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Microsoft has announced a wave of new capabilities and commercial pricing changes coming to its Microsoft 365 suite in 2026. For most MSPs, the changes will feel relatively contained, but they do represent an important directional shift for Microsoft that’s worth noting for every business using their products.
The major headline here is a price increase for Business Standard, effective July 1, 2026. The price of Business Premium, however, is notably not going up.
That asymmetry is not accidental, and it has real implications for how MSPs should be thinking about the licenses their tenants are on. It also underscores the value of using tools that help MSPs deliver maximum value for tenants on each license type.
Microsoft is updating pricing across several of its commercial M365 tiers from July 1, 2026, alongside a significant expansion of the capabilities included in those tiers.
Check out the chart below for a full overview, then read on to learn what's most relevant for MSPs.
As we mentioned above, the per-seat price for Microsoft 365 Business Standard is increasing. For MSPs managing large numbers of tenants on this license, that cost increase will be felt. Business Premium, meanwhile, is staying at its current price point, which meaningfully narrows the gap between the two tiers.
The news here isn’t just that the price of Business Premium is holding steady. It’s also that enterprise tiers are getting a value-add.
Microsoft is adding Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 to Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3. This move strengthens email security against phishing, malware, and malicious links across email and collaboration platforms.
Meanwhile, additional Intune capabilities, including Remote Help, Advanced Analytics, and Intune Plan 2 are being added to Microsoft 365 E3 and E5. For E5 customers, Security Copilot is also being rolled out, with security agents built into Defender, Entra, Intune, and Purview workflows.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is being enhanced with inbox and calendar awareness and access to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents. IT administrators are getting integrated enterprise-grade controls to manage and secure Copilot usage.
This matters for MSPs because Copilot readiness and the compliance posture required to enable it safely are increasingly important selling points for prospective new tenants.
Microsoft has a strategic objective behind these updates. Increasing the price of Standard pricing while leaving Premium unchanged and adding substantial new capabilities to Enterprise tiers points clearly in one direction: Microsoft wants more of its business customers on Business Premium or above.
As the value gap between Standard and Premium is widening, the price gap is narrowing. For tenants still on Business Standard, that means the question of whether to upgrade is becoming less of a decision and more of an inevitability.
If you run an MSP, the question is whether you’re ready to help your customers make that move and take advantage of the benefits it brings.
Business Standard has been a workable license for basic Microsoft 365 access, but it has never been a strong foundation for MSPs trying to deliver competitive managed services. The upcoming price increase makes that limitation more costly to ignore. Here’s why:
Intune is Microsoft's mobile device management and endpoint configuration platform. But while all Microsoft 365 business subscriptions include Basic Mobility and Security (which is a limited subset of Intune), Business Standard has never included full Intune service.
That means Business Standard never offered the tools to help MSPs effectively manage device compliance, push configuration profiles, or enforce enrollment policies across their tenants. Device management at scale requires Intune, and Intune requires Business Premium or above.
Related: The impact of #IntuneForMSPs: enabling secure, effective AI for SMBs
Defender for Business, Microsoft's endpoint protection platform for SMBs, is also a Business Premium feature. Tenants on Business Standard don't have access to it, which means MSPs managing those tenants have limited options for delivering endpoint threat protection as part of a managed security service. Without Defender for Business, the security posture for those tenants contains a significant gap.
Beyond Intune and Defender, Business Standard lacks a range of security and identity features that MSPs rely on when delivering serious managed services.
Entra ID P1 is not included. This enables Conditional Access policies, which is a core control for any credible MSP offering security to its tenants. Advanced compliance features are off the table too.
For an MSP trying to build a scalable, defensible security practice, Business Standard has always put a ceiling on what's actually possible. But as more companies are incentivized to upgrade to Business Premium, the ones who don’t will find it increasingly difficult to compete with those who can take advantage of its superior capabilities.
Business Premium includes the tools MSPs need to deliver real managed services at scale. The challenge has always been making those tools work efficiently across dozens or hundreds of tenants.
Here’s how inforcer’s multi-tenant management platform streamlines these workflows, enabling MSPs to scale efficiently while delivering additional value to every tenant.
Business Premium includes Intune, which means MSPs can manage device compliance, configuration profiles, app protection policies, and enrollment restrictions for every tenant on that license.
inforcer streamlines these workflows to deliver efficiency gains that aren’t achievable when performing them manually:
Set your ideal policy state once and push it across all tenants simultaneously
Maintain full visibility into compliance status for all tenants from a single dashboard
Receive alerts when policies drift for any tenant and address the issue quickly
Best of all, there’s no need to log into each tenant individually.
Related: inforcer joins #IntuneForMSPs, a global initiative with Microsoft
Business Premium includes Defender for Business, giving MSPs a proper endpoint protection platform to work with. inforcer enables MSPs to:
Standardize Defender configurations across all tenants
Run assessments against the CIS Microsoft benchmark to identify gaps
Push policy updates across all tenants in minutes
The security service inforcer allows you to build on top of Defender for Business is meaningfully different from what's possible through manual management alone.
Business Premium includes Entra ID P1, which unlocks Conditional Access: the ability to define rules governing how and when users can access Microsoft 365 resources based on signals like:
Device compliance
Location
Sign-in risk
For MSPs, Conditional Access is one of the most powerful controls available for protecting tenants against compromised credentials and unauthorized access. inforcer helps you manage and enforce Conditional Access policies across all tenants consistently, rather than configuring them from scratch in each environment.
For MSPs already running Business Premium or above across their tenant base, the 2026 changes are largely a green light to keep doing what you're doing. Having inforcer’s capabilities at your disposal equips you to wring full value from those licenses and grow your business by staying ahead of the curve.
For MSPs still managing tenants on Business Standard, the calculus just changed. The price is going up. The value case for staying put is getting harder to make. And the gap between what you can deliver on Standard versus Premium, in terms of device management, endpoint security, identity controls, and increasingly AI readiness, is only going to grow.
If your tenants are ready to move up, inforcer is ready to help you hit the ground running. Book a demo to see how MSPs like yours are using inforcer to leverage Business Premium across every tenant they manage.