Teams Phone with Calling Plan makes calls the moment it is bought, because the number and the minutes are in it.
Teams Phone Standard buys the phone system — voicemail, forwarding, auto attendants, call queues — but not a line to the outside world. External calls need a PSTN connectivity option bought alongside it, and every such option still requires this license as well.
At $13 a seat, that is the right license for a company that already has a carrier.
What Teams Phone does
The system and the line to the outside world are sold separately. The bundled license carries both, which is why it is the one on the shelf.
Give the company a real phone number that rings in Teams, on a desk phone, or on a mobile.
Run an auto attendant and call queues, so a call reaches whoever is free.
Keep voicemail, transfers and caller ID in the same place as the chat and the meetings.
Which plans it can be added to
Teams Phone sits on top of a plan rather than replacing one. These are the plans it can be added to, at their own prices.
Plan
Per person, per month
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
$9
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
$18
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
$28
Microsoft 365 F1
$4
Microsoft 365 F3
$13
Where it stops
Calling colleagues inside the company already works on most Microsoft 365 plans with no phone license at all. What the license adds is the outside world.
Worth knowing
Available on Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, F1 and F3.
Audio Conferencing is a different product and does not need a phone license.
Teams Phone with Calling Plan is $22 a seat and buys a working phone: the system, a phone number, and 3,000 outbound domestic minutes a month. Teams Phone Standard is $13 and buys the system alone, for a company that already has a carrier.
Yes. Teams Phone Standard is the license for that: it buys the system and leaves the line where it is. A PSTN connectivity option from the existing carrier connects the two.
