Microsoft 365 Price Changes: What's Actually Changing (And What You Get For It)
Steve (Bear) Jewell
If you’ve had an email from Microsoft about pricing changes this year, you’re not alone, and you’re not imagining it. As of today (1 July 2026), Microsoft has officially rolled out new pricing across most Business and Enterprise 365 plans.
Here’s the good news: this isn’t just a price hike with nothing to show for it. Microsoft’s added some genuinely useful features alongside the increase. Below, we’ve broken down exactly what’s changing, what you’re getting, and what it means for your business.
The Headline Numbers
Microsoft announced these changes back in December 2025, with pricing taking effect for renewals from 1 July 2026 onwards. Here’s the shape of it (US list pricing is used for the illustration, as this sets the pattern; your actual UK pricing will depend on your reseller and currency):
- Business Basic: up around 17%
- Business Standard: up around 12%
- Business Premium: no change
- Enterprise plans (E3/E5): up roughly 5-8%
The standout detail here is Business Premium staying flat. That narrows the price gap between Standard and Premium considerably, which makes now a genuinely good moment to double check you’re on the right plan (more on that below).
Important: if you’re an existing customer, you won’t see these new prices until your next renewal. Nothing changes on your current invoice today (unless your annual renewal date happens to be in July of course).
What You're Actually Getting
This is the part most headlines skip past. Alongside the price change, Microsoft is adding real functionality:
Mailbox storage doubles from 50GB to 100GB. This applies across Business Basic, Standard, and Premium. If you’ve ever had that “your mailbox is nearly full” warning, or you’ve been quietly archiving old emails just to stay under the limit, this is a welcome bit of breathing room.
URL time-of-click protection. Previously this was locked behind Premium and Defender for Office 365. Now it’s rolling out to Basic and Standard too. In plain terms: it checks a link at the moment someone clicks it, not just when the email first arrives. That closes a real phishing gap, especially useful if a malicious link only becomes “live” after it’s already sat in an inbox for a few days.
Copilot Chat gets smarter. Business Basic and Standard users get Copilot Chat with inbox and calendar awareness, plus access to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents. It’s not the full Copilot add-on, but it’s a genuinely useful step up in everyday AI assistance at no extra cost.
Business Premium and E3 customers also pick up Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1, Intune Remote Help, and Intune Advanced Analytics.
Microsoft says all of this rolls out by 1 August 2026, with 30 days’ notice via the Message Center before it lands in your tenant.
What This Means For You
We know license admin isn’t why anyone got into their business, so here’s the practical takeaway in three parts:
1. Nothing changes on today’s bill. Your current pricing holds until your next renewal date. There’s no rush, but there is value in planning ahead.
2. It’s worth a quick license health check. Every unused seat or over-licensed user costs more under the new pricing than it did before. A quick look at who’s actually using what (sales rep on Premium who only uses Outlook and Teams, anyone?) can genuinely offset some or all of the increase.
3. The Standard vs Premium decision is worth revisiting. With Premium’s price now level with Standard’s, and the extra security and management features included, plenty of businesses will find Premium is the smarter buy, particularly if you’re already paying separately for device management tools elsewhere.
We've Got This Covered
This is exactly the kind of thing we like to take off your plate. If you’d like us to run a quick audit of your current licenses, right-size your setup, or just talk through whether Microsoft 365 makes sense for your team (spoiler alert… it does!), get in touch and we’ll walk you through it; plain English, no jargon.
That’s the whole point of having us in your corner: you get on with running your business, and we make sure your Microsoft licensing isn’t quietly costing you more than it should.
