What Does Microsoft 365 Business Premium Actually Include?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes the full Office application suite, Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive - the same productivity base as Business Standard - plus the complete Microsoft security stack for SMBs: Intune for device management, Entra ID P1 for Conditional Access, Defender for Business for endpoint protection, and Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 for email security. It does not include everything - no Defender for Cloud Apps, no Privileged Identity Management, no advanced compliance tools. Those require E5. This is a plain-language breakdown of every component and what each one actually does.
The full Microsoft 365 Business Premium feature set
Productivity and collaboration
- Desktop Office applications - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher (Windows only), Access (Windows only). Instalable on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets, and five smartphones per user.
- Web and mobile versions of all Office apps, accessible from any browser or mobile device.
- Exchange Online - business email with a 50 GB mailbox per user, custom domain support, and shared calendar capabilities.
- Microsoft Teams - messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, and external guest collaboration. Includes webinar hosting for up to 1,000 attendees.
- SharePoint Online - team sites, document libraries, intranet pages, and collaboration workspaces. Each user gets 1 TB of OneDrive storage plus tenant-wide SharePoint storage.
- OneDrive for Business - 1 TB of personal cloud storage per user with sync to Windows and macOS.
- Microsoft Loop - collaborative workspace for project planning and real-time document collaboration.
- Microsoft Planner - task management and team planning boards.
- Microsoft Forms - surveys, quizzes, and data collection.
- Microsoft Bookings - customer-facing booking and appointment scheduling.
- Microsoft Viva Connections - employee communications and intranet hub (basic tier).
- Microsoft Clipchamp - video editing and screen recording.
- Microsoft Sway - presentation and visual storytelling tool.
Security
- Microsoft Defender for Business - endpoint detection and response (EDR) for up to 300 devices. Covers Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Includes threat and vulnerability management, automated investigation and response, and a centralised security dashboard.
- Microsoft Entra ID P1 (formerly Azure Active Directory P1) - Conditional Access policies, group-based access management, self-service password reset, and multi-factor authentication enforcement. Enables you to create access policies based on device compliance, location, and risk level.
- Microsoft Intune - mobile device management and mobile application management for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Enables device compliance enforcement, remote wipe, policy deployment, and application management.
- Microsoft Entra ID Protection - basic identity risk detection for unusual sign-in patterns.
- Exchange Online Protection - anti-malware and anti-spam filtering for email.
- Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 - safe links (URL scanning at click time), safe attachments (sandboxing of email attachments before delivery), and anti-phishing policies with impersonation detection.
Compliance and information protection
- Microsoft Purview Information Protection - sensitivity labels for classifying documents and emails, with policies that can enforce encryption, watermarking, and access controls on labelled content.
- Azure Information Protection P1 - the licensing component that enables sensitivity label creation and auto-labelling policies.
- Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (basic) - policies to detect and prevent sharing of sensitive data patterns (credit card numbers, tax file numbers, health identifiers) via email and Teams.
- Microsoft Purview Audit (standard) - 90-day audit log retention for user and admin activities across Microsoft 365 services.
- eDiscovery (standard) - search and export capabilities for legal hold and compliance investigation purposes.
- Litigation hold - the ability to place a hold on a mailbox to preserve content for legal or compliance purposes.
- Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager - guided assessment of your compliance posture against frameworks including ISO 27001 and the Australian Privacy Act.
What Business Premium does not include
Understanding what is not included is as important as what is. Several capabilities that businesses associate with Microsoft 365 are not in Business Premium.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot - available as an add-on, bringing the total to A$47.90 per user per month for the bundled plan.
- Microsoft Defender for Identity - protection for Active Directory environments. Relevant for organisations with on-premises servers running Active Directory.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps - cloud application security broker (CASB) for monitoring and controlling third-party SaaS app usage. Available in E5.
- Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management - behavioural analytics for detecting internal threats. Available in E5.
- Advanced eDiscovery and audit - 10-year audit log retention and advanced investigation tools. Available in E5 or as add-ons.
- Microsoft Intune Suite add-ons - advanced endpoint analytics, Remote Help, and specialised device management capabilities. Available as separate add-ons.
- Microsoft Teams Phone - PSTN calling capabilities for making and receiving traditional phone calls through Teams. Available as a separate add-on.
- Power Automate (beyond standard connectors) - premium connector access and robotic process automation capabilities require the Power Automate Premium licence.
- Power BI Pro - Business Premium includes Power BI free tier only. Interactive dashboards and shared workspaces require Power BI Pro (approximately A$16.50 per user per month).
Business Premium is the most security-complete SMB plan Microsoft offers. For most Australian businesses with up to 300 users, it covers the fundamental security requirements without needing enterprise plans. The gap between Business Premium and the E-series plans is primarily advanced compliance tooling and specialised threat protection relevant to larger or more regulated organisations.
Getting value from what you are paying for
The most common issue with Business Premium is that organisations pay for it but configure only a fraction of what it includes. Intune is licensed but devices are not enrolled. Conditional Access is available but no policies are configured. Defender for Business is active but the default policies have never been reviewed. Sensitivity labels exist as a feature but no labels have been created.
The value of Business Premium is realised through configuration, not through purchase. An organisation that has licensed Business Premium but not configured Intune, Conditional Access, and Defender for Business is paying A$32.90 per user per month for what is effectively Business Standard capabilities.
Sources & accuracy
Last reviewed: 5 October 2026 · Microsoft product capabilities, licensing and configuration options change regularly. Verify current details at learn.microsoft.com.
Next step
Microsoft 365 Security & Governance Baseline
The Microsoft 365 Health Check reviews what is actually configured in your Business Premium environment versus what you are licensed for - and gives you a prioritised list of what to implement next.
Learn more