.

• Docs/Sheets still struggle with compatibility when working with Word/Excel files from clients. Office compatibility is just better in the Microsoft world.

One hesitation: AI.

• Google now includes Gemini AI with every Workspace license — and it’s getting better.

• Microsoft Copilot seems powerful but adds nearly $30/user/month on top of the base price, which is hard to justify across the company.

We’re not thrilled about losing Gmail, but everything else — identity, device management, security, compatibility — seems to favor Microsoft. Of course we can add third party tools to Google to get some of these features, but not for the same cost.

If you were making this move today, what other tools or services would you bolt on to 365 to round things out? Any regrets or things we should watch out for? What tool would you use to migrate, and is there anything that will transition our chat history to teams?

Appreciate any insights.

I do some jobs for a non-profit and I just got this email from Microsoft:

Your Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant will expire on April 1, 2026.

The Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant will be discontinued on your next renewal on or after July 1, 2025. Your licenses will expire on April 1, 2026. We will continue to provide up to 300 granted licenses of Microsoft 365 Business Basic and discounts of up to 75 percent on many Microsoft 365 offers to nonprofits, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Hi ,

I’m currently the solo IT person at a small biotech company with around 15-20 employees, and we're planning some major upgrades to our IT environment. We're using a mix of Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines, and most of our software is outdated (Microsoft Office 2007). We're looking at upgrading to Windows 10 and moving to Microsoft 365 Business Premium, but I could use some advice on whether this is the right move.

Current Setup:

• OS: Mixed usage of Windows 7 and Windows 10.

• Software: Some computers use Microsoft Office 2007.

• Storage: NAT storage device and Dropbox for cloud storage.

• Hardware: Some older machines that will need replacement to support newer OS versions.

Planned Upgrades:

1. Windows 10: Upgrading all systems to Windows 10 to ensure support and security.

2. GoDaddy MS 365 Online Business Essential Plan → Microsoft 365 Business Premium:

Why We're Considering the Upgrade:

• We need better security, given the vulnerabilities of unsupported systems and outdated software.

• We require more scalable solutions to support our growth.

Questions:

• Are there any significant downsides to moving to Microsoft 365 Business Premium that I should be aware of?

• Given our setup and needs, does this seem like the right move, or should we consider other options?

• Any advice on managing this transition smoothly, especially with hardware replacements and potential software compatibility issues?

• For Cyber security, Is Microsoft Defender for Business enough for our size of company or need additional antivirus software such as Norton, Bitdefender..?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

Hello I’ve recently acquired Microsoft 365 Business Premium for a nonprofit organization, and I’m currently helping them set up their account. I’m in the process of adding multiple users who will all have the same level of access. However, I’m a bit confused about the different licenses available and which ones I should assign.

I want these users to have basic access to essential Microsoft 365 apps—nothing advanced like Azure Active Directory or other admin-level tools. I will be the administrator, so I already have full access.

Has anyone had experience setting this up for a nonprofit? I’d appreciate any guidance on which licenses to assign and which ones can be left unassigned for regular users.

Thank you!

Hello. When I look online, I can see that our Microsoft 365 Business Premium license include Endpoint protection, but I am unsure if that is the ATP version or it is just some low level version.

So can someone point me in the correct way and yes it is included, how do I activate it, I can't seem to find that.

We have Symantec atm and we wanna change to Endpoint protection ATP.

Apologies in advance I’m about to purchase office 365 business premium for a small business, they have 50 desktops machines and wondering if office 365 business premium gives windows 11 licences or do I need to purchase them separately

Do you know any course to learn implement, hardening, manage m365 business premium? Especially intune and defender.

We are trying to decide which version of 365 to go with, either Premium or Standard. If we are using our own AV solution (BD or CS), what are we losing out on with sticking to Business Standard? (We do want to use Azure AD for users and for an admin account)

Rookie MSP here. Looking at Standard vs Premium. Which are you all using?