Microsoft 365 Business Basic vs Standard vs Premium (2026 CAD): Which Plan Fits?

The short answer

Decide per person, not per office. If someone only reads and writes email, joins Teams calls and edits the odd document in a browser, Business Basic is enough. If they open Excel files with macros from a bank, use Word templates from a client, or simply prefer desktop Outlook, they need Business Standard. If the company owns their laptop, or their files include client financial, health or legal records, Business Premium is the one that lets you encrypt, control and wipe that laptop.

2026 CAD prices

These are the list prices on Microsoft’s Canadian business pricing page, checked on 30 September 2026, per user per month before GST, HST or PST. The “paid yearly” price assumes an annual commitment. A month-to-month term costs about 20% more; for Business Basic that is C$11.40 instead of C$9.50.

If a quote still shows Business Standard at C$16.00 or Basic at C$7.70, it predates Microsoft’s 2026 price increase. Ask for a fresh one. Every Business plan tops out at 300 users; above that you are in Enterprise territory, which is a different conversation.

What each plan actually adds

Business Basic: email and the browser

Basic gives each person a real business mailbox, Teams, SharePoint and 1 TB of OneDrive, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook in a browser or on a phone. It suits front desks, field staff who work from a phone, seasonal help and anyone whose day is email and calendar. It does not suit someone who receives macro-enabled Excel files or complex Word templates; the web apps open them, but not everything works.

One saving people miss: shared mailboxes such as info@ or accounts@ do not need their own licence as long as they stay under 50 GB. You do not need to buy a seat for every address on your website.

Business Standard: the desktop apps

Standard adds the desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, installable on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones per person. For most office staff, bookkeepers, coordinators and anyone exchanging documents with clients, this is the default. It is also where many offices stop, which is fine as long as nobody needs to manage the laptops themselves.

Business Premium: the laptops and the data

Premium is the plan for owning risk, not just software. It adds:

• Intune to enrol laptops and phones, require encryption and a PIN, push updates and wipe a lost device.
• Defender for Business, endpoint protection with detection and response, which is what cyber-insurance questionnaires usually mean by “EDR”.
• Conditional access (Entra ID P1) to block sign-ins from unknown devices or unexpected countries.
• Safe Links and Safe Attachments to check links and files in email before people click them.
• Sensitivity labels to mark and protect confidential files, and an auto-expanding email archive up to 1.5 TB.

All Business plans support MFA through security defaults, so you do not need Premium just to turn on two-step sign-in. You need Premium when someone asks you to prove the laptops are encrypted and managed.

Mix plans: two real examples

Here is how we would license two common Lower Mainland offices. The point is not the exact numbers. It is that one plan for everyone is rarely the cheapest correct answer.

• A 10-person accounting office with company laptops: eight people on Premium (everyone with a laptop and client files) and two on Basic (part-time reception and seasonal help on shared front-desk devices). That is 8 × C$29.80 + 2 × C$9.50 = C$257.40 a month, against C$298.00 for ten Premium seats.
• A 6-person trades company: two office staff on Standard and four field technicians on Basic for email and Teams on their phones. That is 2 × C$19.00 + 4 × C$9.50 = C$76.00 a month.

One caution: people on Basic or Standard do not get Intune or Defender for Business. Keep them off laptops that hold client data, or move those laptop users to Premium.

The setup in our Judi Wang CPA case study is the pattern Premium is built for: named accounts for every staff member, role-based access instead of shared logins, and device policies for people handling sensitive financial data. If your office looks like that, budget for Premium on those seats.

Where Copilot fits

Every Business plan includes Copilot Chat at no extra cost. Full Microsoft 365 Copilot inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams is Copilot Business, an add-on at about C$28.50 per user per month from 1 October 2026, or part of a bundle. The bundles are the better deal: Business Standard with Copilot is C$31.90, while Business Basic plus the add-on comes to about C$38.00 and has no desktop apps. If a Basic user needs Copilot, move them to the Standard bundle. Our Copilot for Business guide covers who should get a seat and what to fix first.

What our hosting clients run

Microsoft 365 is the most common mail platform among our hosting clients: about 40% of their mail domains point to it, based on public DNS records we checked on 26 September 2026. If you are still choosing between Microsoft and Google, our Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 comparison covers CAD prices on both sides and where each stores your data. For a tenant provisioned in Canada, Microsoft commits to keeping mailbox, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams content at rest in Canada.

What we recommend today (30 September 2026)

This is the licensing advice Metro Vancouver IT stands behind as of this date, using the prices above:

• Most office staff: Business Standard at C$19.00 per user per month on an annual plan.
• Company-owned laptops, or client financial, health or legal records: Business Premium at C$29.80. It is the cheapest way to get managed, encrypted laptops and EDR in one licence.
• Email-and-browser roles: Business Basic at C$9.50.
• Heavy Office users who want AI drafting: the “with Copilot” bundle for those people only, never the whole office on day one.
• Everyone: MFA on day one, two admin accounts kept out of daily email, and a backup plan for mail and OneDrive. Microsoft’s retention is not a backup; our 3-2-1 backup guide explains why.

We set up, migrate and secure Microsoft 365 tenants. One-off work is IT support at our published rate of $90 CAD an hour, with a time estimate before we start. If you would rather have licences, security and backups looked after every month, that is part of our managed IT services.

Printable checklist

1. List every person and every shared mailbox. Shared mailboxes under 50 GB need no licence.
2. Mark who needs desktop Word or Excel. Everyone else can start on Basic.
3. Mark company laptops and anyone with client records. They get Premium.
4. Turn on MFA for every account on day one.
5. Run the free trial with two real users before you buy annual licences.
6. Keep two admin accounts that are never used for daily email.
7. Check the data location says Canada (Settings, Org settings, Organization profile).
8. Plan a backup for mail and OneDrive.
9. Set up DKIM and DMARC for your domain before you switch mail over.
10. Put the renewal date in the calendar 60 days ahead. Annual terms cannot drop seats mid-term.