Microsoft put its prices up in July — but not evenly. The gap between the plans has changed, and most businesses haven’t looked since. Plus: how local customers actually find you.
Thanks to everyone who read Issue 3 — Josh Pieri’s piece on cyber insurance prompted more replies than anything we’ve sent. It’s still live at yourdigitaltwin.co.uk/newsletter-issue-3 if you missed it.
We said this issue would be the plain-English guide to Cyber Essentials. It’s written and it’s coming next month — we’ve moved it back one, because Microsoft changed both the price and the contents of its business plans on 1 July, and that lands on your renewal whenever it falls. Better you know before it does — and we’ve held the increase off your invoices until now.
Microsoft raised its prices — but not across the board. Two plans went up and one didn’t move at all, which quietly changed which plan is the sensible buy.
| Plan | Change in July |
|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Up around 17% |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Up around 12% |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | No change |
Existing subscriptions keep their old price until they renew, so if your renewal hasn’t come round yet, you haven’t felt this. You will.
We’ve absorbed this increase since July rather than passing it straight on. It starts appearing on invoices issued after 1 September, which for most of you means the one at the end of September — so there’s a month to change anything you want to change first. It’s passed on at cost; we haven’t added anything on top.
In plenty of cases there’s room to move people onto plans that suit them better and take most of the sting out of it. If that sounds worth a look, get in touch and we’ll go through it with you.
Email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint through a web browser. No installed Office on the desktop. Fine for staff who work mainly from a phone or a browser, or for shared accounts like an enquiries mailbox.
Everything in Basic, plus proper installed Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint on up to five devices per person, along with Teams webinars and Bookings. This is the plan most small businesses are on, usually because it’s the one they picked on day one and never revisited.
Everything in Standard, plus the part that actually protects you. Defender for Business watches each machine for ransomware behaviour and can cut a compromised laptop off the network. Defender for Office 365 checks links and opens attachments safely before your staff do. Entra ID P1 lets us set rules about who can sign in and from where. Intune lets us build, manage and remotely wipe company devices.
The short version: Basic to Standard buys you software. Standard to Premium buys you control over what happens when a laptop goes missing or someone’s password gets phished.
Before July, Business Premium cost roughly three-quarters more than Business Standard. After July, with Standard up and Premium flat, it’s a little over half as much again. Same plan, same contents, smaller step up.
If you looked at Premium a year or two ago and decided it wasn’t worth the jump, the sum you did then no longer applies.
You can buy the security pieces individually and add them to Basic or Standard. Sometimes that’s the right answer — usually it isn’t. Measured against Business Standard:
| What you add | Roughly how much more than Standard |
|---|---|
| Defender for Business on its own | About a fifth more |
| Entra ID P1 on its own | About two-fifths more |
| Intune on its own | About the same as moving to Premium |
| All three added together | More than double |
| Simply moving to Business Premium | About half as much again |
So one add-on for one person with a particular need can make sense. Two or more and you’re paying more for less. And if the thing you want is device management, stop and look at Premium first — on its own it costs about what the whole upgrade costs, and the upgrade brings the rest with it.
You may have been told the July increase means Business Standard now includes Microsoft Defender. It doesn’t. We checked this directly against live customer accounts rather than taking anyone’s word for it.
What Standard gained is a basic link-checking layer. Useful, but it is not the full Defender that Business Premium includes — there’s no attachment checking, no impersonation protection, and none of the tools to investigate an attack afterwards. If you’re paying more since July and assumed you got Defender out of it, you didn’t.
We can look at your account and tell you what each person is licensed for, who’s on the wrong plan in either direction, and whether anything you’re paying for isn’t switched on. Most businesses are over-licensed somewhere and under-protected somewhere else. No obligation and no jargon.
Review my licences →You don’t have to put everyone on the same plan. Mix them by role. Staff who work from a browser or a phone go on Basic. Desk workers who need installed Office go on Standard. Anyone handling customer data, working off-site or using their own device goes on Premium. Paying the same for everyone is the single most common reason a Microsoft bill is bigger than it needs to be.
When somebody nearby searches for what you do, the first thing they see isn’t your website — it’s your Google Business Profile. The map listing with your name, opening hours, phone number and reviews. Plenty of businesses have one they’ve never claimed, with hours that are wrong and a phone number from two premises ago.
Four things worth half an hour of your time. Claim and verify the profile so you control what it says. Fix the opening hours, including bank holidays — people do check, and “closed” when you’re open is a lost call you never hear about. Ask a few happy customers for a review; most will if you ask directly rather than hoping. And add a photo or two, because listings with pictures get clicked more than ones without.
Then check what happens when they do click through. A site that takes too long to load on a phone loses people before it finishes loading.
We’ll check your Google listing, your website speed and what a customer actually sees when they search for you locally — and tell you the two or three things worth fixing first.
Check how I show up →Cyber Essentials, as promised. The government-backed standard that insurers and larger customers increasingly ask for, explained in plain English — the five basic controls, a free official way to check where you stand, and how we can get you certified if you’d rather not do it yourself.
Send us a note and we’ll go through your licences with you, plan by plan and person by person, before your renewal comes round. Reply to this email or give us a call on 01228 475333.
Review my licences