Microsoft Office 365 E1 vs. Business Basic

Microsoft 365 licensing is a bit different than your normal on-premise software. This blog will uncover the differences between Office 365 E1 vs. Business Basic. With Microsoft 365, rather than purchase a SKU as you may have previously with Microsoft, you commit to a plan subscription, for example, Microsoft Office 365 E1. When Microsoft 365 services were first released, it was fairly difficult to move between plans; however, recently Microsoft has made this process much easier and has also simplified plan structure and began allowing organizations to mix and match plans as needed for their businesses.

When looking into an Microsoft 365 migration, the first step is to complete an Microsoft 365 plans comparison to decide which plan is best for your business. If you’re leaning more towards the Microsoft 365 E1 or Business Basic plans, the differences between these two plans may be confusing, especially since they fall under two different categories of plans. Below you will find an Microsoft Office 365 E1 vs. Business Basic plan comparison that should answer all of your questions!

Microsoft Office 365 E1 vs. Business Basic

During your Microsoft Office 365 E1 vs. Business Basic plan comparison, you’ll see that both subscriptions include online Office applications, an Exchange mailbox, OneDrive for Business, Teams, and Microsoft 365 SharePoint, while the price difference is an additional $3.00 user/month for the Enterprise E1 plan. So, the question is: what exactly is included that justifies the price difference and does your organization need these additional capabilities?

Scalability Limits

With the Business Basic plan, you may run into a couple of major scalability issues as an enterprise organization. First, you will only be allowed to license up to 300 users, so if you have more than that currently or plan to soon, you’ll need to ditch the Basic options. In addition, if you plan on scaling SharePoint extensively, with the Microsoft 365 Basic plans you will only be allotted up to 20 website collections, while with an Microsoft Office 365 E1 subscription you can have up to 500K website collections. Essentially, you will need to plan for scalability very carefully if you choose Microsoft 365 Business Basic.

Examples for Comparison

In a business of less than 300 users for the foreseeable future, the Business Basic plan is priced competitively and has a strong feature set for web content management. Unless your organization, in this scenario plans on scaling SharePoint Online beyond its basic capabilities or taking full advantage of the enterprise management capabilities included in E1, although limited compared to the other Enterprise plan options, you will be better off choosing Business Basic for your organization.

In a business of more than 300 users, the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan is no longer an option for your organization; however the Microsoft Office 365 E1 plan still has a strong feature set in comparison to outside competitors at the same price point. However, if you desire additional capabilities beyond enhancing SharePoint, you may want to look into the Office 365 E3 and E5 plans as well.

Ready to speak with an expert about your options to rid the confusion? You’ve come to the right place. Request your free Microsoft 365 consultation and you’ll be on the right track for choosing the right Microsoft 365 plan for your unique business.