$9 a seat against $18. One question settles it, and everything below is what the two plans share and where they part.
a seat, a month
Staff who live in mail and Teams, and open a spreadsheet occasionally.
Anyone who works in a document all day, needs to work offline, or runs the kind of spreadsheet the browser version will not open.
The step up is $9 a seat, a month — $9 against $18.
Three capabilities separate them. Each row is what one plan does and the other does not, taken from the same comparison the hub publishes.
Both plans run the Office apps in a browser. Only one of them also installs them on the computer, which is the whole of the difference in the apps.
The rows that read the same on both. Worth knowing before stepping up, and worth knowing before staying put.
Email at your own domain
Mailbox size: 50 GB
Archive storage: 50 GB
Word, Excel and Outlook in a browser
Microsoft Teams
File storage per person: 1 TB
Shared company files and intranet: Plan 1
Maximum number of people: 300
Attachment and link scanning: URL time-of-click protection
Windows 11 upgrade included
Control over company devices
Protection on the computers themselves
Rules about who can sign in, and from where
Finding and protecting sensitive records
Neither plan carries these, so the step up does not change them. The comparison page shows which plans do.
Yes. Licenses are assigned per person, so Business Basic for one group of people and Business Standard for another sit in the same tenant.
One person, for one month, on an annual commitment, billed monthly. The figures above are $9 a seat for Business Basic and $18 for Business Standard.
Microsoft 365 Apps for business is on the comparison table beside them, at $13 a seat. The installed Office apps without email.
Both plans stop at 300. Above that the enterprise range takes over, and the answer is a different conversation.
Each of these is one question with two answers, the same shape as this page.
Does the company need to control the computers and phones themselves, or only the accounts?
How much mail has to be kept, and for how long?
Does this person need a mailbox of their own?
Every plan side by side, with what a seat costs and which capabilities are already bundled in.
