Sold on its own, with no other Microsoft license underneath it.
What it needs underneath it
The Business edition needs no other license at all, which makes it the one thing here that can be bought by a company with no Microsoft tenant.
The Enterprise edition is the other way round: it requires Windows Enterprise, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Entra ID P1 for every user. Two of those three are priced on the comparison page, at $10 and $9 a seat.
What a Cloud PC does
The Business edition is the only thing in this cluster a company with no Microsoft tenant can buy. The Enterprise edition needs three licenses held for every user before it will run.
Give somebody a full Windows desktop reachable from a browser, a Mac, an iPad or an Android tablet.
Create the machine automatically when the license is assigned – nobody builds it by hand.
Bill per person per month, so the cost does not move with how hard the machine is worked.
The two editions
Windows 365 comes in two editions, and what separates them is what each one needs underneath it.
Edition
What it needs
Windows 365 Business
No other license. It caps at 300 users in one tenant.
Windows 365 Enterprise
Windows Enterprise, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Entra ID P1, for every user. Business Premium does not satisfy it: it carries Windows 11 Pro, not Enterprise.
Where it stops
On the Business edition the Cloud PC cannot be managed by policy. Monitoring and troubleshooting are not available either, and management is limited to assigning and unassigning the license.
Worth knowing
Business Premium does not satisfy the Enterprise requirement — it carries Windows 11 Pro, not Enterprise.
The Business edition caps at 300 users per tenant.
Outbound data is metered against the machine’s memory, from 12 GB a month on the smallest to 70 GB on the largest.
No. Business Premium carries Windows 11 Pro, and the Enterprise edition needs Windows Enterprise. Intune and Entra ID P1, the other two requirements, are both in Business Premium.
Management stops at assigning and unassigning the license, with no policy control, monitoring or troubleshooting. It also caps at 300 users in one tenant, and outbound data is metered against the machine’s memory.
