The following shows the comparison chart between products of Microsoft 365 and Office 365. Microsoft 365 is provided as a (Small) Business Plans (limiting to only 300 users maximum), while Office 365 is provisioned under Enterprise Plans.
| Service | Microsoft 365 Apps | Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Office 365 E1 | Microsoft 365 E3/Office 365 E3 | Microsoft 365 E5/Office 365 E5 | Microsoft 365 F3/Office 365 F3 | Microsoft 365 F1 |
| Office 365 platform | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Exchange Online | No | Yes (P1) | Yes (P1) | Yes (P1) | Yes (P1) | Yes (P2) | Yes (P2) | Yes (K) | No |
| SharePoint Online | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OneDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (2GB) | Yes (2GB) |
| Microsoft 365 Apps for the web | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Microsoft 365 desktop client apps | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft Teams | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Project | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Power BI | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Viva Engage | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Azure Information Protection | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft Kaizala | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
From the chart above, difference between Office 365 E3 Plan and Microsoft 365 Business Standard is the former comes with Exchange Online Plan 2 (100GB mailbox size, Plan 2’s DLP) and Azure Information Protection.
Azure Information Protection will enable the supported Information Rights Management (IRM) features.
So which license should I choose?
If you already have users with existing Microsoft Office licenses and require only mailbox space, then use Exchange Online. If your users require additional features like OneDrive for Business (1TB), Teams, and Sharepoint Online, then Office 365 E1 (if above 300 users) or Microsoft 365 Business Basic (no desktop apps) is the minimum required.
Some business owners may feel that paying $600 for Office 2019/2021 perpetual license for a single install is not as cost-effective as the subscription-modeled Office 365 which can be upgraded to newer versions when available while perpetual licenses are tied to the version purchased and not entitled to version upgrades.
We are able to provide the licenses for all of the above O365 products and provision it to your required tenant account within 2-4 hours.
If you do not have a domain yet, you can register for a .COM or .COM.SG domain here.
Please feel free to contact us via the following contact form for any enquiry.