For business use: Compare Microsoft 365 small and midsized business plans (up to 300 users) Compare Microsoft 365 enterprise plans. For non-profits: Microsoft 365 Nonprofit plans. One-time purchases of Office. Office Home & Student 2019. Office Home & Business 2019. Office Professional 2019. If you would like to update Office but can't open any of your Office apps, try repairing your Office suite. Support for Office 2010 ended on October 13, 2020 Upgrade to Microsoft 365 to work anywhere from any device and continue to receive support. Powerful tools to support your enterprise. Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Apps enables you to create, share, and collaborate from anywhere on any device with a cloud-based suite of productivity apps and services. The unit price for each Office 365 Business and Enterprise plan goes from $5 to $35. The costs can shoot up quickly for organizations with a large number of users. However, you can save money if you organize your plan properly taking into consideration the right functionalities you need.
Tip: Office 365 is now Microsoft 365. New name, more benefits. Microsoft 365 is a subscription service that makes sure you always have the most up-to-date modern productivity tools from Microsoft. There are Microsoft 365 plans for home and personal use, as well as for small and midsized businesses, large enterprises, schools, and non-profits.
Okay, you have decided to opt for Office 365 finally. So, we will not go into the details of what does it offer you and the benefits thereof. But, are you confused about which plans to go for? Office 365 provides you over ten different plans spread across Business and Enterprise genres. Which among them should you opt for? For the sake of today’s post, we will focus on the differences between the Office 365 Business Premium vs Enterprise E3 Plans. How do they compare to each other? Here is a breakdown.
Office 365 Business premium Plan – An Overview
The Office 365 Business plans are created for catering to the small businesses with less than 300 employees and users. Mostly, these plans do not need to have all the features that are available on Office 365 suite.
The Business Premium plan is the most expensive among all the three Business plans available under Office 365. The pricing for the plan is $ 12.50 per user per month if you are opting for a one-year agreement. In case, you are going with a monthly contract, the costing would be $ 15 per user per month. The plan is best suited for the small businesses with less than 300 users. You can opt for it if your business needs to have access to office desktop applications, cloud services, and Email hosting facility.
You get the desktop versions of the core Office applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, web versions of the Office applications like Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook and access to 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
Office 365 Enterprise E3 Plan- An Overview
Office 365 Enterprise E3 plan is one of the most popular options if you are into a business that is driven by the digital revolution. The Enterprise plans are meant for those looking for a more robust and full-fledged solution.
The plan comes with email, archiving solutions, information protection, and high-end storage options. The plan is available at $ 20 per user per month with an annual commitment. If your business needs advanced compliance standards, email, security, and voice functions, this can be your best bet. It does not have any limitation as long as the number of users is concerned. Some of the salient features include unlimited OneDrive storage, legal compliance standards like archiving, eDiscovery Hold and mailbox hold and hosted Voicemail support.
Office 365 Business Premium vs Enterprise E3 Plans – How do they differ from each other?
We would be able to understand it in a better way if we can differentiate them based on the key factors individually. Let us check out the components in a concise manner.
Please note that the core offerings remain the same between the plans. Some honorable mentions can be cited as Email, Document Management, Instant Messaging, and presence from Skype for Business and Office Pro Plus features. The significant difference between the two is regarding functionality. Let us dig a little deeper into the plans to understand the differentiating featuring between the two competing plans from Office 365.
Number of Users
For most of the businesses, that in itself should be a deciding factor. Business Premium plans come with a limitation of 300 users per license. The restriction on headcount can be a massive impediment if you are an enterprise with more than 300 users. Whether you want the additional features or not, you will need to opt for enterprise solution if you have more than 300 employees who need to have access to the Office 365 suite.
Storage Capacity
Storage can be a concern for the larger enterprises. You would not want to lose out on the storage count. The Business Premium Plan offers you a 50 GB storage space for email and 1 TB per user cloud storage.
The Enterprise E3 plan, on the other hand, provides you with an unlimited storage option. Not that every organization will need to have access to have storage for more than 50 GB. However, if your business needs to share large files and huge volumes, you may need to look for better storage options. Analyse your exact storage requirements before you can finalize between the two plans.
Office 365 Enterprise Pricing
Enterprise management
Of course, all the Office 365 plans offer you a fair degree of enterprise management options. You should be able to perform the changes within a few minutes. However, the Enterprise E3 plan comes with a more robust infrastructure for the purpose. It offers you better administrative functionality. Drivers polaroid usb devices. The availability of PowerShell commands and mobile management options should tilt you in favor of the Enterprise E3 plan.
Email Solutions
Enterprise E3 plan provides an advanced level of Email management. If you belong to an industry that needs to follow stringent rules regarding information archival, the Enterprise E3 plan is an ideal option for you.
The Enterprise E3 plans offer you archival and legal hold options. This will ensure that you do not need to delete any data as such. The Data Loss Prevention policies help you keep all your applications and employees stay compliant. The Business Premium plan does not come with such features.
Additional Tools
The add-on plans are available only with the Enterprise E3 plans. You will not be able to get those additional options with the Business Premium plans. Some of the add- n options include Delve Analysis, cloud PBX, threat protection, OneDrive for business and other additional features come involved with the Enterprise E3 plans.
Support Channels
Coming from Microsoft, you can expect a good uptime for both the plans. Just in case if you face any issues, Office 365 offers you a wide range of support options. If you are facing any critical problems that need immediate attention, you can opt for a 24 x 7 phone based support. The maximum response time for both the plans is one hour.
There is community support, troubleshooting tutorials, and web or email support. However, if the issues are non-critical, only the Enterprise E3 plan offers you a dedicated 24 x 7 support. For such cases, the Business Premium Plan is available on phone support only during the office hours. Moreover, it does not guarantee any response time for non-critical issues.
Pricing – (Subject to change)
The pricing should be what should matter the most for a few enterprises. However, there is not a massive difference between the two plans based on the per-user pricing.
The business Premium plan is available at $12.50 per user per month with an annual commitment while the monthly commitment will come with $15 per month per user. The Enterprise E3 plan, on the other hand, will offer you pricing of $20 per month per user. It has only the annual commitment option.
The cost may not be huge per user base, but it can accumulate for hundreds of users.
What sets Enterprise premium Plan Apart?
From the discussion above, it should be clear enough that Enterprise E3 plan is a little above with its feature pack and functionality in comparison. Of course, the final choice should boil down to what your enterprise needs.
The major differentiators are
- Archiving and Compliance – The eDiscovery center provides you with legal hold and a high degree of compliance standards.
- Security – Enterprise E3 provides the Rights Management and Data Loss Prevention options.
- User management –The Office 365 Enterprise E3 plan comes with high-end enterprise management options like Telemetry, Group Policy, and Shard computer activations.
- Best Business Intelligence – Enterprise E3 plan comes with secure business intelligence options.
A Comparison Chart
A tabular comparison of the significant features can serve as a better option to understand the differences between the two plans.
| Features | Enterprise E3 | Office 365 Business Premium |
| Office 365 Message Encryption | Yes | No |
| Data Governance | No | Yes |
| Archiving | Yes | Yes |
| Auto expand archival | Yes | No |
| Manual retention/deletion policies | Yes | No |
| Data Loss Prevention | Yes | No |
| Number of users | Unlimited | Max 300 |
| OneDrive Storage | Unlimited | 1 TB |
| Email Storage | Unlimited | 50 GB |
| Custom templates, including departmental templates | Yes | No |
| In-place Hold and Litigation Hold | Yes | No |
| eDiscovery Online/SharePoint online | Yes | No |
The Verdict – Which among these you should go with?
Well, the discussion above should have given you a fair understanding between Enterprise E3 and Business Premium plans. These differences should provide you with an idea of the positives and negatives of both the plans. Do note that there are several other differences between the two compelling alternatives, but the ideas shared here should give you an insight into what you can choose.
We will consider that the Microsoft has indeed offered two of the best options for the best suites for your business management needs. Both the Business Premium Plan and Enterprise E3 plan together constitute a compelling choice for all your needs. Of course, you need to go through the requirements that your enterprise has and thus opt for the best option that meets your exact requirements. Choose the one that best suits your needs.
Disclaimer: The Questions and Answers provided on https://www.gigxp.com are for general information purposes only. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availabilitywith respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose.Related articles
Browsing Office 365 plans?
Don’t get out your credit card just yet. There are some options you should try first.
I know, the prospect of a free Office 365 download sounds kind of farfetched. But it’s not. If there is a legal way that you don’t have to pay, you’ll find it here.
Of course, one way is to simply get the free trial of Office 365 if you don’t have it already. This is limited but will give you a chance to try it before you buy.
On to the ways to get a full free Office 365.
1. Get Office 365 through your school
Microsoft offers Office 365 Education for free through many schools and universities. If you are a student or educator, and your institution is eligible, all you need is a valid school email address.
This is a truly free version of Office 365, and you should enjoy this benefit for as long as possible. In addition to your familiar MS apps, it comes with tools to encourage collaboration in the classroom, like Access, Sway, Teams, SharePoint, Stream, and Flow.
Every so often, Office will verify you are still are still an active educator or student. Once your Office 365 Education plan expires, applications will become view-only after 30 days. After 60, you will lose access. To keep working, you will need to subscribe to Office 365, or back up your files and use Office Online.
If you used to be a student, see if your school address will work. If not, access the alumni discount they offer for Office 365 Personal.
2. Get the free trial of Office 365
This is the easiest free option for accessing premium versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. But it only lasts for a month. After that, you’ll have to begin a subscription or use one of the other methods here.
Note: You will have to provide payment information to sign up for the free trial, though you won’t be charged until the trial expires. When it does, you will start getting billed automatically.
Remember to turn off recurring billing in your Account Settings unless you want to start paying.
Unlike the online version, when Office 365 is installed locally you have full document editing capabilities offline. You can share the free Office 365 trial version with up to five other people. Each person gets 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, plus the ability to sync and share files across Windows, Apple, and Android devices.
This is a great option, but only for the short-term. You only get a single free trial per email and credit card, so unless you try to bend the terms of the license agreement, it’s a one-shot deal. Or is it?
3. Get the free trial of Office 365 ProPlus
Microsoft provides evaluation versions of its products to potential customers through its Evaluation Center. There you can test-drive the latest features and services the company offers, including Office 365 ProPlus. First, you’ll need to register an Office 365 ProPlus account and qualify for an evaluation account.
Note: Same as the trial version of Office 365, the ProPlus trial requires payment information and bills you after a month.
Once you have access to the full evaluation version of Office 365 ProPlus, you can share and manage up to 25 users. It comes with all of the premium Office tools, not just web apps, and Skype for Business. Streaming installation for up to five computers per user allows everyone to work offline with full editing capabilities.
Since it is an evaluation version, Microsoft is still working out the kinks of this software. Things may not work perfectly, so be prepared.
This is Microsoft’s way of hooking enterprise customers, and it is a sleek toolkit for any company. But if you are not looking to pay once the trial is up, you will have to back up and switch to something else.
Tip: G Suite Business isn’t free, but its pricing is competitive and the functionality works well for agile companies.
4. Convince your company to get Office 365
If your need for Office 365 is strictly personal, this may be a tough sell. But if you constantly find yourself in need of full-versions of Word or Excel, you probably have a strong case to make to your employer.
Office Online is great, considering it’s free, but the lack of function or offline capability can be extremely frustrating. If these things are getting in the way and costing you time, it’s likely costing the company more money a subscription would.
This isn’t always going to work—especially if you are your own boss, sorry freelancers—but I told you we were looking at every option to get Office 365 free of charge.
5. Free Office 365 (with purchase of a PC)
Here’s an option that is not going to be right for everyone, but if you are in the market for a new computer, this could be an answer. Some PCs come with one year of Office 365. This sometimes includes ultra-affordable laptops, and you still save $99 annually on an Office 365 subscription.
One thing to make sure of is that you are getting what you want. Some computers will only come with Office 365 Personal, and others may not even have an OS installed. Read the fine print and confirm everything is set up as you expect.
What about Office Online and Mobile?
Now you know how to get a free download of Office 365, but I should mention two easy, free-forever Office options just in case they do the trick.
Get Office Online
Office Online is entirely cloud-based and works on most browsers. As long as you have the internet, you have access to familiar MS Office tools like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as Sway, OneNote, Outlook, Calendar, OneDrive, Forms, People, and Skype. Simply create an account and log in from anywhere to collaborate with anyone.
While Office Online doesn’t take up any space, the downside is that you need the internet in order to use the programs and your documents. If you can rely on wifi wherever you need it, this limitation isn’t so bad. Plus, you can always sync your computer with OneDrive so that files are automatically stored for offline access.
The features are greatly limited compared to Office 365, but for personal use, it’s probably okay as long as you plan ahead. The extra logistics required to coordinate larger teams using Office Online, however, probably don’t end up saving much money.
Get the Office mobile app
The Office mobile app works on Android and iOS on your phone or tablet. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are combined into a single app that syncs with all of your devices that use Office.
You can download additional apps, which take up some space, but all of your documents are stored in the cloud. You’ll be able to create and sign PDFs, and edit documents, tables, and slides—but be aware that the editing features are limited without the Office 365 subscription.
Olympus driver download. Similar to Office Online, the mobile app is okay for personal needs but quickly reveals itself wanting at the enterprise level.
Note: Editing in the Office mobile app is limited to screens up to 10.1 inches. If you have a larger screen, you will have to upgrade to Office 365 or be stuck in read-only.
Dubious methods and hacking
Finally, I want to point out that similar to giving Microsoft multiple credit cards or emails in an attempt to prolong your free trial of Office 365, there are other dubious methods out there. These are not always safe for you and may be illegal.
I mention them because your search has no doubt included these options, and many are disguised as genuine with a price that is too good to be true.
For example, you will find people offering Office 365 for $1 on eBay and other sites. This will get you a product key that maybe works, and definitely isn’t legal. Typically, you can use these accounts for one year, or until Microsoft detects that your key is not legitimate.
Office 365 Enterprise E1
There are also videos and blogs that show you how to hack Office 365 by emulating a successful KMS activation. These authors claim that the KMS license key is legal, which may be true, depending on how the code is written. But installing the key to access licenses you never bought is certainly not legal.
Plus, whatever patch you copy into your system may have other functions you don’t want. A hacker wrote it after all. For us, we don’t consider it worth the risk.
This goes, too, for any free Office 365 you discover on torrents and other sites that get shut down periodically. With an illegal free version of Office 365 you may get more than you pay for in the worst way.
Final note: If you have to pay… it’s really not that bad!
In the end, Office 365 is an extremely valuable set of programs. Getting it for $99/year is pretty amazing.
I understand why it’s annoying, especially in the eleventh hour when your documents are out of reach. Trust me, I get it. But I also understand that the software of this century requires ongoing maintenance for security and integration. The game has changed and it’s not necessarily evil for companies to move to a subscription model.
Of course there are people who will disagree with me.
LibreOffice is a free fully-loaded office suite. Over 200 million people use the open-source program, which supports more than 200 file types. It’s got Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, and a number of other applications that are recognizable to any user of Word, etc.
There are Google’s free offerings as well, which solve most personal needs for document creation, sharing, and storage. For enterprise needs, though, G Suite for Business is reasonably priced and has a higher user satisfaction score than Office 365.
Use the trials to figure out where you stand. If Office 365 is what you need, budget it in and write it off next year. Here’s a guide to help you make sense of the Office 365 pricing.