Microsoft 365 Business Licensing Changes
Microsoft is making several changes to Microsoft 365 Business plans this summer.
Pricing begins changing July 1, while new features roll out to tenants over the following months.
Business mailboxes are doubling from 50GB to 100GB, Business Basic and Business Standard gain additional email security, and for some organizations, the larger mailbox may eliminate the need for an extra Exchange Online license.
What’s changing
The bigger mailbox is the headline.
Business Basic and Business Standard also gain a piece of email security they didn’t have before: URL time-of-click protection. When someone clicks a link in an email, the destination is checked against known malicious websites at that moment, not just when the message first arrived. It’s one component of the broader email security included with Business Premium, not the full security package. All three Business plans also receive Microsoft’s latest Copilot Chat additions.
On pricing, Business Basic goes from $6.00 to $7.00 per user per month and Business Standard from $12.50 to $14.00. Business Premium remains $22.00.
Plan | Mailbox | List price / user / month | Added in this update |
Business Basic | 50 GB → 100 GB | $6.00 → $7.00 | URL time-of-click protection, Copilot Chat |
Business Standard | 50 GB → 100 GB | $12.50 → $14.00 | URL time-of-click protection, Copilot Chat |
Business Premium | 50 GB → 100 GB | $22.00 | Copilot Chat (link protection already included) |
Exchange Online Plan 2 (add-on) | 100 GB | ~$8.00 | Not part of this update |
When it hits you
The pricing changes take effect July 1, 2026, and apply when your subscription renews, according to Microsoft’s official announcement. That means a business renewing in the fall will keep today’s pricing longer than one renewing in July.
The new features follow a different schedule. Microsoft is rolling them out gradually, and your tenant will receive at least 30 days’ notice through the Microsoft 365 Message Center before they arrive. In other words, don’t expect the price change and the new features to happen on the same day.
If you pay for an Exchange Online add-on
A small number of accounts carry an Exchange Online Plan 2 license solely because they needed a 100GB mailbox. As the larger mailbox rolls out to Microsoft 365 Business plans, many of those add-on licenses will no longer be necessary.
Don’t remove them immediately. The 100GB mailbox arrives on Microsoft’s rollout schedule, and removing the add-on too early can leave an oversized mailbox unable to receive new mail.
We’ll publish a separate article once the rollout is live showing exactly how to identify those accounts, verify the larger mailbox has arrived, and safely remove any licenses that are no longer needed.
Use this update as an opportunity to review whether everyone who signs into Microsoft 365 every day is on the right license. In our experience, Business Premium is the right fit for the overwhelming majority of knowledge workers.
If you’ve been putting off Business Premium, our recommendation hasn’t changed
Business Standard increases from $12.50 to $14.00 per user per month while Business Premium remains $22.00. That narrows the difference between them from $9.50 to $8.00 per user each month.
The more important point is that our recommendation doesn’t change.
If someone signs into Microsoft 365 every day as an individual user, we generally believe they should be on Business Premium.
Business Premium isn’t about a bigger mailbox or Copilot features. It’s the foundation of modern Microsoft security. Many of the protections we recommend and deploy for our clients, including Conditional Access, device compliance policies, Windows Hello for Business, BitLocker management, application control, and centralized device management, depend on it.
Microsoft has made Business Standard a little better, and that’s good news. But it’s still primarily a productivity license. Business Premium is the license that enables us properly secure and manage the devices people use to access your business.
If you’ve been holding off because of the price difference, that difference just became a little smaller. It’s a good time to revisit the conversation.
What we’d do
Nothing needs to happen today.
Watch for the new features to arrive in your tenant, identify any Exchange Online Plan 2 licenses that exist only to provide a larger mailbox, and remove them once the 100GB mailbox has been enabled.
More importantly, use this update as an opportunity to review whether everyone who signs into Microsoft 365 every day is on the right license. In our experience, Business Premium is the right fit for the overwhelming majority of knowledge workers.
If you’d like, we can review your licensing, identify opportunities to simplify it, and make sure your users are getting the security capabilities they’re paying for.
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