Comparing Microsoft 365 Plans: Business, Enterprise, Education, and Personal Plans

Microsoft Office 2021 was the last plan where you could just pay for the license as a one-time purchase. From that point on, the platforms moved to a SaaS system. This way, you get easier cost control, and even though you increase your monthly expenses, you potentially pay even more in the long run.

Still, the amount of money that you pay depends on the plan that you choose. In order for this to work, you need to compare Microsoft 365 Plans and see which of them works the best in your particular situation. Here, we’ll compare four different Microsoft 365 Plans and do our best to help you choose the one that will be the most suitable for your specific scenario. 

1. Business

When we say business plan, what they really mean by that are three or four separate plans that all go under this category. For instance, just for Business plans, you have:

• Business Basic
• Business Standard
• Business Premium
• Apps for Business

With every plan Basic through Premium, you get a set of basic Microsoft apps like Office, Excel, and PowerPoint online and on mobile. With the latter three, you also get desktop apps. Now, a lot of people are used to using desktop Office apps, which is why they won’t be content with their web versions exclusively. 

You can get these plans for anywhere from $6 to $12.50 per user per month, and you’ll get an even better deal in a scenario where you pay yearly instead of monthly. Usually, you get as much as 10% off, which adds up to a larger number of users. 

The most important thing about these plans is that you get 50GB of mailbox storage and a custom domain name. 

Most business owners see this plan as the most cost-effective option for businesses with less than 300 employees. 

2. Enterprise

If you want to go beyond these 300 users, you’re looking for the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Plan. This plan works in a simple way: It offers everything that a business plan does, but it’s more scalable and doesn’t cap you at 300 people’s access. This is vital for those who plan to set up a scalable Microsoft 365 infrastructure. 

Enterprise plans greatly differ and, depending on your budget and your needs, you may pick anything between:

• E1
• E3
• E5

With E1, you get web and mobile versions of Office, email hosting with a 50 GB mailbox, 1TB of OneDrive storage, and all the basic security and compliance features. You also get Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange support. 

E3, of course, has all the features of E1, with a bigger email hosting (100 GB instead of 50 GB mailbox) and some advanced compliance tools. It also has numerous security and management features whose value and importance you should never underestimate. In an era where hackers can now ransom your OneDrive and SharePoint files, this security value is more important than ever before. 

E5 has all the features of E3, with advanced security, compliance, and analytics. It also has advanced eDiscovery and auditing tools, as well as Power BI Pro, which a lot of enterprises find to be a deal-breaker. 

3. Education

Office apps are some of the most common and essential apps. In fact, chances are that if you do any kind of office job (or administrative job), Word or Excel will be apps that you’re using on a daily basis. The same is true for your academic life. Now, we say Word and Excel because Google Docs and Sheets are very similar to these apps, and if you know how to use Word and Excel, you’ll know how to use them as well.

This is why so many educational institutions need licenses. To accommodate their needs (and their lower purchasing power), there are a few educational plans you’ll be able to access. 

The best plans you’ll have on offer are:

• A1
• A3
• A5

If you’ve paid attention to the enterprise plans, you’ll find that they have almost identical features (E1 with A1, E3 with A3, etc.). 

The difference lies in the pricing system, as the educational plan subscription is more affordable. However, you have to prove that you’re an educational institution first; otherwise, why would anyone ever pay for an enterprise plan? 

With the most advanced plan (A5), you even get Power BI and advanced threat protection. 

4. Personal plan

When it comes to personal plans, there are two major plans to choose from:

• Personal
• Family

A family plan is almost the same as a personal; it’s just that you get six accounts that you can share with other people. So, you now get everything that you get in a limited quantity (like 1 TB of OneDrive storage) six times (1 TB for each user).

The reason why it’s such a sweet deal is because it doesn’t really require you to pay six times more.

Most importantly, unlike the education plan, it doesn’t require you to prove your familial relations before sharing it with others. In other words, you can share it with six friends and save a considerable amount in this way.

Microsoft 365 Personal provides one person with desktop, web, and mobile versions of office apps. This is a huge advantage over its Office 2021 counterpart, which was device-exclusive. In other words, if you had a basic plan, you could only use it on a single device. This was incredibly restrictive, especially in an age where everyone works remotely. 

The best way to assess the value of a Personal plan is to compare it to its Office 2021 alternative, especially if you consider paying your 365 Personal plan on a yearly basis. This way, you see all the extra value you’re getting from the deal.

Wrap up

In the end, it all comes down to how and why you use Microsoft Office 365. You see, the biggest problem with Office is that the majority of people only use a few apps (Outlook, Word, and Excel), which means that paying more for extra features isn’t worth it. Just consider the use of the suite, as well as the number of users. This way, you’ll be able to tell if you’re getting your money’s worth or not.